Correction: As was pointed out in the comments, Watchmen: The End is Nigh is partially based on a pen-and-paper roleplaying game partially created by Watchmen writer Alan Moore. I’m really fond of that Robert Smith thing down at the bottom there, so I’m sticking with that as my official opinion, but does this revelation suddenly give any of you hope for this game?
Good Bad News for Alan Moore fans hoping against hope that the upcoming film might do justice to the beloved graphic novel: Watchmen: The End is Nigh, the arcade-style, beat-em-up game based on the film (based on the book) is now officially scheduled for release on March 4 (March 5 for PlayStation 3 owners).
Instead of remixing the film or the game to the displeasure of many, End tells a prequel story from the days when Rorschach and Nite Owl were costumed heroes, prior to all the difficulties spawned from Doc Manhattan’s glowing blue junk.
I wanna be optimistic. I wanna say “this could work” based on the clip up there, but then I actually remember the graphic novel and wonder how the hell anyone thought they could make a game based on a multi-layered, hyper-dense, sardonic spoof of the comic book genre.
That’s like trying to recreate the Mona Lisa in turkey bones and pictures of Robert Smith; In theory you could do it, but people are going to want to know what you did with all that delicious turkey meat.
They’re basing the game off the Role Playing Game Guidebook Moore and Gibbons wrote and released back in like, 87.
I didn’t realize they were still making games for the Playstation 2.
… Ok, now that’s interesting Fatboy, but your comment is the first I’ve heard of anything remotely like that. And in a quick 10 minutes of Googling for corroboration I couldn’t find any.
Wanna throw me a source? It’d be quicker than trying to get a hold of the devs on a holiday weekend from the wrong side of the country.
And, of course, right as I type that comment one of my colleagues sends me a completely unrelated text that says as much.
So yeah, point for Fatboy — it’s partially based on a roleplaying game that Alan Moore “wrote pieces of,” according to an interview with the devs from the kids at Eurogamer. That’s a positive, but it also means that this is a movie tie-in based on a film AND roleplaying game, both of which were based on a graphic novel whose content is praised so highly specifically for its celebration of story telling methodology specific to the medium.
I’m sticking with my Robert Smith and turkey bones metaphor.
That is always the right choice.
I’m pretty skeptical of the game myself. But the online flash 8-bit beat-em-up that went up about a week ago is kinda fun, in a Double Dragon-y sort of way.
I don’t have a lot of faith in that game, but at least it doesn’t make me recoil as much as some of the film’s other marketing tie-ins.
http://io9.com/5154062/the-watchmen-mercha…