Avi Arad, the man who spearheaded much of Marvel’s film endeavors, has recently acquired film rights to two well known video games – Mass Effect and Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, both of which I think could work well as movies.

Mass Effect (produced by Bioware, same folks who made KotOR) especially has a structure that, truncated, would fit a film pacing well. It has an adaptable and dynamic hero, a colorful cast of support characters and a compelling villain. Granted that all means nothing without appropriate talent around the project, but hopefully the talents of Mr. Arad will put together a solid cast and crew.

Even though I liked Resident Evil and the animated Street Fighter 2, I cannot fault where you are coming from in the least.

I would agree that SW: KOTOR and SW: Force Unleashed are certainly potential exceptions to my argument, since both have solid stories. These games are what I would classify as outliers – games that are based on movies, but that have their own unique stories. Another good example would be The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay, which has a story that’s actually better than the movies it’s based upon.

I do feel, however, that the story for these games is BETTER suited to being a video game than a film because, in all three cases, what makes the story fun is your ability to be in control of what happens within it. KOTOR’s biggest strength was its ability to tell a cool story while allowing you to decide the way your character would respond to it. Though your character had a dark past, you were in control of his or her future. A film would not be able to get away with such ambiguity; audiences would not connect with a character who was solely shaped by the adventure at hand. If a KOTOR film were made, the main character would have to be developed into a relatable figure… and that could result in stripping out the interesting parts of the sidestory (infiltrating the Sith Academy, potentially bringing an end to the Kolto trade, fighting in the arena) in favor of trying to make the “big reveal.” It just wouldn’t have the same effect it did in the game.