Samrat Sharma

A thought of nesting and perchin’ sheep just cracks me up every time! Actually it’s the thought of them all woolly and stupid sittin’ in the trees and eventually falling down like logs on the ground. It’s just funny…
Flying Sheep by Monty Python’s Flying Circus
(A tourist approaches a shepherd.� The sounds of sheep and the outdoors are heard.)
Tourist: Good afternoon.
Shepherd: Eh, ’tis that.
Tourist: You here on holiday?
Shepherd: Nope, I live ‘ere.
Tourist: Oh, good for you.� Uh…those ARE sheep aren’t they?
Shepherd: Yeh.
Tourist: Hmm, thought they were.� Only, what are they doing up in the trees?
Shepherd: A fair question and one that in recent weeks ‘as been much on my mind.�It’s my considered opinion that they’re nestin’.
Tourist: Nesting?
Shepherd: Aye.
Tourist: Like birds?
Shepherd: Exactly.�It’s my belief that these sheep are laborin’ under the misapprehension that they’re birds.� Observe their be’avior. Take for a start the sheeps’ tendency to ‘op about the field on their ‘ind legs.� Now witness their attmpts to fly from tree to tree.� Notice that they do not so much fly as…plummet.

Tourist: Yes, but why do they think they’re birds?
Shepherd: Another fair question.�One thing is for sure, the sheep is not a creature of the air.�They have enormous difficulty in the comparatively simple act of perchin’.

Trouble is, sheep are very dim.�Once they get an idea in their ‘eads, there’s no shiftin’ it.
Tourist: But where did they get the idea?
Shepherd: From Harold.�He’s that most dangerous of creatures, a clever sheep.�’e's realized that a sheep’s life consists of standin’ around for a few months and then bein’ eaten.� And that’s a depressing prospect for an ambitious sheep.
Tourist: Well why don’t just remove Harold?
Shepherd: Because of the enormous commercial possibilities if ‘e succeeds.

Hollywood has a habit of taking good games and making totally crap movies out of them. Somebody in Hollywood thinks that gamers are stupid. Compounded by the fact that thousands of fanboys regularly lap up their drivel, this disturbing trend continues. And that is the reason most gamers do not want to see their favourite games as pointless movies. But a truly inspired movie, which expands the franchise, instead of just sewing together action sequences, is long overdue.
A game like Max Payne, though, would make a terrible movie. The thing is games have an edge over cinema, and that is interactivity. You interact with the environment and move the plot forward. The experience of playing games thus is far more engrossing than your average Friday night action movie. And it is precisely due to this reason that the stories in games are sometimes lacking when compared to cinema.
The raison de’tre for cinema is to tell stories. For games on the other hand story is just a piece that completes the whole, gameplay being the pivot. Other factors like atmosphere, sound and graphics do affect both mediums, but in games their balanced use is paramount.
So while for a game the story of Max Payne was pretty good and did engross you, thinking cinematically, it is just B movie pulp fiction stuff. There are games with strong plotlines (Deus Ex), or the setting and gameplay (Baldur’s Gate II), or even the franchise and the atmosphere (Hitman) just waiting to be made into good movies. But unless a gamer or a guy who respects games, and by extension the people who play those games, makes these movies, I am not getting excited about any game based movie that Hollywood churns out.

hmmm, first post, fresh meat