Bioshock
Het Moment
After miraculously escaping a plane crash over the Atlantic Ocean, our hero Jack swims towards a mysterious lighthouse. Inside he finds a bathysphere that plunges him deep below the sea. As he descends a film plays of enigmatic entrepreneur Andrew Ryan describing his underwater Objectivist paradise, Rapture. And as the haunting orchestral score begins to swell and Ryan's speech reaches its rhapsodic peak, the screen drops to reveal the city in all its Art Deco glory. At once beautiful and intimidating, the city is one of the most evocative video game settings of all time.
Cinematic Equivalent
The first time we see Ridley Scott's vision of a futuristic Los Angeles in Blade Runner (1982). The camera glides slowly across the city, past smoke-stacks belching flames into the polluted air, as Vangelis' stirring title theme reaches its crescendo. Just like our introduction to Rapture, the scene is beautiful, but with an ominous quality. Something's clearly not right with either city, and as we make our journey inside – as both Deckard and Jack - we learn exactly what that is.
Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Het Moment
After fighting your way through the war-torn streets of Modern Warfare's non-specific Middle Eastern city to rescue a downed helicopter pilot, your flight to freedom is cut short when a nuclear bomb is detonated just a few miles away from your location. As the mushroom cloud rises into the clouds, the shockwave tears the city to pieces and sends your escape chopper spiralling to the ground. When you wake up you drag yourself (in real-time) through the rubble before eventually dying. It's a brave game that kills a main character, and lets you control his last few moments.
Cinematic Equivalent
The awesome, humbling power of nuclear weapons and their effects on populated areas was memorably evoked in James Cameron's Terminator 2 (1991). Sarah Connor is haunted by visions of Los Angeles being ravaged by nukes, reducing a playground packed with mothers and children to cinders as she shrieks in feeble protest. In both the film and Modern Warfare, the depiction of the impact is stark, uncompromising and brutal.
Killzone 2
Het Moment
Helghan dictator Scolar Visari (played brilliantly by Brian Cox) addresses his army on the eve of their invasion of Vekta, a planet controlled by their enemy, the ISA.
Scenes of the Helghast's troubled past are shown as a furious Visari prepares his men for war, citing their ill-treatment at the hands of the ISA as a reason to rise up and fight. A stunning opening cinematic that almost makes you wish you were fighting for the bad guys.
Cinematic Equivalent
Any film where a charismatic orator stands before an army and stirs them to battle.
Mel Gibson in Braveheart, Viggo Mortensen in Return of the King, Bill Pullman in Independence Day (er, sort of), Gerard Butler in 300, Colin Farrell in Alexander... well, you get the idea. Visually, the Helghast's Nazi-inspired black-and-red uniforms and flags are reminiscent of the Norsefire Party in James McTeigue's adaptation of Alan Moore's V For Vendetta (2005).
GTA IV
Het Moment
The mission Three Leaf Clover is infamous among GTA fans for being fiendishly difficult, but it's also one of the game's best-designed. Breathlessly paced and packed full of masterfully directed set-pieces, it sees you and a gang of fellow thieves robbing an inner-city bank and escaping through the city streets while SWAT teams and police helicopters hunt you down. Armed with M16s you cut through swathes of police officers, slip down alleyways, hop over fences and eventually escape to freedom through Liberty City's vast subway network.
Cinematic Equivalent
Pure Michael Mann. Everything, from the bank job to the stylish suit-and-mask combo to the shoulder-slung bags stuffed with money, is a direct homage to Mann's Heat (1995). In the movie a bank heist goes wrong and master thief Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro) is forced to run and gun his way to freedom with an M16 in bustling downtown LA. It's one of cinema's coolest shootouts, brilliantly recreated in GTAIV.
Medal Of Honor: Frontline
Het Moment
By today's standards the visuals are laughable, but when it was released, MOH: Frontline was the most immersive World War 2 game we'd ever played. The defining moment was the opening level – a hectic assault on Omaha Beach. As the landing craft approached the foggy, German controlled coastline, you'd hear the constant whiz and ping of bullets. Then the door would swing open and you'd see hundreds of soldiers charging towards the Germans, mortar shells exploding all around you.
Cinematic Equivalent
Saving Private Ryan (1998), of course. It's no coincidence that Frontline was developed in conjunction with DreamWorks, Steven Spielberg's production company. Everything from the visuals to the dialogue is identical to the movie, and several scenes are mimicked including seeing soldiers clearing beach-head bunkers with flamethrowers. However, the game wasn't quite as vivid and starkly realistic as Ryan, which never flinched from the cruel brutality of war. During the film, you never saw any soldiers healing their wounds by crouching behind a barrel for a bit, for example.
Dead Space
Het Moment
Isaac Clarke (see what they did there?) is part of a team sent to rescue the stricken mining ship U.S.G. Ishimura. The game opens with Isaac on the bridge of a rescue craft as they hunt for the Ishimura in an asteroid belt. As they move closer to a nearby planet, the asteroids gently drift apart and the ship looms into view.
Like BioShock's intro, the sequence gives you an uneasy sensation. The eerily lifeless ship, which has a crew of thousands, floats silently in the planet's orbit and none of its lights are on. A masterclass in tension building; you almost don't want to go aboard.
Cinematic Equivalent
Dead Space borrows liberally from every science fiction film you care to mention – from 2001: A Space Odyssey to Sunshine to Aliens – but the ship's spooky introduction is almost identical to that of underrated big budget B-movie Event Horizon (1997). Both are about a lost spaceship, and both feature a team of rescuers who find themselves battling an ancient, demonic evil.
De complete lijst van 15 vergelijkingen zijn terug te vinden op www.totalfilm.com
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten