Franchise Games We’d Like to See – Firefly

I’ll be 100% honest with you.  I’m totally watching Firefly right now, as I write this article.  Such a rich universe, interesting characters and amazing balance between action and comedy, the short-lived cult hit TV series Firefly and it’s cinematic companion Serenity completely blew me away when I first encountered them.  It never occurred to me whether or not they would make a good video game until just now, as I sat down to write my latest blog.  In that spirit, here is the first in (hopefully) a series of articles I like to call “Franchise Games We’d Like to See”.

**disclaimer – I realize that one of these articles may be posted after an announcement of an actual game coming out in the future.  In that case, I don’t care.

Just in case you thought it gets better than this... it doesn't.

Joss Whedon’s space drama is potentially the most viable for a video game, perhaps even more so than proven franchises such as Star Wars.  Humankind has colonized the galaxy from Earth, and since degenerated into a Wild West on a new frontier.  Before we left Earth, our society became more homogenized – basically, the USA and China became the w0rld’s two major superpowers and after (maybe) hundreds of years, American (not English, American) and Mandarin are the two prominent languages; as a matter of fact, pretty much everyone is bilingual, although Mandarin is usually reserved for curses.  So when we colonized the galaxy, we terraformed the planets and settled in.  Except the outer planets, with inferior terraforming and technology, wanted to remain independent colonies from the central planets, who had formed the Alliance.  A civil war ensues, and the Independents lose.  But the outer systems remain relatively lawless except under the heavy hand of the Alliance military.  So we have our good guys, our bad guys, and – wait.  There’s more bad guys.  The Reavers – psychotic space cannibals who are like futuristic Vikings on PCP.  Bonus.  So I guess we have room for more than one faction, with a common enemy.  That’s good cake.

She may not look like much kid, but she's got it where it counts.

So what I’d like to examine second is what kind of game Firefly would translate best into.  Some franchises lend themselves better to first person shooters, others to 3rd person adventure games and some even to racing systems.  I think Firefly would be best approached from the perspective of Mass Effect or a similar RPG.  A crew of space pirates, sharing the spoils of war and crime as they fly throughout space under the radar of the Alliance (think Galactic Empire Lite).  As a matter of fact, I think that the Mass Effect engine would require little to no modification to accommodate the Firefly universe.  That Firefly doesn’t have as many straight-up combat and war situations as Mass Effect doesn’t really matter – the game would have to be relatively combat heavy – got to keep it interesting, right?  The only other alternative I can really think of would be an MMORPG, but for simplicity’s sake, let’s keep this on a console level.

The Wild West in space. Without Will Smith. It's not all bad.

So if you’re going to play, what do you want to play as? A backwater smuggler (cough-Han Solo-cough), or a hardened veteran hiring his gun out to a team of brigands? Maybe an ace pilot, an engineer, or simply a rogue trying to make his way in the world (uh, galaxy)?  This franchise could offer a wide variety of characters to play, and an immersive and rich universe to play them in.  So hopefully, with class and without losing any dignity…

Please, please, please make a Firefly game!

Cheers.

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On Friday night, my girlfriend and her friend dragged me out to see Serenity; the movie version of Firefly, a short lived sci-fi TV show that aired for part of a season back in 2002.

Written and Directed by Joss Whedon, Serenity is a sort of cowboys in outer space action movie, except with zombies.
It follows the dysfunctional crew of outlaws who cruise through space smuggling and stealing ever since they found themselves on the losing side of a civil war with the authoritarian Alliance.

Serenity is the name of the ship they cruise around in, a sort of Millennium Falcon for the new generation that?s always threatening to either explode or fall out of the sky.

Needless to say, I had reservations.

It?s been a few years since I saw Star Trek: Nemesis, and after that debacle, I would be happy if I never saw another sci-fi TV show turned movie again.

Moreover, since TV show was prematurely cancelled, and diehard fans and DVD sales had brought it back from the brink, I wasn?t looking forward to braving the fanatics on opening night.

I?ve heard unconfirmed reports of diehards buying multiple copies of the DVD set either for themselves or as gifts for friends, hoping to inflate overall sales.

As it turns out, my girlfriend was one such fan, although, I assure you, much unbeknownst to me when we started dating.

Before seeing the movie, she sat me down and had me watch a few episodes, and I?ll admit, the show had promise; it really is a shame it was cancelled, but c?est la vie.
For anyone who doesn?t know Whedon (who wrote and directed the original TV series) was also the creative mind behind Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Angel.

And say what you will about those two shows, the episodes that Whedon actually wrote (as opposed to the ones he farmed out to other writers) are also pretty good.

As it turns out, Serenity is better than decent.

It has several major problems; Serenity?s plot runs a bit thin in parts, for example.

However, Whedon?s genius is not for his plotlines.
In Firefly, for example, he creates different dialects for each of his characters, depending on their lineage, vocation, and which planet they were born on.

Mal, the captain of Serenity, speaks in a fusion of bluegrass twang, and mandarin.

Another character, Simon Tam, who grew up on a more sophisticated planet, speaks with perfect grammar and diction.

In both cases, the character creation is complete. Everything they do, everything they say, and even the way they carry themselves is coloured by their character.

Unlike in so many other movies, I never found myself saying, ?That doesn?t fit with his character,? for anyone.
At the same time, Whedon has a penchant for one-liners, and while I usually resent the cheapness and superficiality of one-liners, he makes them work.

For that reason, the dialogue is always worth listening to, and you sometimes find yourself questioning whether it?s really a sci-fi movie you?re watching, as opposed to a comedy.

Hardcore fans will probably quibble over technical details, and complain about the necessary exposition that makes the film accessible to regular moviegoers ? this much I know, because my girlfriend was making such comments as we walked out of the theatre.

However, I think in the end this will satisfy both mainstream audiences and diehard fans alike.
Moreover, the movie takes things up a notch from the TV show.

Without spoiling anything, not everyone makes it out alive, including some of the people who lived through the whole TV show.

If for nothing else, check it out for the space-zombies.
Never heard of that one before? Yeah, they?re space-zombies and they?re pretty crazy.

I think they call them Reavers, but they?ll always be space-zombies to me.

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