Games and novels??

Setun

Found a copy of a Halo novel (yes, a Halo novel)at the ol' workplace there a few days ago. Curious, I opened a few random pages and started reading - absolutely awful. I cringed so much my face hurt.
Has anyone else read any game-licensed novels? Just wondering are they all miserable and blatant cash-ins on a popular series or are they ever any good?

Shryke

Halo novels are meant to be some of the best game to novel adaptions. I haven't read any and don't plan to. I'd advise you to steer well clear.

Setun

Sandor wrote:

Halo novels are meant to be some of the best game to novel adaptions. I haven't read any and don't plan to. I'd advise you to steer well clear.

The best? really?

Wasn't really planning on reading any tbh, just intrigued to find out if they're all written by the kind of people who think Vin Diesel is the best thing that happened to modern cinema.

Retr0gamer

The Halo fans will tell you they are great. I imagine they are pure ****e.

KdjaCL

I bought the SF2 novel (had 4 pages or so) years ago for about a tenner from an english mailorder company, took 8 weeks to get here. The next week it was free in a SNES magazine.

Never again.


kdjac

johnny_ultimate

KdjaCL wrote:

I bought the SF2 novel (had 4 pages or so) years ago for about a tenner from an english mailorder company, took 8 weeks to get here. The next week it was free in a SNES magazine.

Never again.


kdjac

I can imagine Street Fighter translating well to fiction format, what with the great plot and all.
"And with that, Ryu used his special manouvere on Ken, counterracted immediatedly with a dragonball. Ryu then suddenly felt possessed by a higher power pressing buttons randomly"

Sarky

I read the novelisation of Planescape: Torment.

It's f*cking disgraceful. I nearly cried tears of blood for how terribly dire and piss-poor it was.

A Halo novel being crap is really no surprise to me.

Crucifix

I read the novelisation of Resident Evil 2. It was fairly bad, but I enjoyed it anyway.

Branoic

johnny_ultimate wrote:

I can imagine Street Fighter translating well to fiction format

Hey! The Street Fighter movie rocked!

thelordofcheese

i had a few "choose your own adventure" style books with sonic and mario in them (seperate books, not together) and i remember the sonic ones being quite good, the mario ones less so.

Also, i'm fairly certain i saw a novel of doom in a bookshop way back in the day, i can only assume it was ass-tacular

Rhyme

The Resi novels are nothing but glorified fan fictions but enjoyable enough if you're a fan... which i am.

The editions based on games aren't all that bad, but the standalone Resi books are brutal... think T-Virus dinosaurs and Rebecca Chambers serving a function :eek:

I read a few pages of one of the Halo novels and I wanted to gouge my eyes out. It read like it was written by an illiterate six year old suffering from severe ADD.

The Freeman

johnny_ultimate wrote:

I can imagine Street Fighter translating well to fiction format, what with the great plot and all.
"And with that, Ryu used his special manouvere on Ken, counterracted immediatedly with a dragonball. Ryu then suddenly felt possessed by a higher power pressing buttons randomly"

lol:D

Dr Bob

The Warcraft /WoW ones are actually quite readable.
Theres an ominubus edition knockng about at the moment with 3-4 novels for a bout 12 quid.

Setun

Deleted User wrote:

I read a few pages of one of the Halo novels and I wanted to gouge my eyes out. It read like it was written by an illiterate six year old suffering from severe ADD.

What's worse is that it's a Halo novel trilogy. That means that someone thought that the first one was good enough to warrant two sequels. :eek:

Pyr0

There's a novel on the Dawn of War game based aound the Blood Angels Afaik. But I have to say the Warhammer 40k books have to be the most enjoyable books I've ever read.

Brow

I've read the Resident Evil ones. They were alright but nothing major. Some cringing moments but they were good back in the day.

Squall

Pyr0 wrote:

There's a novel on the Dawn of War game based aound the Blood Angels Afaik. But I have to say the Warhammer 40k books have to be the most enjoyable books I've ever read.

Agreed.... Gaunts Ghosts and Space Wolves were both very enjoyable series

Back on topic..

A friend of mine recently read the City of Heroes novels. They have the back story of some of main heros and villains I think.

He seemed to think they were pretty good

Pugsley

Pyr0 wrote:

There's a novel on the Dawn of War game based aound the Blood Angels Afaik.

Cant really call them Dawn of War books, more Warhammner 40k books, but indeed they are absolutely fantastic reads.

Pyr0

There is actually one called Dawn of War and based on the story line of the game I think, haven't read it myself just noticed it in Waterstones in Jervis and Gamesworkshop.

Rabies

Daddio wrote:

Found a copy of a Halo novel (yes, a Halo novel)at the ol' workplace there a few days ago. Curious, I opened a few random pages and started reading - absolutely awful. I cringed so much my face hurt.
Has anyone else read any game-licensed novels? Just wondering are they all miserable and blatant cash-ins on a popular series or are they ever any good?

Was it like reading the same chapter over and over again?

mcgovern

There is a Mass Effect novel out on Tuesday.

TheAlmightyArse

Sarky wrote:

I read the novelisation of Planescape: Torment.

It's f*cking disgraceful. I nearly cried tears of blood for how terribly dire and piss-poor it was.

There's a free alternative Torment novel out there, with entire passages lifted from the game's text and borne of one man's sobbing fury over the official novel.

In the Halo novel, did they use a font that's needlessly difficult to read for the Warthog bits?

Pugsley

Pyr0 wrote:

There is actually one called Dawn of War and based on the story line of the game I think, haven't read it myself just noticed it in Waterstones in Jervis and Gamesworkshop.

Actually come to think of it there was a book made about the space marines chapter relic made up for dawn of war (blood ravens or something?), haven't read it though so I'm not sure if it follows the actual dawn of war story though.

Setun

Rabies wrote:

Was it like reading the same chapter over and over again?

Nope, more like the same paragraph again, and again, and again, ad infinitum ad nauseum. It's about as entertaing as grazing your shin off a cinderblock.

And now to find out what odd colleague reads such tripe.

johnny_ultimate

Rabies wrote:

Was it like reading the same chapter over and over again?

I see what you did there, and I laughed out loud as a result

humanji

Squall wrote:

A friend of mine recently read the City of Heroes novels. They have the back story of some of main heros and villains I think.

I think the writers of that also took some of the characters created by players and put them into those novels, which would be pretty cool reading about your own little adventures (although with me it'd be pretty tiring reading about me getting my ass whooped every 10 minutes.

I remember years ago I read the novel of Doom. It was pretty good, but then again, I was young and impressionable. But I'm pretty sure it was better than the film.

Spunge

I read a resident evil book, which was basically a novel of the resi 1 game,
I also read baldurs gate and planescape torment.
They were all pretty bad.

Robert ninja

I think The Darkness is based on a graphic novel or a comic.