Why no Battle Royale Game?

There's a lot of movies that game video game adaptations and unfortunately most of them are complete shit and aren't worth bothering with.  A lot of these games are usually rushed so they can ride the hype of the movie release and as a result play like trash and just aren't worth playing.  However, if there's one movie that never got a game that absolutely should have had one it's Battle Royale.

Battle Royale is old as fuck but just in case I'll give a quick synopsis.  The movie follows a group of high schoolers as they are roped into the Battle Royale, a death game that takes place on a deserted island.  The idea is that each student has an explosive collar on their neck and they must kill their fellow students until only one remains.  If they fail to achieve this goal by the end of a number of days then every ones neck bombs detonate and they all die.  At the start of the film they are all given a bag with a number of tools and a random weapon and then they are let loose on each other.  It's a really good movie and I'd suggest that you go watch it if you haven't already.

Why has no one considered making a game based around this concept?!  In an age where multiplayer shooting games and roguelikes are stupid popular you think a game like this would be in a good position for a video game adaptation.  The best part is that it wouldn't even have to follow the movie that closely strictly speaking.

You could just have the player on an island with a randomly generated set of equipment running around trying to kill other players.  The layout of the island could be random as well as the equipment and survival elements such as finding food/water and other resources could be a core part of the game play.  If you did want to follow the movie you could give players the option to band together and try and beat the game itself but then there would have to be some kind of meta game going on to stop people just doing this every fucking time.

My rough idea probably isn't all that good but I imagine if a group of talented developers sat down and thought about it a Battle Royale game (or game with a similar theme) would be really fun.  Playing a game like this online would also be really fun I imagine so I'm hoping someone stumbles on this post and steals the idea.

Probably not though, I'll keep dreaming.

As The Gods Say (神さまの言うとおり)

Damn, I've not made a post in a few days thanks to quite a busy weekend of doing stuff with the wife and streaming.  One of the things that I did with the wife that kept me away from making posts was popping down to a cinema to see a new movie!


神さまの言うとおり or "As the Gods Say" for those of you who don't read Japanese is a "horror" movie directed by Takeshi Miike and based off a Manga of the same name.  I put the word horror in inverted commas because it's not so much a horror movie and it's more of a Death Game movie, but I'm not sure if I said "Death Game" movie people would know what I'm on about.  If you're unsure what I mean by "Death Game", just think about Battle Royale and you'll probably understand what I mean.

The story is about a group of high school students who get caught up in a number of deadly games conducted by Gods taking the form of fairly innocent icons of Japanese culture.  For example, the movie opens up with the scene in the above picture where a group of students have to play "Red Light, Green Light" with a Daruma (traditionally a symbol of good luck) sat on the front desk.  If you're unfamiliar with "Red Light, Green Light" the idea is that the person who is "it" turns round during a green light and can turn at any time and exclaim "Red Light!".  If you are caught moving during a red light, then you lose and have to start over.  In this movie however, if the Daruma catches you moving then your head explodes and you die.

A small group of students survive this opening scene and move on to play a variety of other children's games each with their own deadly twist.  Each game is quite gripping because the solution for the characters to win and move on isn't immediately obvious and you never know what dirty trick the enemies are going to play next to kill off a few more members of the cast.

I greatly enjoyed this movie but I have to say that I've not read the manga so I'm not entirely sure about how it stacks up to the original story.  A long time ago I saw a movie adaptation of another manga called Gantz that was changed so drastically it just pissed me off more than anything else.  Maybe fans of the manga wouldn't enjoy the movie as much as someone going in with no prior knowledge of the source material.

I had a number of nitpicks with the film but it didn't ruin the overall experience and I would totally recommend this movie.  I'm hunting down the manga to see how it compares (which can be read in English if you know where to look) and I'm sure one day a version with subtitles will be uploaded somewhere for all you non-Japanese speakers.  

When that day comes, watch this movie.  It's bloody good fun.