Gaming and TV have always been such uneasy bed-fellows, wouldn’t you say? Apart from giving us a screen on which to project our innermost fantasies and perversions through the medium of console gaming, the humble idiot box has done deplorably little to capitalise on its shared DNA with our favourite time-sink.
Instead, we get this.
But here’s a thought. With game-to-film adaptations falling flat, what if we shift focus to the small screen? Games have it all; compelling plots, relatable characters and more explosions and dragons you can shake a remote at. I mean, it’s not like we have anything better to watch on our 50 inch flat screens anyway.
In a world where a show featuring the horribly tanned plastic people above can get green-lit, why haven’t the following games become serials yet? You can also join our forum thread here!
3) Mass Effect
The real star of any sci-fi universe is the universe itself. And feel free to force-choke anyone who disagrees. Inflict the Vulcan nerve pinch if they claim that Mass Effect’s universe belongs anywhere other than in the uppermost echelons of sci-fi writing.
The entire concept of the series is practically made for TV. Commander Shepard and her crew travel to distant worlds to meet/kill/seduce alien life forms while tearing ass in the USS Normandy. If that sounds familiar, it’s probably because that’s exactly what’s not playing on TV right now.
Setting a serial in space is the equivalent of strapping anything to several hundred tons of explosive (which, incidentally, is exactly how you put anything in space), no matter how bad it is, people are still going to watch. Just get Carrie from Homeland as Commander Shepard to talk/shoot/bone her way around the Galaxy and build a new shelf for all the Emmys you’re going to win.
Also, put the Reapers in the story somewhere, I guess?
2) XCOM: Enemy Unknown
According to Hollywood, alien invasions are usually defeated in less than 2 hours, but only after the resident computer geek spews some indecipherable technobabble that the hulking, more-unkillable-than-a-cockroach-wearing-an-HEV-suit hero fails to understand but applies perfectly anyway to defeat the xenomorphic menace.
A multi-season TV serial would be just the thing to remind us how completely and utterly screwed we’d be if E.T ever came knocking. And one based on XCOM would drive that point home like hot plasma to the face. Sometimes soldiers and even entire countries will have to be sacrificed so that humanity can see another sunrise.
XCOM: Enemy Unknown
In XCOM, no-one is safe. Troops will fall to a single lucky shot and civilians will be torn to shreds by rampaging Chrysallids while the Commander watches on helplessly, knowing that his one bad order has doomed them all. Humanity isn’t fighting a war anymore; it’s battling extermination.
Finally, get Idris Elba to play the Commander. Because he’s Idris Elba, that’s why.
1) Octodad
You know comedy is dead when a show can get an eight season run and their only punch line is how nerds can’t get laid. It’s either that or some horribly depraved misogynistic act by an amoral rich white guy (basically Charlie Sheen’s entire career).
But Octodad can change all that. A comedy about an Octopus passing himself off as an Average Joe while trying to avoid being found out by overzealous neighbours in front of his completely oblivious family is pure absurdist comedy gold.
octodad
The games handled this fairly well, giving due credit to the sheer difficulty of doing the simplest “human” thing with several floppy tentacles as well as being unable to speak. But what if you went bigger? The show could be about Octodad trying to hold down a job, hang out with friends and finally find love and companionship in the big city, all the while trying to avoid becoming sentient sushi.
Now tell me that isn’t better than watching Raj have blue balls for the Nth night in a row.
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