Top 10 Video Games That Should NEVER Be Adapted To Film

#10: “Super Mario Bros” series (1985-)

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They tried it once, and it turned out to be one of the worst films of all time. We think that’s a pretty big warning sign that the plumber from the Mushroom Kingdom shouldn’t go anywhere near a camera again. He may be the obvious choice if a studio decided they wanted to try their hand at a Nintendo Cinematic Universe, but Mario has always been about crazy and charming level designs and kicking the crap out of Bowser, all involving very little dialogue. Throw it on the big screen and chances are all you would get is CGI-filled mess about a stereotypical Italian trying to save a helpless damsel from a fire-breathing dinosaur.

#9: “The Elder Scrolls” series” (1994-)

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If you need an example of why a lore-filled fantasy world like Tamriel would fail then you need look no further than what happened with Warcraft. You could have the most dedicated director and writers on board, but there’s simply too much to be contained within a single flick. Where would you begin? Go straight into Skyrim? Okay, but that would still involve giving exposition on the history, various races and numerous factions, and that’s even before they figure out how to give a unique personality to the Dragonborn. As much as we would like to see a live-action version, the Elder Scrolls is simply too vast to even attempt it.

#8: “Metroid” series (1986-)

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Samus Aran became an icon of gaming for a variety of reasons. First and foremost being a badass female character, who was all about singlehandedly taking down Space Pirates and saving the galaxy without saying a word. You might be able to throw enough money at it to create some of the epic fight scenes against the likes of Ridley and Mother Brain, but it’s almost guaranteed that they would mess up when it came to Samus herself. Heck, even Nintendo tried to go a little more in-depth with her character and as a result we got Other M! You can only imagine the damage a clueless studio executive could cause.

#7: “Metal Gear Solid” series (1988-)

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So this one is actually happening, and we don’t exactly have high hopes for it. First of all, Snake’s bread and butter is the immersive stealth sections, something that you just can’t recreate in live action without making it seem silly. Then you have the immense amount of backstory regarding Snake and Big Boss, followed by an entire lecture’s worth of information regarding how real-life history plays a part in the narrative. However the biggest reason why we have no hope for an adaptation is the fact that Hideo Kojima is no longer attached to the Metal Gear Solid property. Without his input, there’s no way any film could do this beloved game series justice.

Above all else, this series has always been about the various puzzles that players are presented with. It’s a constant game of trial and error with the Portal gun providing a brilliant mechanic that keeps things fresh. But if you put that in cinematic form then you run the risk of making the tests come off as mundane, or just plain boring, since you’d have one silent woman on screen moving from room to room for 60 minutes. Even if they pulled out all the stops and brought back Ellen McLain to voice GLaDOS, we still don’t think it would be enough to stop a movie adaption from falling flat.

#5: “Kingdom Hearts” series (2002-)

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In all honesty, this might just be downright impossible. Even if Disney pretty much controls everything, you’re still going to have a rather difficult time of trying to tell the story of Sora and his battle against the Heartless when you’re trying to cram in as many Disney icons as possible. Say you do somehow figure out a way to get every licensed character and their respected actors all one place, not only would visiting each world seem awfully jarring, but you’re going to have a lot of confused Disney fans wonder why Cloud Strife, Mulan and Donald Duck are all sharing the screen together. Not to mention bringing them up to speed on the convoluted storyline.

#4: “Grand Theft Auto” series (1997-)

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Whether it’s for the gripping story or losing yourself in the numerous side activities, what this particular franchise has going for it is that there’s just so much content that you can spend hours upon hours messing around and still have a blast. However, take away the gameplay and there’s nothing really substantial in the series to differentiate an adaptation from your average Crime Action film. We suppose you could try and copy the narratives from one of the games to serve as a foundation, but even then you would have to cut back on the character development and iconic moments just to save time. Truly any attempt at a live-action version would end up wasted.

#3: “The Legend of Zelda” series (1986-)

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We’re aware that many gamers would like to see this series on the silver screen, but lets not pretend to be blind to all the things that could go wrong with a film adaptation. The biggest issue of course is the concern of turning Link into a generic hero with a wooden personality, but there’s also the concern of misinterpreting Zelda as a feeble princess, turning Na’vi into crappy comic relief, ignoring the beauty of Hyrule, terribly forced dialogue, and finally totally bastardising the villainy of Ganondorf. And that’s just the start of all of our concerns.

#2: “Monster Hunter” series (2004-)

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You know Paul W.S Anderson? The man who inflicted us with those terrible Resident Evil films? Well he now has Monster Hunter in his sights as his next big adaptation, and already it sounds terrible. In an interview with Deadline, Anderson said he wants the story to; focus on a “Normal American”, who gets pulled into the Monster Hunter parallel universe, and eventually have the monsters invade our world to wreck havoc. Ok Stop right there! First of all: that’s “The Smurfs Movie”. Second: Why do you need to include parallel universes? Monster Hunter already has rich lore on it’s own, incorporating our world into the film just sounds like a very lazy adaptation for a quick buck.

#1: “Tetris” (1984)

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Threshold Entertainment is making this game into a film trilogy. I wish I was making that up. The video game about assembling falling blocks is going to be turned into three films with a multi-million dollar budget. We honestly don’t have the words for how bad this sounds. Who was asking for this? How could you possibly make this interesting? How do studios see this becoming the next big sci-fi franchise that will blow our minds? Then again consider that Larry Kasanoff, the same guy that brought us Foodfight is heading this project, we should probably know what to expect from the outcome.