Topic: Books or comics based on video games?

[Ratty]

So, has anyone else read some of these things? What did you think?

I'm thinking about this because I literally just finished reading the second official Resident Evil novel, "Caliban Cove", after surprisingly enjoying the first one ("Resident Evil: The Umbrella Conspiracy") a lot a few years ago. So maybe a thread to share our thoughts and opinions on these books? I've read a few of them but since the one I just read is fresh in my mind here's my thoughts on that...


Unlike the previous book Caliban Cove isn't based on any actual game in particular, written when Resident Evil 1 was still super hot and 2 had yet to come out.  ...and maybe that rush to get the book out the door is also why it's not as good as the first. There are a few interesting things about it though. One wouldn't really expect to see a video game tie-in from 1998 with a Shakespeare reference in the title. (Caliban was a deformed man-creature in Shakespeare's "The Tempest") Also interesting is that it's a Rebecca Chambers-focused spinoff. This 5 years before Resident Evil 0 even reminded most RE players that Rebecca Chambers exists. Since in the novels S.T.A.R.S. is an independent organization with branches in various cities this book has Chambers teaming up with an otherwise all different S.T.A.R.S. team to investigate Umbrella shenanigans in Maine of all places. But it doesn't have a lot of action or traditional zombies in it compared to the first book. An interesting time capsule and curiosity but not much more.


What about you guys? I know some of you must have read the (imo very lackluster to put it kindly) "Belmont Legacy" at least.

[Aridale]

well 2 of my fav books have games based on them does that count?

[Kale]

Tsukihime...

Absolutely amazing stuff imo.

Though the "game" is more like a book than a game.

[Shiroi Koumori]

I've read all of the AssCreed novels (Renaissance, Brotherhood, The Secret Crusade, Revelations, Forsaken and Black Flag) that came out. I loved the Ezio and Altair parts (novels 1-4). Forsaken and Black Flag were so-so for me. I think that is because the author is a specialist in the Italian Renaissance era and those last two periods are very different (American Revolution and the Age of Piracy). I have to admit that I haven't played the games (I need someone to donate a console for me), but I have read some comments on the webs saying that the novels gave a much deeper understanding of the characters and the secret of their motivations that were not touched/mentioned by the main games.

Revelations was the most memorable one for me since it mentioned things that are not in the game like

(click to show/hide)

how Ezio proposed to Sofia (I was giddy after reading that) and his plans after that made Claudia flip! Plus the whole transcript (I think) of Embers is there too, including that beautiful letter that still makes me emotional up til now. /sob

So far, I haven't gotten my hands on the AssCreed comic books cause even the novels need massive amounts of searching across numerous bookstores just to get my hands on them.

I do recommend them, even for people who have no idea what AssCreed is.

[EisaKrieger]

I never bothered with Street Fighter comics except for #1 of a series I later heard turned out pretty bad.  Udon's might be good but never looked much at them.  I collected their Darkstalkers series instead which seemed to abruptly end with no conclusion after only 6 issues.

Reminds me, there's a song by the post punk band Double Dagger about how they miss when the text was drawn by the artists in comics rather than printed in a uniform font no matter how comic looking.  It's "Comic Book Lettering" on this album.

The Darkstalkers just had printed lettering but at least the word bubbles where transparent.

[EisaKrieger]

I do recommend them, even for people who have no idea what AssCreed is.

It's not an even crappier incarnation of that crappy band Creed is it?

Just kidding.  Assassin's Creed is obviously the subject.