Issue date: 2/22/08 Section: Technology

Media Credit: Alton Richardson

We have video games based off comic books, TV shows and movies, but there have only been a few video games that have been based off books.
Some of these works include "American McGee's Alice", which took Lewis Carroll's drug-fuelled fantasy and weaved it into a twisted and beautifully-realized game for the Gothic generation. Sure, you have the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings games-but those are more based off the movie adaptations than the books themselves.
If you want to argue that other titles have emerged from dusty old tombs, you might say the "Halo" creators got their idea for the ring world of "Halo" from Iain M. Banks' book, "Consider Phlebas", first published in 1987. The Idirans in 'Consider Phlebas" could be compared to the Elite's of "Halo", as they are both a major galactic race, which considers it their holy duty to bring order to the universe and its lesser races.
There's also the "Rainbow Six" series by Tom Clancy, which was first a novel. It was first published in 1998 and that same year the first video game in the series was released on Aug. 21 for the PC. Originally the publisher and developer for "Rainbow Six", Red Storm Entertainment planned to have a special operations game featuring first-person action, and a team of operators rescuing hostages and taking out terrorists. Their first concept was modeled after the American FBI Hostage Rescue Team.
Later it was found out that Tom Clancy was writing a book about terrorism and a special team to combat it, so they rewrote some of the game's missions to fit within the book's plot. The book was titled "Rainbow Six" so they renamed the game "Rainbow Six". However by the time the game was completed, the book was not yet finished so the plot of the game does not completely match that of the book.
If more video game developers based games on books you might have "Pride and Prejudice" as a Sims style dating game.
Set in a regency era country house you would act as a chaperone trying to arrange suitable romantic attachments between young gentlefolk of the right social backgrounds. You could organize social gatherings, hunting parties, duels between gentlemen on matters of honor, and of course a grand society ball where, if you played your cards correctly, an offer of marriage might be made and accepted.
There are other books out there that are all the rage these days, especially ones geared towards children.
Even so, developers still don't want to take a gamble with a book related game unless a movie was made about it first, which often leads to a terrible recreation of the story that contains little to nothing of the stuff readers of the books once loved and cared about so dearly in the first place. So read, watch and play.

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