When I worked for Edge magazine during the late-nineties I spent a lot of time going out and visiting developers. Amid the eviscerated dev kits, battered old skool arcade machines and gigantic server stacks, I'd almost invariably find a corner where the team kept piles of books and movies for inspiration. After a while I developed a mental checklist of what I'd be likely to find at each studio - and back then, rather inevitably, the list included the following:
Movies Aliens Blade Runner Star Wars episodes 4-6 Akira (and other assorted anime, usually Legend of the Overfiend and Dominion Tank Police) 2001 A Space Odyssey At least one crappy early-eighties fantasy flick (e.g. Dark Crystal, Legend, Willow, Hawk the Slayer, Lady Hawke, that rotoscope version of Lord of the Rings…)
Books Any of those lavishly illustrated 'The Art of…' coffee table-busters based around hit sci-fi movies Cheap military encyclopaedias filled with pictures of guns, tanks and/or military uniforms Watchmen Dark Knight Returns Well-thumbed illustrated copy of Lord of the Rings Untouched copies of other assorted Tolkien works (especially, for some reason, The Silmarillion)
Predictable, eh? But dated now. So this month I've been thinking about where designers will be able to look for their ideas during 2006. Which books, movies and real-world events will inspire the next wave of big multi-format franchise titles – the next gen's Splinter Cells, Resident Evils and Burnouts…
Movie-wise, there are slim-pickings on the blockbuster front, just a few sequels (X-men 3, Mission Impossible 3, Die Hardest, Superman Returns, Indiana Jones IV…) and of course the inevitable animated biggie (this time Cars from Pixar) – a must-see for all videogame animators naturally.
There are a couple of epic Sci-Fi novel adaptations – Foundation and Rendezvous With Rama – which may yield some new special effects concepts but that's about it. Oh, Ron Howard's take on The Da Vinci Code could inspire a new influx of adventure games with religious/mystical elements – but the Broken Sword series sort of has all that Knights Templar stuff covered.
Perhaps current affairs may be a more reliable source this year. We are, after all, on the verge of a devastating pandemic – I mean, is bird flu the new T-Virus? There are some interesting conflict zones developing too - disputed Kashmir, USSR vs Ukraine, civil war in Sudan's Darfur region. Surely we no longer need rely on WWII, Vietnam and the hazy terrorist organisations envisioned for every Tom Clancy title. As for weapons, forget M16s and Uzis and think shoulder-mounted thermobaric weapons.
Meanwhile, if no Next Gen racing games feature the Bugatti Veyron I'll be very disappointed. I'm also hoping that Okami finally starts the trend for 'game graphics based on art movements' that Rez threatened all those years ago. Baroque shoot-'em-ups, Pre-Raphealite RPGs, cubist puzzlers… the possibilities are endless. And excitingly pretentious.
Any developers out there want to tell me what you're watching or reading for inspiration this year?
