Can anything be darker than crime noir? Try a series of video games based on the Sin City comic book series that was just announced by Jackass the Game developer Red Mile Entertainment. They have acquired the rights for an exclusive “multi-year, worldwide license” to develop and publish games based on the series. The financial details of the transaction are not known, but it’s likely to tie in with the second film that’s also based on the comic book series.
The Sin City comic series was created by Frank Miller and first published back in 1991 by Dark Horse. The series tells the tales of the residents of Basin City (otherwise known as Sin City) where violent crime rates are high and the police routinely wear full-body armor. A movie adaptation co-directed by Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller, and starring Bruce Willis and Jessica Alba, was released in 2005. Filming for the sequel, Sin City 2, is due to start next month.
Red Mile’s CEO, Chester Aldridge, commented on the deal, “Sin City enjoys a broad and devoted following. Its crime noir settings, richly detailed characters, hyper-real action sequences, and engaging stories provide an outstanding groundwork for video games.”
As Virtualreality points out, the Sin City comic book series has all the elements that anti-video game advocates crave for: sex, drugs and lots of graphic violence. So it’ll be interesting to see if the game developer will keep that in mind and walk the fine line between an M for Mature or an AO for Adults Only rating. My guess would be they’d shoot for a similar rating the movie went for, T for Teen.
Hopefully they can get the same atmosphere as the movie:
Update February 2009: Sin City: The Game, which is set for a 2012 release, may be canceled completely. To quote: “We anticipate needing an additional $10,000,000 to finance our planned operations over the next 24 to 36 months,” said publisher Red Mile in a 10-Q filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. “We will be unable to complete development of Heroes Over Europe and Sin City: The Game (working title), or publish any other additional games if we are unable to receive co-publishing advances on both the foregoing titles or raise additional capital through either sale of securities or issuance of debt. […] We are also developing Sin City: The Game (working title) and currently in the process of negotiating revisions to the license agreement. If we can raise sufficient funds to continue operations, we expect to ship this game in fiscal 2012.”