One of the things that I catch myself doing when I play a video game is that I begin modding it into something else right away, especially when I like the dynamics of what I am playing. Mostly they are partial conversions to full on total conversions, but I am never really happy with any game that I play in its original format for some reason. My wife thinks it is due to my over active imagination and that I'm a dork.
For example GTA: San Andreas would make a great zombie survival simulator, simple enough just avoid the malls. Ghost Recon 2 would make a good platform for a Predator game, throw in some abilities in climbing and several vision modes with some cool weapons and you got a keeper. It would have to be a lot better than Predator: Concrete Jungle, urrgh I can't believe I bought that one.
True Crimes: New York would have made a great Cloverfield movie tie-in game. Simply take the lead hero convert him into a News Reporter or a Photographer, then try to survive on foot in the massive New York map all the while the Cloverfield monster and its horde of spider parasites infest the Big Apple. Take pictures, get the scoop, and make history all before sunrise. By then you better be out of town before the army ends the party with a nuclear bomb. No shaky cams please.
The latest game to tweak my imagination has to be Spore , by Will Wright who is famous for The Sims and Sim City games. Spore is a massive game and I am really looking forward on having to buy a new computer, plus shelling out an extra $80.00 dollars for the Galaxy version of the game. Why? Well, since it won't work on the old Macs, I am forced to dig out my old Populous game to get my world building fix. My wife's poor G5, how you were once the Kong of Mac.
Back to the subject. Looking at Spore I found myself considering how would I modify it? What would I do with it or add to it? In the typical Kevin164 style my answer is, I would place a "Giant Space Monster" creator as a tool with the UFO options. Reigning down comets is fun, but unleashing some super space monster says my alien race is epic. My working title for that idea is " It came from the Dark Nebula!" DUH, DUH, Duuuh!!!
The galaxy stage of the Spore game is what really hammered that one out. I guess if I could mod a version of Spore it would be a cross between itself and Lionshead studio's Black and White, with a little Fantastic Four thrown into it for good measure. Let us imagine you're in the role of a massive sentient nebula adrift in a cruel universe and you're either going to make it crueler or better, depending on what kind of player you are. Find worlds and consume them whole while you make your way to the galactic heart where tougher and far more advanced civilizations band together to counter the looming threat you represent.
Discover alien animal life forms and then mutate them into a giant planet killing monsters to wear down those stalwart civilizations opposed to your malice and hunger. Or envelope a world and build it's defenses by helping its species evolve enough to build massive star-faring fleets. Send them out to take on some 16 year old jerk player from Nevada and his pet giant space squid while battling it out on-line, yelling out one liners such as... "avast, ye monstrous void sucking calamari! Eat my photon torpedoes!"
Anyways... I'm so buying Spore.
This is pretty much how Chimera, (which you can look at by clicking on the image in the side bar), came about. It was the by product of about four different games and their certain elements that I found entertaining while playing them. Chimera is the child of Fable, Mercenaries, Shadow of the Colossus, and Okami. Akin to the rambling above, that is how a 170 page exercise in design and story came about from my computer to my portfolio.
Now, I am not trying to make a game or broker a deal and ride off into the sunset with the overloading of my bank account. The odds of that are pretty slim at best, but if you can dream.... No, the reality is that I would rather ride off to a team meeting at EA games and draw out designs for some boss monster the hero has to be killing on level 23. Pick up a pay check and have wonderful cake.
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