Outside Inspirations in Video Games

Random topic I know, but I was just thinking about how so many games are trying to be more like movies in an attempt to be seen as "arty" and "groundbreaking" in terms of storytelling and acclaim. Heck, the game Heavy Rain made no claims as to otherwise. As a result, the inspirations that it took from films like Se7en and Saw were obvious.

However, I am strongly against this whole technique. Rather than try to outright emulate movies and the like, I think that it is better for games to simply use different aspects of the stories from other media to create their stories. In other words, while these stories have been done before in other media, I feel that video games can breath new life into these respective tropes.

To give an example, look at the 2005 horror shooter F.E.A.R. While comparisons to The Ring were obvious to reviewers and the like, I found those to be very superficial, only done for the scares and the like. It drew upon much more than that. Two sources that I think it drew from were the 1981 David Cronenberg movie Scanners and the anime series Elfen Lied. The former due to the psychic abilities of the main hero and villain, the experiments done on them that made them psychic, the fact that they were brothers, and the father being the one who made them psychic in the first place. The latter is due to the nature of Alma, who wields similar powers to Lucy, has the same vengeful personality, and was experimented on by a very similar corporation. Heck, Harlan Wade is pretty much a combo of Paul Ruth and Chief Kakuzawa.

However, these references were much more subtle than the obvious Ring ones, and I only discovered on multiple play-runs. It also helped that they were discovered through the player's progressions through the story, has opposed to simply being told. Therefore, I felt that it was done in a way that made those tropes feel fresh again. Had it been done in a way that Heavy Rain chose, in which the references were pretty much shoved in your face, I wouldn't be nearly as interested.

What do you guys think? How should games show where they were inspired from for their stories? Heck, is there even anything as an all-original story nowadays?

edited 26th Jun '12 7:15:35 PM by LDragon2

I dunno, I don't mind that much when games take inspiration from other media. Take, for example, E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy. It's a kitchen sink of Cyberpunk, and it glories in it. You have a setting that harkens to Akira and Blade Runner while also taking some elements from Warhammer 40 K.

Or how about Team Fortress 2? The game still has a fairly present 50's-60's-70's flavor to it, with movie references here and there. Or maybe Half Life, which seems to go for a sort of sci-fi spin on Die Hard in some places. And, of course, there's S.T.A.L.K.E.R., which draws very obvious inspiration from Roadside Picnic and Stalker and drops the related concept into a context that involves a real-life place with a sort of fantastic twist to it.

I think its more that games sometimes iterate on concepts and such. Brink, for example, uses the premise of the end of the world (world is flooded, last dregs of civilization seem to be in only one place and resources are strained), but the setting delves into the harsh reality of the supposed safe haven, through the eyes of both sides. And there's also Silent Hill, which takes a bunch of horror concepts and mixes them into something fairly unique.

edited 26th Jun '12 7:42:18 PM by RocketDude

Yeah, I'm with you 100%. I just am wondering that since several games developers are desperately trying to create movies when they aren't, how should they go about showing their inspirations while making them feel fresh?