Puzzle a very definite term to confuse or to baffle someone with ingenious
designing. Puzzles have existed for a long period of time and everything we
see or touch has a microscopic composition to it that fits together by
chemical composition. Anyways i’m done using all these hi-fi words to describe
puzzles, now lets get to business.

Puzzle games are for everyone may that be kids or adults. Different types of
puzzles have been created by game designers to challenge human brain, one of
the most common type of a puzzle game would be sliding/picture puzzle which
lets the user place the pieces in the right spot and complete the image given.
Chess is also a real time puzzle game although most of the time it is
considered as strategy game. Sudoku which has captured the hand held device
market so fast that it is like a viral bug, everyone wants to created his own
version of Sudoku. Rubik’s cube which caught every boy’s interest during his
childhood days. Lately companies have started creating stand-alone puzzle
games or a puzzle pack games in form of video games. Solitaire, Lemmings,
Circles, and the all time favorite of Playstation 2 Shadow of Colossus are all
legends when it comes to puzzle video games. As time passed on action
adventure puzzle games evolved like Portal 1 & 2, which is one of the most exciting and intense puzzle game for a next generation platform. Hidden object
games like Route 66, Secrets of Great Art are widely famous over the windows
platform.

Puzzle games play a vital role in teaching and increasing thinking capacity of
an average human being. Here is a List of puzzle games which is commonly
played and known by everyone who likes to challenge himself.
-By Alok for Gameshastra

Over a period of time the term ‘gamer’ has been affected by vicissitudes of different genre of games.

The game industry has expanded and created new technology for the 3D industry, setting benchmarks at every level. The invention of latest handheld consoles is the living proof of this advancement in technology.

In short the term “gamer” means a person who enjoys playing video games. But there is more to the meaning of the term, ever since the introduction of Internet in the video game industry there have been sub categories of gamers and they keep increasing every day.

Hardcore Gamers:

They live and breathe games and spend more than 24 hours every week to play video games online. This class of gamers used to play on computers only but since 2003 another breed of such hardcore gamers has emerged who spend equal amount of time on the consoles as well. They usually abhor casual games/gamers, trying their best to be a bunch of elite gamers. A hardcore gamer actually understand the mechanics of the game and invest time/money to satisfy his complete gaming experience. This gives rise to the number of companies who invested in developing hardware for games so that the developers could deliver a game that can satisfy the player.

Professional Gamers:

In countries like South Korea and Japan, video gaming has become a profession. The term pro gamers clearly indicate that their income is through video gaming. Unlike other gamers the time spent on gaming by professional gamers is no longer a leisure gaming for them. This type of gaming falls under a sub category of hardcore gamers. The average age of a Pro-Gamer is usually between 16 to 23 years of age. One who reaches till status are treated as super stars like every other actor/actress. The time spent by a Pro Gamer on gaming is more than 70 hours of practice every week. They only play during tournaments and most of these tournaments are team based. Average income of a pro gamer is around $100,000 and if a vendor or a company endorses the team the income increases to $250,000. A living example of Pro Gaming is Johnathan Wendel also know by the pseudonym Fatal1ty, he has earned more than $500,000 in cash as of now and has participated in the professional gaming tournaments like Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL), ESWC,WCG, etc.

Multiplayer Gamers:

To play Multiplayer games, millions of gamers log in to a server at a particular time and play with each other over the Internet. These types of gamers are the ones who spend all their gaming time online with their clan mates or unknown players on the server. There is not much of the competitive gaming for such players. In fact most of the players play these games just to play with their buddies. Counter-Strike is one of the oldest FPS game that connects people. Through multiplayer gaming online tournaments take place. Most of the time there is no prize or award given to the player, but they do earn respect of other players on the server. One of the example of Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game would be World of Warcraft. In March 2011 WOW as in World of Warcraft had 11.4 million players logging in daily to play it. This game holds almost 60-65% of the MMORPG market as of today and is still going strong.

Retro Gamers:

Retro gamers are gamers who prefer playing retro games and collecting old games which were released before their time and are no longer available in stores. The term Retro Gamers is used in the United Kingdom and Classic Gamers in the United States. Retro gamers prefer playing games on their original hardware. If the original hardware is not available then these games are played through current hardware devices using emulators. Some retro gamers are also in the business of refurbishing old games, particularly arcade cabinets and some even make their own arcade cabinets.

Casual Gamers:

Casual gamers are usually the ones who don’t dedicate much time for playing games. They usually play games in their leisure time. The birth of casual game happened with the publishing of “Tetris” by Nintendo in the 1980’s. The game soon became a hit and later it was ported on Game Boy, one of the first handheld gaming devices. When Microsoft’s Window was first introduced and “Solitaire” was bundled in the pack of its game accessories. From here, Solitaire was picked up the casual games, which made it the first successful casual game being played by more than 500 million people worldwide. With the prevalence of Internet flash portals started to appear and then developers started creating games for them.

Casual gamers are always looking for games that they can be played during their breaks in office or just to pass some time. Casual games are small and the ideal time span for these games is endless, since most of them are score based and leader board based. A casual gamer look for games which has puzzles, hidden objects , cards, boards, time management, clicks, arcade game mechanics in them which are easy available in the market. Casual gaming demographics also vary greatly from those of traditional computer games, as the typical casual gamer is older and predominantly female.

With the advent of smart phones, the casual gaming has taken a further step, as one can now easily find casual gamers playing games on their apple or android OS enabled phone. You can try Rangy Lil’s , a Hidden Object Game and Bee Wars , a strategy game from the apple store on your apple device for casual gaming.

Social Gamers:

The advent of Facebook has actually revolutionized the gaming world with social games. Social game has now become a category itself. These games are played in the form of social interactions. These are the next big thing in the gaming industry as of now and it has made Virtual Goods trading as an industry of its own. You can find several such social games on Facebook, which you can play along with your friends.

Games have always been a tool for entertainment as well as education for players. Games always lure the players with its sense of competition, challenge, role play and adventure. If you don’t consider yourself much of gamer, then we would suggest you to look around or just stroll through our website Gamedukan.com , you might find, just the perfect game for yourself.

So, Game on!

Reference : Wikipedia.com

-

Alok for Gameshastra

Since the making of first videogame called Tennis for Two using an Oscilloscope in 1958 by William A. Higginbotham, who was working at Brookhaven National Laboratory, multiplayer gaming has witnessed drastic changes along with advancements in computer networks and the introduction of complex communication architectures. New architecture is an enhancement and uses many functions of its predecessor. The implementation of an improved architecture enables increased player base and lucid communication between them.

With the intrusion of internet, games have penetrated into World Wide Web. Their evolution in internet includes application of different architectures to ensure effective communication between game nodes. Earlier multiplayer games, however, did not have networking capabilities. The multiplayer functionality was achieved by having both players interact with the same computer. Till date, many console games that allow multiple players use ‘split screen’, where players could manipulate their game characters by partitioning a part of the video screen for each player. This is called Single Screen, Multiplayer Architecture.

Peer-to-peer (P2P) architecture in LAN games:

In this type of architecture, every client process is considered as a peer. This means that there is no process that has more control over the game than others. There are no mediator nodes to control the state of the game or to route game messages. This architecture can be easily implemented on a Local Area Network (LAN) because of the broadcast support of many LANs (wired or wireless) and usually small number of players that participate in a single game. Clients can communicate with other clients in the network. In addition, a framework like Hydra can be used as it allows the game host to be seamlessly passed from one peer to the other. This allows the game to continue even after the host quits the game or loses connectivity with a game’s process. It also eliminates the need of a central game server. However, an additional hierarchical structure is required to implement this in Internet for better scalability.

Client-Server architecture in online games:

The implementation of this type of architecture is dominant in commercial online games as well as in the classic Multi-User Dungeon (MUD) games like The Shadow of Yserbius. Client-Server architecture is also called Two-tier architecture, where all the connected systems are categorized either as a client or as a server. Usually, a single server manages multiple client requests. With this architecture, a server can limit the performance during the gameplay, either because it can’t keep up with the communication rate to all the clients or it can’t process the state of the game fast enough.

Note: MMOROG servers are maintained by the company selling the game; for other games, one of the players will act as the host setting his game in server mode. They use dedicated servers.

Network of servers architecture for online multiplayer games:

Here, a single server can function as a pool of several interconnected servers. The communication among these servers can be set up in a peer-to-peer fashion or client-server fashion where servers communicate with master servers, obtaining a hierarchical game architecture. By splitting the load from the clients across multiple servers, the network of servers can reduce the capacity requirements imposed on a single server. This can drastically increase the scalability of the game architecture.

It’s been a long journey since Sonic & Knuckles (from SEGA) as the game engine technology has undergone diverse advances in game physics, animation, AI, networking, localization support, multi-threading, etc. These improvements have been integrated seamlessly in PC and console games. Core functionality in games like Doom, includes 2D and 3D rendering, sound, streaming, etc. Most of the gaming business was carried down by reusing the same game engines to make different games. However, later games needed more resources because of innovative game designs and simulation requirements.

NaturalMotion, a UK based company, introduced Morpheme, the first graphically-authorable animation engine for PlayStation3, Xbox 360, Wii and PC. In the partnership with airplay, morpheme is now available on iPhone. This engine features a runtime engine (morpheme:runtime) and a unique 3D authoring tool chain (morpheme:connect). morpheme:runtime is a next-gen animation engine with advanced animation features with simple run-time core. It ships with full source code. morpheme:connect is a powerful and flexible 3D interface with comprehensive and scriptable environment, 2D and 3D viewports for authoring and visualization, and more. Morpheme gives unprecedented creative control to animators and developers through diverse 2D and 3D tools and finest in-game animation. “Morpheme puts the animator in control of in-game animations. The result is in-game animation of unprecedented quality” said Torsten Reil, CEO of NaturalMotion.

Euphoria, NaturalMotion’s previous product, is based on Dynamic Motion Synthesis (DMS) – which synthesizes the animation data in real-time. Unlike Euphoria, Morpheme is not based on DMS. Instead it drastically increases the quality of canned in-game animation that gives splendid real-time output. However, Morpheme supports all the features of Euphoria.

It features advanced graphics tools to build complex blend trees and real-time visualization of animation source contribution through node highlighting. It also has full Lua support for automating tasks and to add AI logic for real-time input. With graphical mark up of animation data, Morpheme adds one-shot and duration events, for highlighting finer details in games, sound effects, etc. Multiple runtime characters can be created using morpheme:connect. This also enables character interaction. Morpheme gives intense network support for creating and functioning on transition networks through user-friendly drag-and-drop. This engine has flexibility to use custom high-level controls for real-time in-game manipulation through game pad controller or sliders. It also features an animation browser to work with source animation from animation list that is automatically updated to reflect changed source files.

Morpheme is being used by some of the world’s leading game developers and publishers like Activision, THQ, Bioware, Codemasters, Ubisoft, Disney, and many others.

Games that used Morpheme: Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, Red Dead Redemption, Shattered Horizon, etc.

Technology in gaming is changing rapidly in terms of hardware, processing power, graphics, simulation, etc. Some games with enhanced technology like high definition video output come with promising gameplay and more play time. Gamers can expect 3D games with more ‘realism’ on PlayStation 3 only because PS3 has 3D support. This would quench the thirst of most of the hardcore gamers as they’re looking for something more than just a hack n slash game with a bunch of weapon upgrades and cozy power ups.

Motion controlled games offer tremendous scope for innovation and hence many game developers are availing the opportunity to work on such games. Especially with the release of Sony’s Move and Microsoft’s Kinect, more consumers are buying Motion Controlled games. 3D technology, however, remains a delicate subject for most game developers and most of them are skeptical about the feasibility of this technology.

It is quite evident that not all developers embrace this technology as Sony and Nintendo, who has taken serious steps to work on 3D games. But this is not it. Sony is planning to get ready with a huge wave of 50 3D games on PlayStation 3. This is because PlayStation 3 has 3D support and 3D games soon will have a huge market. Sony declared that they are applying 3D to more than 20 internal games and they have more than 50 titles currently being converted into 3D and this number is growing fast.

Killzone 3, which is the first-party PS3 3D game, will be shipping on February 22, 2011. Killzone 1 & 2 did pretty well on PS2. Killzone 2 on PS2 shipped 677,000 copies. Though it didn’t touch the one million mark, this is a fantastic start. So all cheers for Killzone 3 3D! Sony’s most anticipated game Gran Turismo 5 has launched with 3D support and this is a feast for all racing gamers. The remastered high definition Sly collection is a addition to the 3D games; Sly Cooper and The Thevius Raccoonus, Sly 2 Band of Thieves, and Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves can be played in 3D. These games also have PlayStation Move supported mini-games. They have online trophy support too! Other games boasting 3D support include Wipeout HD, Super Stardust HD, PAIN, The Fight: Lights Out and Ico Collection. Sony is increasing its 3D outreach to third-parties.

3D gaming has immense potential to influence the gaming market in the near future. But the real question remains that how many consumers can afford 3D-capable TV? In addition to uncomfortable glasses and 3D exclusive content, the consumer needs to buy other expensive 3D accessories. This worries most of the gamers. Despite these pocket-burning accessories, 3D gaming takes the player to a whole new level of gaming experience. Though the future of 3D is in its infancy, there is tremendous scope for 3D exclusive content.

Note: The statistics presented in this article are based on Consumer Behavior Report

Gaming consoles have become very prominent in today’s world. They are prime means of entertainment. Most of the recent consoles are a conglomeration of other features like movie player, audio player, photo viewer, extended memory, and many more apart from mere gaming. Gaming consoles have an advantage over PC games. Especially with ever-growing technology, the quality and gaming experience is changing dynamically. More realistic games are coming with impeccable graphics both in PC as well as in consoles. However there are more software and hardware upgrades in PC, people seldom track the technical advances and are quite apprehensive about affording new accessories.

Apparently Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo dominate and continue to dominate the gaming market with their consoles and other accessories. However, in the near future, there is a significant year-over-year increase in demand for Nintendo and Sony video game consoles. In America, Wii is in a short supply making it an even more highly sought after commodity. Recent console gaming trends incorporate high-end graphics with motion sensor technology. According to the reports, Nintendo Wii is the leading contender in 2007′s console war. In a survey, around 45% of people say they prefer Nintendo Wii over other consoles. However, there is also an increasing demand for Microsoft Xbox and its supporting games despite the decrease in its demand by 15% in 2007.

Interestingly, video game selection remains a key factor when shopping for video game consoles. 26% say that game selection is the attribute of most importance when deciding to purchase a gaming console while 22% say that it is pricing that matters most.

24% think that ease of use is critical whereas 23% feel high-definition graphics and playback are important to buy a console. Only, 5% people say that online capability is their priority.

Most of the gamers, on an average, prefer to play animated/children-friendly games. 31% of the male respondents say first-person shooting and war games interest them the most. In addition, sports games have good demand in the market and online multi-player games always fascinate players.

The Playstation 3 console is sold at a higher price and boasts a Blue-ray DVD for quality graphics and a high-speed cell processor that appeals to hardcore gamers. The Wii is reasonably priced and offers a range of games and a user-friendly controller for the casual gamer. The overall pricing for consoles is trending downward; however, limited supply has been driving prices upward over the last 6 months. The top three popular consoles were launched within a year and range in average price between $200 and $500.

Decreasing trend in video game console prices is good news for hardcore and casual gamers. 71% of online shoppers are still spending more than $50 on video game consoles, games and other related accessories in holiday season. Majority of the online consumers are looking for low price range video game systems. Consoles continue to be a popular purchase among other franchise. This led to a phenomenal growth in the number of gamers around the world.

Gaming is transforming the world: this is not a speculation but a fact. Most of the PC and console games challenge the player to understand the game environment and act logically. These challenges arise due to uncertainty in the game behavior; new puzzles, strange monsters with special attack/defense abilities, intriguing storyline, etc. This poses a definite challenge unless the player goes through a walkthrough and makes an attempt to understand the game behavior in order to plan a defense or strategy. Of course, such attempts take away the thrill and excitement of playing a game and the real essence of gameplay and involvement will be lost. The beauty of a game lies in its ability to engage player through its flavor of suspense. After all, what is the fun of playing an action-adventure game if you know head-to-tail in the game?

The real question is not how game designers have articulated the game objects but rather where player engagement is coming from. One wonders how a game object can make its own possible decisions given certain defined parameters that are bound by the game rules. This ensures that such decisions won’t be unpredictable. If they are ‘really’ predictable, can the player easily guess the next possible outcome of a Non-player Character? Leaving the guess work to the player, there may be a possibility that NPC behavior can escape some rational predictions. Does it depend on the AI programming? Of course, yes. Nevertheless a real engaging game should be in such a way that it must give a fair challenge even to the designer.

NPC behavior is certainly limited by many factors; game genre, game rules, identification of anomalies, etc. In the designer’s perspective, the NPC must ensure that it encounters player decisions in a tactical manner to give a sense of surprise. However, this is the job of a dynamic NPC and such surprises are not new to a veteran gamer because of his ability to tackle new situations in the game environment. In addition, such NPCs are aware (I am using this word rather hesitantly) of the environment and makes complete use of space (in the game) to dodge the players attacks. In most of the FPS games, it is quite evident that some NPCs (especially bosses), though have their own parameters like health, ammo, etc., are aware of player’s defined parameters, but what NPCs may fail to know is the special abilities of the player; probably special powers, improved ammunition, upgrades etc. A veteran gamer tactically makes use of diverse range of equipment possessed by his character to overcome the difficulty in the game.

Static NPCs have predictable behavior; however, the decisions can be many. NPCs in Pacman are designed in such a way that each ghost has a unique behavior. There are five ghosts in each level: first ghost prevents the player from entering the center of the screen, the second ghost roams in the edges of the maze, the third chases the player character, the fourth one prevents the player from taking special powers, and the fifth ghost will roam randomly throughout the maze. The combination of independent NPC behavior effectively challenges the player.

It is important to understand what intelligence is in a rational sense before analyzing the AI of NPCs. Intelligence is the ability to learn, understand and make judgments that are based on reason. However AI in games is based on intelligent ‘responses’ by NPCs in a given situation. On the contrary, player’s intelligence is boundless as long as the player is able to effectively make use of the game environment and the parameters assigned to the player character in a manner that facilitates a comprehensive understanding of a dynamic NPC behavior and act accordingly.

Real-Time Strategy games certainly offer a plethora of opportunities to learn to manage resources and time through complex interfaces consisting of unit heads, base buildings, militia, air units, etc. In a typical RTS, a player learns to utilize resources in an effective manner so as to infiltrate troops into enemy territory or defend the base region. Indubitably, the player needs to loose the game umpteen numbers of times to come out with a unique strategy to beat a level. Assuming that the difficulty level in an RTS is set to the highest, the following tips may be useful to beat an RTS.

Note: These tips won’t guarantee victory in an RTS game, but will surely increase the possibility of winning the game.

Step 1: Make constructive use of AI – AI, in any RTS, is predictable. Try and understand the patterns of unit behavior, directions of attack, and other computer responses. Make decisions based on smart inferences that you draw from your understanding of AI.

Step 2: RESPOND, don’t REACT – When you are playing an RTS, you are bound to fail many times. Most often, players tend to get emotional after each failure and take many thoughtless decisions during the game play that constitute to failure. Consider every trial anew. Learn from your losses and don’t repeat tactics that didn’t work.

Step 3: Balance the resources – Most of the players focus on building complete base units, or constructing all the buildings, or spending more time on attacking enemy buildings, or having complete defense, etc. None of these strategies are proven to be successful. Hence it is important to have a balanced use of resources. Allocate your resources in an effective, efficient and optimal manner.

Step 4: Destroy enemy building units – If there is a time constraint, it is always preferable to destroy all the units who construct buildings, like repairmen, villagers, woodcutters, etc. This will not only halt the resource acquisition for the enemy forces to make their buildings or militia but also give you enough time to plan your defense and constructive offense.

Step 5: Use Scouting tactic – This is a necessary strategy to adopt. The sooner you explore the map the better you can position your buildings. So use scouting units to spy on enemy territories.

Step 6: Be smart and agile – Don’t panic when your units are outmanned. Preserve your basic building units and protect your base building. Have a considerable defense mechanism to protect research centers. Build the houses and research centers at corners or edges.

Step 7: Use ‘Tower Crush’ tactic – This is found to be one of the most effective techniques to win an RTS. Place your watchtowers/attack towers near the resources of enemy territories at the beginning of the game. This will not only destroy the enemy building units but also attack enemy buildings and will increase your possibility to win the game.

The annual CEDEC conference was held in Yokohama, Japan. CEDEC is a conference sponsored by Japanese Consumer Entertainment Software Association (the same group that puts on TGS) and is geared heavily towards development, much like the Game Developers Conference. Touted as one of the most important events in the industry along with the Tokyo Game Show, it attracts the industry’s leading game developers to deliver speeches and introduce the latest technologies and business information.

Subsequent to its expansion into Japan, Gameshastra presented its offerings to Japanese game developers in CEDEC, Japan’s Biggest Conference for Game Developers. The company’s stall was able to draw crowd from a varied mix of people from the Japanese and international game industry experts who inquired about how benefits of working with Gameshastra could add value to their development plans in the coming year.

Gameshastra staff benefited from being able to hold numerous on-the-spot meetings with officials from several Japanese gaming companies.

Two big pieces of news came from the folks at Square-Enix. At a panel about working with Western developers, Square-Enix staff members Yosuke Shiokawa (Director of Final Fantasy Dissidia) and Yuki Matsuzawa (Concept Artist for Final Fantasy XIII) announced that they have been working on a yet-unnamed large-scale project that targets overseas gamers for a year and a half. The game is being co-developed with an American team.

CEDEC also held its annual awards ceremony for 2010. Infinity Ward won top honors in the Visual Arts category for their work on the Modern Warfare titles. The development team behind From Software’s surprise hit Demon Souls took the Game Design award, while the staff of DS-based music composition application KORG DS-10 won in the Sound category. A special lifetime achievement style award was also given to Namco founder Masaya Nakamura.

Gameshastra Stall

The conference floor

Visitors at the Gameshastra stall

Gameshastra stall

Tony Stark needs to escape from the captivity of terrorists because his captors want him to assemble a missile for them but instead he creates an armored suit and a means to prevent his death from the shrapnel left in his chest by the attack. He comes out of the prison and finds that he is surrounded by many more terrorists. Terrorists keep shooting at him and once they have stopped shooting, Tony says “Now it’s my turn!” and KABOOM!!! Lots of explosions, fire blowing, and jaw dropping actions scenes. I was glued to the screen while watching the comic-turned-movie Iron Man. I was truly overwhelmed by the visual effects in this double Academy Award nominated film. While I was walking out of the theatre, I honestly wished this movie would be made into a video game in PlayStation2. One of my friends told me that Sega made a game based on the film Iron Man. Iron Man is made into a game for PS2, PSP, Xbox 360 and Wii.

I was delighted to checkout the game trailer of Iron Man and finally bought the game. I was taken aback by the game play. Though the game is based on the story from the movie, I was disappointed with poor and confusing action-cuts.

C’mon! Is this some kind of a lame and insipid practical joke or just another business trend? I didn’t want to be judgmental so I decided to play another game from my hot favorite film “Underworld: Rise of Lycans”. This is an action game where you play as Vampire or Werewolf battling through the streets with your fellow clan warriors. The game was addictive because all I had to do is aim and shoot.

Likewise, I checked out a glut of movie-turned-games like Transformers 1 &2, Spiderman, Kung-fu Panda, Terminator, Matrix: Path of Neo, etc. Some of them are very enthralling as I knew the story and I was just amused of how the story manifests in the game. Undeniably there is a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment because I wanted to watch the cut-scenes after beating each level and contrast them with the movies. But others are very disappointing because of the same reason that I knew the story. However, I certainly sensed a compensation of this disappointment with immersive game play. I wondered what parameters make a successful movie-turned-game.

As movies and video games are major entertaining channels, if a movie grosses well at the box-office, some gaming companies want to uphold and extend the excitement by making a game out of it and Hollywood is not an exception. This is subjected to the fact that the game must contain proper game play, good visuals and most of all, a gripping storyline based on the movie. Action-adventure movie-turned-games like Transformers and Matrix convince the player to ignore sleep and hunger to checkout the 3D world of the film thanks to the media for the hype. The movie counterparts of these games made huge profits worldwide: Transformers grossing $706,471,251 worldwide and Matrix grossing $374,983,253 worldwide. Being the protagonist of the movie in the game and unraveling mysteries, shooting villains, and solving puzzles depicted in movies is a completely unique and enthralling experience. Such games often share the same background music, voiceovers, puzzles and traps, 3D ambience, and storyline as that of the movie. This helps in reliving the movie experience for an extended period of time.

On the other hand, even gamers want to have gaming experience of blockbusters like Terminator. Usually, such games will be launched within a year of release of the movie. Gaming companies prefer to release movie-turned-games in multiple platforms like PC, Xbox 360, PS2, PSP, and Wii to have high sales figures. Terminator 3: Rise of Machines, though didn’t have any new elements than its predecessors, did pretty well at the box office. Atari was probably in a hurry to finish the game and release it with the DVD release of the film in Christmas 2003. Though the game has intriguing cut-scenes and impressionable action sequences, it failed because of multitude of badly designed levels and uninspiring game play.

But what about movies based on games?

I played Hitman on PS2 a year ago. It was highly enjoyable for its elegant atmosphere, slowly rising tension and increasingly compelling environments that permitted ever complex strategy of seeking and killing the underworld mafia. I literally sensed a kind of urgency to finish the game as each level is very challenging and immersive. After I switched off the console, for a while my house looked like an underworld basement shown in the game. Then I watched Hitman movie and was quite disappointed. The film was not only a humdrum but also failed to instill that suspense in the game. My experience might have been different if I wouldn’t have played the game in the first place (but thank god, I did!). Again, the movie of Super Mario Brothers was a disaster. On the contrary, movies like Mortal Kombat, which is based on an award winning game, grossed very high at the box office. Similarly, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time grossed over $90 million in United States.

Surely a unique gaming experience can be made from a movie but developers must be conscious about game play, level design, and game flow. High level graphics in cut-scenes and effective simulation of game characters from the movie doesn’t necessarily ensure a game’s success. However, when we talk about success of the game, we need to be more specific. For instance, Mummy game did well on PC but floundered on PS2. Success in games is often platform-dependent.

Tomb Raider game sales

In Indian context, the scenario is unpredictable as Gaming is still in its nascent stage and the number of gamers in India is also increasing gradually. As things stand, the movie Gajini was made into a PC game by FX Labs. Though the movie was a box office success, the game couldn’t do well (though it didn’t disappoint the fans).

Apparently, Hollywood as well as gaming giants must not get carried away by the success of any game or movie. Gaming experience and movie experience are quite different. The factors that contributed to a game’s success might not work for the success of a commercial film. Recreating a gaming experience from a movie or vice versa needs to be done in a way that balances undeniable ‘wow’ factor and fame.