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With many recent old TV shows like Charlie’s Angels, I Spy, Starsky & Hutch, Miami Vice and Knightrider rumoured to be or being turned into movies, and a few old shows like Dukes of Hazzard, Knightrider and eventually He-Man being turned into video games, it seems the entertainment world has gone crazy for old rubbish. I wonder which old show will be next to receive the remake treatment…
Many people nowadays complain about a lack of originality in many games, with loads of poor new games characters appearing overnight, but now it seems that some developers are learning that old TV shows are great source material for games, to tap in on the existing fan base.
However, with the most recent attempts at turning a classic TV show into games haven’t met with great success mainly due to the fact they were detestable smelly cynical cash-ins. The Dukes of Hazzard was a very poor game that sadly didn’t do the old show justice, and then we have Knightrider with David Hasselhoff, who in the TV show plays “a man who does not exist”, shame the same can’t be said about the game.
Some TV related games were around in the 80’s, with He-Man and Transformers games on the Spectrum being fairly good side-scrolling platform adventures, and Minder was a great trading sim, where you could buy and sell stock, visit Terry’s flat and The Winchester, meet lots of other cockney characters and of course there was the great theme tune, plus I think there were Eastenders and Neighbours games which were probably rubbish.
In those days, the level of technology didn’t allow people to realise the potential for games, but nowadays things are different, with accurate graphics, sound etc allowing developers to accurately recreate old programmes, and give them better levels of complexity and game playing experiences, so why haven’t they utilised the technology to its fullest potential?
Well, it’s all to do with the aforementioned cash-in idea. Developers/publishers or whoever is responsible for this tosh, spies the opportunity to make a quick buck by capturing the rights to cherished old TV shows. They then spend as little time and money on developing the game as possible, then sit back and hope the TV show loving saps will buy the game as they loved the show.
So what 70’s/80’s programmes would I like to see made into decent videogames?
Whenever you raise the issue of 80’s cartoons or action shows, a huge list always appears when us retro TV loving nerds like myself recall the good old days when packets of bubblegum cost 8p and Michael Jackson was the coolest guy on Earth.
Thundercats, A-Team, Miami Vice, Magnum P.I, G.I.Joe, Transformers, He-Man (I think TDK Interactive have the rights and a GBA game is in the works), ALF, Diff’rent Strokes, MASK, Terry & June (!!), Macgyver, CHIPS, TJ Hooker, The Fall Guy, The Incredible Hulk, Crazy Like a Fox, Street Hawk, The Professionals, and another hundred or so more.
But would any of these shows actually make good games?
The A-Team:
The A-Team is undoubtedly the Holy Grail for many old-skool TV lovers, but if a game came out, would it do the great show justice?
Maybe it could be a game like Project Eden, where you switch control between the four characters, each having their own skills. The plot would have to be about baddie rednecks that wanted to steal poor defenceless people’s land, and it’s left to the A-Team to sort out the problem using a variety of hastily constructed gadgets and modified vehicles.
The game would obviously include car chase sections with you controlling B.A’s van or Face’s Corvette being chased by the M.Ps (and at various points in the chase, the baddies vehicles will flip over in ridiculously grandiose fashion), beat ‘em up sections where Mr.T throws some big henchman over a car bonnet or bar table, the team constructing clever devices, plenty of gunfire with nobody getting shot plus all the famous quotes such as Hannibal saying “I love it when a plan comes together” and Mr.T calling Murdock a “crazy sucka”.
The A-Team are a rag-tag bunch & each character would have their strengths; Colonel John "Hannibal" Smith is the cigar chomping leader & a master of disguise who’s always “on the jazz” and who would be the all-rounder character, Lieutenant Templeton "Faceman" Peck is the charming con-man & scammer who will be used to get equipment and any female assistance, Captain H.M "Howling Mad" Murdock is the team's insane pilot who’d do all the flying, and Sergeant Bosco "B.A." Baracas, would provide driving, engineering and fighting skills, but remember, he can’t go flying unless you find some sleeping drugs to spike his milk.
Some characters would be able to do things that others couldn’t, so you must switch between them to complete the mission. But when there’s a big fight scene, you control one of the characters, with the others controlled by the computer, with plenty of redneck cowboy hicks to beat up in the various roadside bars littered throughout the game.
Magyver:
A strange choice for a game perhaps, but I reckon that the programme which was basically The A-Team for girls would do pretty well as a video game.
In a point & click action adventure, you control a virtual Richard Dean Anderson in a non-violent quest and must use ingenious ways of disposing of baddies and solving puzzles using only the most normal things you have available, such as a section that sees you make a small explosive device out of a can of cola, a piece of cheese and a paper clip.
However, the popularity of the show is probably not high enough to warrant to game, but it did have a cool theme tune.
Magnum P.I:
Thankfully doing the rounds on TV again over recent months, Tom Selleck’s greatest achievement after Quigley Down Under, Magnum P.I, could be a GTA3/Headhunter style third-person action adventure, where you must drive around in your cool Ferrari whilst apprehending criminals and getting into all sorts of capers.
Naturally, it would be a bright and fun adventure set in Hawaii, and you’d get to explore Robin Master’s estate, have much comical banter with Higgins, go to Rick’s restaurant/café, and take a helicopter ride with that crazy TC bloke, and of course Tom’s giant cookie-duster would be accurately rendered in all its hairy glory.
Diff’rent Strokes (taken from an old post, but relevant):
The classic culture clash comedy in which a widowed Manhattan millionaire adopts two orphaned black brothers from the ghettos of Harlem could work well as a video game, and it has quite a following who’d definitely buy the game for comedic value.
Philip Drummond has been kidnapped by a gang of paedophile protestors who’ve wrongfully accused him of adopting the two boys for illegitimate means, and it’s left to Arnold and Willis to rescue him and clear his name in this two-player beat ‘em up.
Yes, it’s back to the good old days of ‘old skool’ beat ‘em ups, with locations varying from the mean streets, subways, train stations, office block and the protestors secluded mountain HQ. One bonus level even sees you team up with guest star Mr.T!
Weapons include a water pistol, rubber baseball bat and Gary’s special shin punching knuckle-dusters.
“Whatchu talkin ‘bout!”
Baywatch:
Depending on how successful Dead or Alive Extreme Beach Volleyball is, we may see a video game of the most watched programme in TV history. David Hasslehoff displays his hairy chest, whilst all the women display their less hairy chests in this sandy action adventure involving catching criminals, saving drowning members of the public, riding quad bikes, playing volleyball and prancing along looking beautiful. The game may also contain a hidden bonus section where you get to dance along to David Hasselhoff’s many disco hits.
The past teaches us many lessons, one of which is that old TV shows need to be given more respect when turned into video games, as creating a hasty cash-in disappoints many many people. I was looking forward to the Knightrider game for example, but it ended up being pooh, so I was disappointed.
With nostalgia about old TV shows being huge these days, there is a really big market for these sorts of games, as long as they’re made into GOOD games rather than cash-ins, because there’s nothing worse than looking forward to a game of a beloved TV series only for it to come out and be a steaming pile of manure.
Many people nowadays complain about a lack of originality in many games, with loads of poor new games characters appearing overnight, but now it seems that some developers are learning that old TV shows are great source material for games, to tap in on the existing fan base.
However, with the most recent attempts at turning a classic TV show into games haven’t met with great success mainly due to the fact they were detestable smelly cynical cash-ins. The Dukes of Hazzard was a very poor game that sadly didn’t do the old show justice, and then we have Knightrider with David Hasselhoff, who in the TV show plays “a man who does not exist”, shame the same can’t be said about the game.
Some TV related games were around in the 80’s, with He-Man and Transformers games on the Spectrum being fairly good side-scrolling platform adventures, and Minder was a great trading sim, where you could buy and sell stock, visit Terry’s flat and The Winchester, meet lots of other cockney characters and of course there was the great theme tune, plus I think there were Eastenders and Neighbours games which were probably rubbish.
In those days, the level of technology didn’t allow people to realise the potential for games, but nowadays things are different, with accurate graphics, sound etc allowing developers to accurately recreate old programmes, and give them better levels of complexity and game playing experiences, so why haven’t they utilised the technology to its fullest potential?
Well, it’s all to do with the aforementioned cash-in idea. Developers/publishers or whoever is responsible for this tosh, spies the opportunity to make a quick buck by capturing the rights to cherished old TV shows. They then spend as little time and money on developing the game as possible, then sit back and hope the TV show loving saps will buy the game as they loved the show.
So what 70’s/80’s programmes would I like to see made into decent videogames?
Whenever you raise the issue of 80’s cartoons or action shows, a huge list always appears when us retro TV loving nerds like myself recall the good old days when packets of bubblegum cost 8p and Michael Jackson was the coolest guy on Earth.
Thundercats, A-Team, Miami Vice, Magnum P.I, G.I.Joe, Transformers, He-Man (I think TDK Interactive have the rights and a GBA game is in the works), ALF, Diff’rent Strokes, MASK, Terry & June (!!), Macgyver, CHIPS, TJ Hooker, The Fall Guy, The Incredible Hulk, Crazy Like a Fox, Street Hawk, The Professionals, and another hundred or so more.
But would any of these shows actually make good games?
The A-Team:
The A-Team is undoubtedly the Holy Grail for many old-skool TV lovers, but if a game came out, would it do the great show justice?
Maybe it could be a game like Project Eden, where you switch control between the four characters, each having their own skills. The plot would have to be about baddie rednecks that wanted to steal poor defenceless people’s land, and it’s left to the A-Team to sort out the problem using a variety of hastily constructed gadgets and modified vehicles.
The game would obviously include car chase sections with you controlling B.A’s van or Face’s Corvette being chased by the M.Ps (and at various points in the chase, the baddies vehicles will flip over in ridiculously grandiose fashion), beat ‘em up sections where Mr.T throws some big henchman over a car bonnet or bar table, the team constructing clever devices, plenty of gunfire with nobody getting shot plus all the famous quotes such as Hannibal saying “I love it when a plan comes together” and Mr.T calling Murdock a “crazy sucka”.
The A-Team are a rag-tag bunch & each character would have their strengths; Colonel John "Hannibal" Smith is the cigar chomping leader & a master of disguise who’s always “on the jazz” and who would be the all-rounder character, Lieutenant Templeton "Faceman" Peck is the charming con-man & scammer who will be used to get equipment and any female assistance, Captain H.M "Howling Mad" Murdock is the team's insane pilot who’d do all the flying, and Sergeant Bosco "B.A." Baracas, would provide driving, engineering and fighting skills, but remember, he can’t go flying unless you find some sleeping drugs to spike his milk.
Some characters would be able to do things that others couldn’t, so you must switch between them to complete the mission. But when there’s a big fight scene, you control one of the characters, with the others controlled by the computer, with plenty of redneck cowboy hicks to beat up in the various roadside bars littered throughout the game.
Magyver:
A strange choice for a game perhaps, but I reckon that the programme which was basically The A-Team for girls would do pretty well as a video game.
In a point & click action adventure, you control a virtual Richard Dean Anderson in a non-violent quest and must use ingenious ways of disposing of baddies and solving puzzles using only the most normal things you have available, such as a section that sees you make a small explosive device out of a can of cola, a piece of cheese and a paper clip.
However, the popularity of the show is probably not high enough to warrant to game, but it did have a cool theme tune.
Magnum P.I:
Thankfully doing the rounds on TV again over recent months, Tom Selleck’s greatest achievement after Quigley Down Under, Magnum P.I, could be a GTA3/Headhunter style third-person action adventure, where you must drive around in your cool Ferrari whilst apprehending criminals and getting into all sorts of capers.
Naturally, it would be a bright and fun adventure set in Hawaii, and you’d get to explore Robin Master’s estate, have much comical banter with Higgins, go to Rick’s restaurant/café, and take a helicopter ride with that crazy TC bloke, and of course Tom’s giant cookie-duster would be accurately rendered in all its hairy glory.
Diff’rent Strokes (taken from an old post, but relevant):
The classic culture clash comedy in which a widowed Manhattan millionaire adopts two orphaned black brothers from the ghettos of Harlem could work well as a video game, and it has quite a following who’d definitely buy the game for comedic value.
Philip Drummond has been kidnapped by a gang of paedophile protestors who’ve wrongfully accused him of adopting the two boys for illegitimate means, and it’s left to Arnold and Willis to rescue him and clear his name in this two-player beat ‘em up.
Yes, it’s back to the good old days of ‘old skool’ beat ‘em ups, with locations varying from the mean streets, subways, train stations, office block and the protestors secluded mountain HQ. One bonus level even sees you team up with guest star Mr.T!
Weapons include a water pistol, rubber baseball bat and Gary’s special shin punching knuckle-dusters.
“Whatchu talkin ‘bout!”
Baywatch:
Depending on how successful Dead or Alive Extreme Beach Volleyball is, we may see a video game of the most watched programme in TV history. David Hasslehoff displays his hairy chest, whilst all the women display their less hairy chests in this sandy action adventure involving catching criminals, saving drowning members of the public, riding quad bikes, playing volleyball and prancing along looking beautiful. The game may also contain a hidden bonus section where you get to dance along to David Hasselhoff’s many disco hits.
The past teaches us many lessons, one of which is that old TV shows need to be given more respect when turned into video games, as creating a hasty cash-in disappoints many many people. I was looking forward to the Knightrider game for example, but it ended up being pooh, so I was disappointed.
With nostalgia about old TV shows being huge these days, there is a really big market for these sorts of games, as long as they’re made into GOOD games rather than cash-ins, because there’s nothing worse than looking forward to a game of a beloved TV series only for it to come out and be a steaming pile of manure.
DreamWarBird wrote:
> They should make 'Knightmare' a Computer game.
They did :)
> They should make 'Knightmare' a Computer game.
They did :)
They should make 'Knightmare' a Computer game.
i thought it was a good post...my anger at lazy cash-ins is apparent if you read my rant against Sony...
What about Manimal? Remember him? There should be a game where you could change into different animals to defeat you're opponents. Too many African game hunters for one man to dispel? Simple! Morph into an elephant and crush them in a stampede!
What about Manimal? Remember him? There should be a game where you could change into different animals to defeat you're opponents. Too many African game hunters for one man to dispel? Simple! Morph into an elephant and crush them in a stampede!
Jesus that was bloody boring! But Thundercats for the Spectrum 128 was cool!
With many recent old TV shows like Charlie’s Angels, I Spy, Starsky & Hutch, Miami Vice and Knightrider rumoured to be or being turned into movies, and a few old shows like Dukes of Hazzard, Knightrider and eventually He-Man being turned into video games, it seems the entertainment world has gone crazy for old rubbish. I wonder which old show will be next to receive the remake treatment…
Many people nowadays complain about a lack of originality in many games, with loads of poor new games characters appearing overnight, but now it seems that some developers are learning that old TV shows are great source material for games, to tap in on the existing fan base.
However, with the most recent attempts at turning a classic TV show into games haven’t met with great success mainly due to the fact they were detestable smelly cynical cash-ins. The Dukes of Hazzard was a very poor game that sadly didn’t do the old show justice, and then we have Knightrider with David Hasselhoff, who in the TV show plays “a man who does not exist”, shame the same can’t be said about the game.
Some TV related games were around in the 80’s, with He-Man and Transformers games on the Spectrum being fairly good side-scrolling platform adventures, and Minder was a great trading sim, where you could buy and sell stock, visit Terry’s flat and The Winchester, meet lots of other cockney characters and of course there was the great theme tune, plus I think there were Eastenders and Neighbours games which were probably rubbish.
In those days, the level of technology didn’t allow people to realise the potential for games, but nowadays things are different, with accurate graphics, sound etc allowing developers to accurately recreate old programmes, and give them better levels of complexity and game playing experiences, so why haven’t they utilised the technology to its fullest potential?
Well, it’s all to do with the aforementioned cash-in idea. Developers/publishers or whoever is responsible for this tosh, spies the opportunity to make a quick buck by capturing the rights to cherished old TV shows. They then spend as little time and money on developing the game as possible, then sit back and hope the TV show loving saps will buy the game as they loved the show.
So what 70’s/80’s programmes would I like to see made into decent videogames?
Whenever you raise the issue of 80’s cartoons or action shows, a huge list always appears when us retro TV loving nerds like myself recall the good old days when packets of bubblegum cost 8p and Michael Jackson was the coolest guy on Earth.
Thundercats, A-Team, Miami Vice, Magnum P.I, G.I.Joe, Transformers, He-Man (I think TDK Interactive have the rights and a GBA game is in the works), ALF, Diff’rent Strokes, MASK, Terry & June (!!), Macgyver, CHIPS, TJ Hooker, The Fall Guy, The Incredible Hulk, Crazy Like a Fox, Street Hawk, The Professionals, and another hundred or so more.
But would any of these shows actually make good games?
The A-Team:
The A-Team is undoubtedly the Holy Grail for many old-skool TV lovers, but if a game came out, would it do the great show justice?
Maybe it could be a game like Project Eden, where you switch control between the four characters, each having their own skills. The plot would have to be about baddie rednecks that wanted to steal poor defenceless people’s land, and it’s left to the A-Team to sort out the problem using a variety of hastily constructed gadgets and modified vehicles.
The game would obviously include car chase sections with you controlling B.A’s van or Face’s Corvette being chased by the M.Ps (and at various points in the chase, the baddies vehicles will flip over in ridiculously grandiose fashion), beat ‘em up sections where Mr.T throws some big henchman over a car bonnet or bar table, the team constructing clever devices, plenty of gunfire with nobody getting shot plus all the famous quotes such as Hannibal saying “I love it when a plan comes together” and Mr.T calling Murdock a “crazy sucka”.
The A-Team are a rag-tag bunch & each character would have their strengths; Colonel John "Hannibal" Smith is the cigar chomping leader & a master of disguise who’s always “on the jazz” and who would be the all-rounder character, Lieutenant Templeton "Faceman" Peck is the charming con-man & scammer who will be used to get equipment and any female assistance, Captain H.M "Howling Mad" Murdock is the team's insane pilot who’d do all the flying, and Sergeant Bosco "B.A." Baracas, would provide driving, engineering and fighting skills, but remember, he can’t go flying unless you find some sleeping drugs to spike his milk.
Some characters would be able to do things that others couldn’t, so you must switch between them to complete the mission. But when there’s a big fight scene, you control one of the characters, with the others controlled by the computer, with plenty of redneck cowboy hicks to beat up in the various roadside bars littered throughout the game.
Magyver:
A strange choice for a game perhaps, but I reckon that the programme which was basically The A-Team for girls would do pretty well as a video game.
In a point & click action adventure, you control a virtual Richard Dean Anderson in a non-violent quest and must use ingenious ways of disposing of baddies and solving puzzles using only the most normal things you have available, such as a section that sees you make a small explosive device out of a can of cola, a piece of cheese and a paper clip.
However, the popularity of the show is probably not high enough to warrant to game, but it did have a cool theme tune.
Magnum P.I:
Thankfully doing the rounds on TV again over recent months, Tom Selleck’s greatest achievement after Quigley Down Under, Magnum P.I, could be a GTA3/Headhunter style third-person action adventure, where you must drive around in your cool Ferrari whilst apprehending criminals and getting into all sorts of capers.
Naturally, it would be a bright and fun adventure set in Hawaii, and you’d get to explore Robin Master’s estate, have much comical banter with Higgins, go to Rick’s restaurant/café, and take a helicopter ride with that crazy TC bloke, and of course Tom’s giant cookie-duster would be accurately rendered in all its hairy glory.
Diff’rent Strokes (taken from an old post, but relevant):
The classic culture clash comedy in which a widowed Manhattan millionaire adopts two orphaned black brothers from the ghettos of Harlem could work well as a video game, and it has quite a following who’d definitely buy the game for comedic value.
Philip Drummond has been kidnapped by a gang of paedophile protestors who’ve wrongfully accused him of adopting the two boys for illegitimate means, and it’s left to Arnold and Willis to rescue him and clear his name in this two-player beat ‘em up.
Yes, it’s back to the good old days of ‘old skool’ beat ‘em ups, with locations varying from the mean streets, subways, train stations, office block and the protestors secluded mountain HQ. One bonus level even sees you team up with guest star Mr.T!
Weapons include a water pistol, rubber baseball bat and Gary’s special shin punching knuckle-dusters.
“Whatchu talkin ‘bout!”
Baywatch:
Depending on how successful Dead or Alive Extreme Beach Volleyball is, we may see a video game of the most watched programme in TV history. David Hasslehoff displays his hairy chest, whilst all the women display their less hairy chests in this sandy action adventure involving catching criminals, saving drowning members of the public, riding quad bikes, playing volleyball and prancing along looking beautiful. The game may also contain a hidden bonus section where you get to dance along to David Hasselhoff’s many disco hits.
The past teaches us many lessons, one of which is that old TV shows need to be given more respect when turned into video games, as creating a hasty cash-in disappoints many many people. I was looking forward to the Knightrider game for example, but it ended up being pooh, so I was disappointed.
With nostalgia about old TV shows being huge these days, there is a really big market for these sorts of games, as long as they’re made into GOOD games rather than cash-ins, because there’s nothing worse than looking forward to a game of a beloved TV series only for it to come out and be a steaming pile of manure.
Many people nowadays complain about a lack of originality in many games, with loads of poor new games characters appearing overnight, but now it seems that some developers are learning that old TV shows are great source material for games, to tap in on the existing fan base.
However, with the most recent attempts at turning a classic TV show into games haven’t met with great success mainly due to the fact they were detestable smelly cynical cash-ins. The Dukes of Hazzard was a very poor game that sadly didn’t do the old show justice, and then we have Knightrider with David Hasselhoff, who in the TV show plays “a man who does not exist”, shame the same can’t be said about the game.
Some TV related games were around in the 80’s, with He-Man and Transformers games on the Spectrum being fairly good side-scrolling platform adventures, and Minder was a great trading sim, where you could buy and sell stock, visit Terry’s flat and The Winchester, meet lots of other cockney characters and of course there was the great theme tune, plus I think there were Eastenders and Neighbours games which were probably rubbish.
In those days, the level of technology didn’t allow people to realise the potential for games, but nowadays things are different, with accurate graphics, sound etc allowing developers to accurately recreate old programmes, and give them better levels of complexity and game playing experiences, so why haven’t they utilised the technology to its fullest potential?
Well, it’s all to do with the aforementioned cash-in idea. Developers/publishers or whoever is responsible for this tosh, spies the opportunity to make a quick buck by capturing the rights to cherished old TV shows. They then spend as little time and money on developing the game as possible, then sit back and hope the TV show loving saps will buy the game as they loved the show.
So what 70’s/80’s programmes would I like to see made into decent videogames?
Whenever you raise the issue of 80’s cartoons or action shows, a huge list always appears when us retro TV loving nerds like myself recall the good old days when packets of bubblegum cost 8p and Michael Jackson was the coolest guy on Earth.
Thundercats, A-Team, Miami Vice, Magnum P.I, G.I.Joe, Transformers, He-Man (I think TDK Interactive have the rights and a GBA game is in the works), ALF, Diff’rent Strokes, MASK, Terry & June (!!), Macgyver, CHIPS, TJ Hooker, The Fall Guy, The Incredible Hulk, Crazy Like a Fox, Street Hawk, The Professionals, and another hundred or so more.
But would any of these shows actually make good games?
The A-Team:
The A-Team is undoubtedly the Holy Grail for many old-skool TV lovers, but if a game came out, would it do the great show justice?
Maybe it could be a game like Project Eden, where you switch control between the four characters, each having their own skills. The plot would have to be about baddie rednecks that wanted to steal poor defenceless people’s land, and it’s left to the A-Team to sort out the problem using a variety of hastily constructed gadgets and modified vehicles.
The game would obviously include car chase sections with you controlling B.A’s van or Face’s Corvette being chased by the M.Ps (and at various points in the chase, the baddies vehicles will flip over in ridiculously grandiose fashion), beat ‘em up sections where Mr.T throws some big henchman over a car bonnet or bar table, the team constructing clever devices, plenty of gunfire with nobody getting shot plus all the famous quotes such as Hannibal saying “I love it when a plan comes together” and Mr.T calling Murdock a “crazy sucka”.
The A-Team are a rag-tag bunch & each character would have their strengths; Colonel John "Hannibal" Smith is the cigar chomping leader & a master of disguise who’s always “on the jazz” and who would be the all-rounder character, Lieutenant Templeton "Faceman" Peck is the charming con-man & scammer who will be used to get equipment and any female assistance, Captain H.M "Howling Mad" Murdock is the team's insane pilot who’d do all the flying, and Sergeant Bosco "B.A." Baracas, would provide driving, engineering and fighting skills, but remember, he can’t go flying unless you find some sleeping drugs to spike his milk.
Some characters would be able to do things that others couldn’t, so you must switch between them to complete the mission. But when there’s a big fight scene, you control one of the characters, with the others controlled by the computer, with plenty of redneck cowboy hicks to beat up in the various roadside bars littered throughout the game.
Magyver:
A strange choice for a game perhaps, but I reckon that the programme which was basically The A-Team for girls would do pretty well as a video game.
In a point & click action adventure, you control a virtual Richard Dean Anderson in a non-violent quest and must use ingenious ways of disposing of baddies and solving puzzles using only the most normal things you have available, such as a section that sees you make a small explosive device out of a can of cola, a piece of cheese and a paper clip.
However, the popularity of the show is probably not high enough to warrant to game, but it did have a cool theme tune.
Magnum P.I:
Thankfully doing the rounds on TV again over recent months, Tom Selleck’s greatest achievement after Quigley Down Under, Magnum P.I, could be a GTA3/Headhunter style third-person action adventure, where you must drive around in your cool Ferrari whilst apprehending criminals and getting into all sorts of capers.
Naturally, it would be a bright and fun adventure set in Hawaii, and you’d get to explore Robin Master’s estate, have much comical banter with Higgins, go to Rick’s restaurant/café, and take a helicopter ride with that crazy TC bloke, and of course Tom’s giant cookie-duster would be accurately rendered in all its hairy glory.
Diff’rent Strokes (taken from an old post, but relevant):
The classic culture clash comedy in which a widowed Manhattan millionaire adopts two orphaned black brothers from the ghettos of Harlem could work well as a video game, and it has quite a following who’d definitely buy the game for comedic value.
Philip Drummond has been kidnapped by a gang of paedophile protestors who’ve wrongfully accused him of adopting the two boys for illegitimate means, and it’s left to Arnold and Willis to rescue him and clear his name in this two-player beat ‘em up.
Yes, it’s back to the good old days of ‘old skool’ beat ‘em ups, with locations varying from the mean streets, subways, train stations, office block and the protestors secluded mountain HQ. One bonus level even sees you team up with guest star Mr.T!
Weapons include a water pistol, rubber baseball bat and Gary’s special shin punching knuckle-dusters.
“Whatchu talkin ‘bout!”
Baywatch:
Depending on how successful Dead or Alive Extreme Beach Volleyball is, we may see a video game of the most watched programme in TV history. David Hasslehoff displays his hairy chest, whilst all the women display their less hairy chests in this sandy action adventure involving catching criminals, saving drowning members of the public, riding quad bikes, playing volleyball and prancing along looking beautiful. The game may also contain a hidden bonus section where you get to dance along to David Hasselhoff’s many disco hits.
The past teaches us many lessons, one of which is that old TV shows need to be given more respect when turned into video games, as creating a hasty cash-in disappoints many many people. I was looking forward to the Knightrider game for example, but it ended up being pooh, so I was disappointed.
With nostalgia about old TV shows being huge these days, there is a really big market for these sorts of games, as long as they’re made into GOOD games rather than cash-ins, because there’s nothing worse than looking forward to a game of a beloved TV series only for it to come out and be a steaming pile of manure.