So it’s been in the news recently that the BBC want to create videogames based on their existing TV franchises. I’m going to come out on a limb and tell you that all of the games are going to be terrible. In the most likely circumstances, they’ll sell well, but be terrible overall, and at best will just be ripoffs of games currently in the market. Now, I’m not entirely open to this idea, but I’m also not entirely against that idea, too. After all, games openly rip each other off, or take ideas from what’s working best in the industry right now, and for some of the games, it could work a lot better.

So, below, I will list some shows that they’ll probably try and sell off to license for games, and how to get the best out of them:

Top Gear
Obviously, this is going to be a racing game of some kind. Annnd, that’s all there really is to it. You will race cars, most likely by yourself, on the same course over and over again, but with different cars. Oh, and you’ll also make some jokes that basically never deviate from “One’s slow, one’s short, and the other one is an egotistical wanker”. And there’s that guy who has the mask and no personality, so is suddenly a better character than everyone else on the show.

I apologise to those offended by that statement, but I’d like to say that I’m not a car person, and I’m not a massive fan of the show, and I don’t exactly want to sit here and praise something I dislike, just so people don’t hate me. I can watch the show and enjoy it, but I don’t think it’s anywhere near as good as people make it out to be. Sorry.

Obviously, one of the big draws of the Top Gear show are the challenges and tasks they get set, for example, racing to an airport in a variety of transportation, or racing across the channel in car that floats. So therefore, it stands to reason that if the game got made, it should have as many of those as possible. In fact, make the bulk of the game that, have a “Create a Challenge” mode as a main focus, and encourage the players to create their own inane challenges to race off against their friends at home or online. And if you’re uninterested in all the challenges? Well, have fun driving around that same track over and over again.

Summary: Think LittleBigPlanet’s level/challenge creation meets Gran Turismo/Forza meets the only 4 jokes on the show.

Doctor Who
An obvious candidate for a BBC Game. Sci-Fi, plenty of backstory, lots of humour, and is for the most part, pretty well written with strong characterisation and puzzles, and overall grips your attention. Until Catherine Tate ruined it.

Say, do you know what genre lends itself well to lots of writing, backstory, humour, and for the most part is well written, with strong characterisation and puzzles? It’s our good friend, the point and click genre!

So, what I’m proposing is that Doctor Who would probably lend itself terribly to any other genre, and I think the BBC will want something closer to the source material than Doctor Who Karting or Trauma Centre: Doctor Who Edition (which admittedly, would be awesome), so it only makes way too much sense for Doctor Who to be made into a Point and Click game. Made by Telltale Games. Episodically. Think about it: Telltale have bought back the Point and Click, know how to make episodic games, and already proved they can handle British material by taking on Wallace and Gromit last year. Let’s get to it! Allons-y!

Summary: Make it into a comic episodic point and click by Telltale Games. No Catherine Tate.

Spooks
A show was fantastically well done, with great writing, mostly great acting, clever storylines that span the season, and shock entrances and exits, making for a compelling, almost gritty Spy show. Until the latest series.

While it’s prime material for a game, it’s not entirely necessary for it to follow it that strictly. In fact, this is a show that could have great potential as a game. You could have some missions primarily stealth, like Metal Gear Solid or Hitman, then some missions could mix it up with shooting, and so forth. Then, you’d have Heavy Rain style sequences for when engaged in intense fights, hostage situations, computer hacking, or pointlessly reasoning with the terrorists (which works way more than it should). Plus, take further cues from Heavy Rain by having the plot branch a lot more depending on what decisions you make and having some character’s deaths permanent in the game. It’d make the game a lot more interesting, the English version of 24: The Game. But Good.
Summary: Metal Gear Solid/Hitman meets Heavy Rain.
But Englisher.

Strictly Come Dancing (On Ice)

I don’t know much about this show, because I’m not a complete loser who is drawn in by excessive singing and dancing on TV (I’m mostly looking at you, female demographic who don’t read my blog), but I’ve been reliably informed that it involves celebrities dancing with professional dancers, and trying to win a public vote of some kind. Now, I wouldn’t even attempt to say anything about this, except I can’t think of any way for them to make a half decent game out of it. Because you can’t. At all. There will be literally no loss for the BBC if they make a crappy casual game that appeals to casuals and morons, because the idea doesn’t lend itself to a good game, but you know that no one who cares about good games would actually buy the game or enjoy it. No matter what they did, they couldn’t do wrong, it’s Win-Win.

Summary: Why should you even care?

Eastenders
Okay. In the interests of not appearing too hateful (though I am), I will decline to say much about this Soap series. However, I know it’s popular, and it would be a good idea for the BBC to license it out as a videogame of some kind. However, it’d be a difficult thing to portray as a game that’d be in any way half decent. So, I thought about it for a few seconds, and decided, why not make it some kind of MMO/Sims hybrid? In Single player, you could have the town, do all the storylines and create your own and live out the lives of your favourite characters on the show. Or, you could ruin their lives, make everything worse for them, and just be an evil dick, just like the Sims!

Then, online, you can create your own character, and live out life as a fictional character on the show, take part in “quests”, and hang out with other people online and interact with other fans of the show.

Until you’re hunted down and culled from civilisation. Like you should be.

Summary: Sims/MMO Hybrid that’ll act as an indicator for people who need to be removed from society.

So there you have it: 5 shows from the BBC that could be made into videogames, and how to do it. I’ll just be taking all the credit if any of these do eventually get made, and also any money or fancy job offers that come my way as a result of being a creative gaming genius. And if not? Well, at least I put more effort into the ideas than the eventual makers would

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