Top 10 Terrible Videogame Novelizations

The idea of novels based on videogames seems like a great idea on paper: take the pulse-pounding action of an interactive firefight and turn it into homework. Because when Mrs. Vanbiesbrouck demands a book report, who wants to read something not related to Halo? Not me, I’ll tell you that much. If a book doesn’t have the Master Chief, I won’t read it. And if I absolutely have to read it, I’ll write him in. And if I don’t have a marker, I’ll imagine him. That’s why books are great: They take us to a world of imagination where Tom Sawyer gets a laser cannon to the face.

Trying to make me paint a fence white? I’m the Master Chief, son!

At their best, videogame novels are light fluff that allow gamers to take their favorite characters to the bathroom. While no one’s giving a Pulitzer to “Warcraft: Lord of the Clans” (suck it, Christie Golden!), there’s nothing that wrong with wanting to know more about your favorite game world. Even I’ve occasionally wondered if Diablo would continue to be evil (spoiler alert: he totally will!).

At their worst, videogame novels read like a twelve-year-old transcribed a FAQ while slipping in his own fan-fiction. Needing more setup than “You’re a spy and Fox Hound is bad,” bad videogame novels tend to slow down the action while sucking out the connection players feel for their avatars. Once gameplay is removed, videogames that once seemed like great science-fiction stories, spy thrillers, or fantasy adventures turn out to be hollow husks of archetypes and cliches.

Terribly written, terribly paced, and terribly adapted — here are the top 10 terrible videogame novelizations.

10. “Planescape: Torment” by Ray and Valerie Vallese

Full disclosure: Planescape: Torment is my favorite videogame of all time.

In my opinion, its story — a nameless man suffering for actions he committed in previous lifetimes — is the epitome of what can be done with interactive storytelling. By remaining nameless and without memory, the scarred lead character is an empty vessel that the player can fill with any idea, thought, or action. While The Nameless One was once a scoundrel, a thief, a wizard, and a general, in this current life, he is the player.

Thus, after a five-alarm nerdgasm for the game, I rushed out and bought the novelization. I was young then. I didn’t know developers just merchandized properties for money. 9/11 hadn’t happened yet and I thought true love was real.

The novel sucked.

While it’s not nearly as bad as the rest of the books on this list, it turned an interesting premise into no premise at all: They name The Nameless One. In what amounts to picking the “I stay home and do homework” option in a choose your own adventure novel, writers Ray and Valerie Vallese thought the best option for a mysterious protagonist would be to give him a set identity that no one could relate to.

Fans hated this novelization so much they actually did their own adaptation .

It also sucks.

9. “Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within” by Dean Wesley Smith, Alan Reinert, Jeff Vintar, and Hironobu Sakaguomi

If you ever doubt your future as a writer, always remember when there was a crappy novel based on a crappy movie based on the crappiest parts of a videogame series.

Maybe you can someday be Dean Wesley Smith, Alan Reinert, or Jeff Vintar. But you’ll never be Hironobu Sakaguomi. You’re not that lucky.

8. “The Myst Reader” by David Wingrove, Robyn Miller, and Rand Miller

Remember that moment when you first saw Myst? The beautiful rendered landscapes that looked unlike anything ever seen in a videogame before? The soft, atmospheric sounds? The detailed rooms just begging for exploration?

Remember seeing them and thinking, “This would be so much better as a book?”

The Myst novels are essentially long-winded descriptions of postcards. Since the core of the game is exploration of a beautiful landscape, writer David Wingrove and game creators / co-writers Robyn Miller and Rand Miller justify their novel by painstakingly (and painfully) describing everything.

Oh my God:

Atrus reached out and picked up the brass cooking pot he had been examining earlier, pleased by its symmetry, by the way the double pans — top and bottom linked by four strong brass spindles — like all the cooking implements in Age Five, were designed to cope with water which, when heated, rose into the air.

Here’s how you can write the sentence in a novel where fans don’t expect everything to be a Hyperlink slideshow: “Atrus picked up the pot. He liked it.”

7. “King’s Quest: See No Weevil” by Kenyon Morr

“King’s Quest: See No Weevil” makes this list for two reasons.

First, “See No Weevil?” Really? What, did you think of the title first? How about “King’s Quest: An Unbearable Problem With Bears?” Or “King’s Quest: Foxy Valanice is Turned into a Fox, Get It?”

Second, this is the penultimate title in the entire King’s Quest franchise, the last being King’s Quest: Mask of Eternity. This book murdered the series and Mask Of Eternity pooped in its skull. What was once a bright spot in the computer gaming world turned into a generic fantasy setting filled with annoying princesses and generic heroes. Or, as it’s better known, Everquest.

As for the story, Rosella, the Jar Jar Binks of the King’s Quest universe, is forced to watch over Daventry when Graham and Valanice leave town. Hilarity ensues because Rosella is a teenaged girl and, well, you know teenaged girls!

Let me repeat that: The last novel in the King’s Quest series is literally about the most beloved characters leaving the most hated character alone to do whatever she wants. It’s sort of like how my favorite episodes of “Star Trek” were the ones where Wesley Crusher went sweater shopping.

6. “Hellgate: London: Exodus” by Mel Odom

I feel sort of bad for the novels based on Hellgate: London. You can see how a post-apocalyptic fantasy action-RPG from some of the guys who’d made Diablo would seem like a sure thing. Too bad the game was all but broken, the gameplay generic, and the fan support nonexistent.

Like the game itself, the book is bristling with excitement wrapped in unoriginal ideas. Even Mel Odom’s writing betrays a sort of misplaced confidence in the game world:

That one had looked like a snail, but it had been three feet tall and equipped with a tongue capable of striking over a distance of ten feet. The tongue-strike carried lethal toxins. The Cabalists still didn’t know the proper name, but they were calling them Death Darts at the present.

5. “StarCraft: Nova” by Keith R. A. DeCandido

I know what Keith R. A. DeCandido was trying to do with “StarCraft: Nova.” He wanted to flesh out the world of StarCraft by adding real people who live and work in Blizzard’s universe.

Did it work? Let’s see.

Two people were standing around [Nova]. Nova clung to their thoughts as if they were a lifeline. The woman was named Dorian and was a housecleaner for folks in the middle-class neighborhood of Sookdar’s Point — people who had enough money so as not to have to live in the Gutter, but not enough to afford automated housecleaning. And had just come from her favorite client, the Frieds, who always left out cookies for her when she came to clean.

Oh, the Frieds! I love them! They’re the best! I bet they have a pack of kids and a robot dog and a where the hell are the Zerg and the Protoss? They’re nowhere in this novel. There are no aliens. No aliens. None. Zero.

But it’s filled with badass weapons and nuclear attacks, right?

Yeah, no. None of that either. Spoiler alert: Nova spends most of the novel getting mad and almost crying, but not crying because she’s strong.

The fact that this is the replacement for a StarCraft console game is just cruel. Instead of a science-fiction espionage thriller from a company physically incapable of making bad games, we got a novel where half the protagonist’s motivation was feeding a cat. It’s not even a space cat or a Zerg cat. Just a cat.

You can almost hear Chris Metzen mocking readers with his introduction:

So, while we might not be seeing StarCraft: Ghost as a videogame anytime soon, we will definitely be following Nova’s continued adventures through novels like this one. Enjoy! I hope y’all dig it!

4. “Worlds Of Power: Mega Man 2″ by F.X. Nine

In the late 1980s, a man named F.X. Nine (I assume it was a man; could have been a rogue computer) watched some kids play Nintendo for a few minutes. Based on his thorough experiences he wrote novels that had almost nothing to do with the games themselves.

While some are almost incoherent (”Blaster Master”) and some are entirely pointless (”Bases Loaded II: Second Season”) the worst of the bunch was “Mega Man 2.”

Keep in mind, this was before Capcom tried to shoehorn a real plot onto the series. This was a time when most videogame sequels’ stories were, “That thing that happened earlier is now happening again, but more so.”

Still, that didn’t keep F.X. from creating literary passages such as:

When Dr. Light first created Mega Man, he hadn’t intended to make a superhero. Mega Man was originally created as a tool-using robot. He was small, but the best tool-using robot ever made.

As a kid I remembered how odd that sounded. He was a tool-using robot? What does that even mean? Like, he can hammer stuff? It doesn’t sound like Mega Man even has the tools with him. It seems like he can be given tools, which he’ll be an expert in using. You know, tools. Those things that humans have absolutely no trouble using.

But for the best tool-using robot ever, he does have trouble understanding doors.

Mega Man looked around. He was in another room now, a room with nine doors — or hatches really — leading out of it.

I’m almost to Dr. Wiley! I just need to go through that door! Well, hatch. No, door. Or is it a hatch? Oh boy. Dr. Light? Dr. Light, it’s Mega Man. Can you see through my tool-using vision? You can? Great. Hey, is that a door or a hatch I’m looking at? Sure, I can wait.

3. “Resident Evil: Nemesis” by S.D. Perry

A lot of videogame novels start with the author writing a short love letter about the game. It’s usually pretty nice: The authors are fans and want to say how much of an honor it was to work on an adaptation of the series.

S.D. Perry does something a little different at the beginning of “Resident Evil: Nemesis:”

Author’s Note: Faithful readers of the series may notice time and/or character discrepancies between the books and the games (or the books and the books for that matter).

What?

You’re not even trying, S.D.

I’m not a canon freak when it comes to any game series, but never start your Resident Evil novel with, “A lot of stuff in here won’t match up with anything you’ve ever read about Resident Evil before so don’t write me your nerd e-mails telling me I got something wrong because I don’t care.”

2. “Metal Gear Solid” by Raymond Benson

Somehow the novelization of Metal Gear Solid is even more ridiculous than the game. While the story remains largely the same, author Raymond Benson was sure to keep Snake as badass as possible.

“Do your worst, you circus freak!” Snake shouted as he zigzagged through the room. “Did they leave your cage in the sideshow unlocked, Mantis? Don’t you miss living with the geeks?”

Ooooooooooh. Snake’s 13. See, I didn’t know that. I thought he was a grown-ass man, not a nerd trying not to cry when a bully pushes him.

Of course, not all the crap is saved for Snake. The narrator also gets down and dirty with the sucking:

Cyborg Ninja attacked, with the high-frequency sword spearheading the lunge at Snake as if it had been launched by a powerful bow.

True, true. The sword was fast, as if it were launched by a bow. Okay. Or maybe it was fast like it was swung by a ninja.

“Hey, my new Pontiac is fast.”

“Like it was launched by a powerful bow?”

“You know it, buddy!”

“Let’s go pick up some chicks.”

“High-five!”

“Ow! You high-fived me too fast. As if your hand were launched by a powerful bow!”

1. “Doom: Knee Deep in the Dead” by Dafydd ab Hugh and Brad Linaweaver

To be honest, it’s hard to say if “Doom: Knee Deep In The Dead” by Dafydd ab Hugh and Brad Linaweaver is the worst videogame novel ever written… or the best. At the very least, I enjoy writing the title.

“Doom: Knee Deep in the Dead” by Dafydd ab Hugh and Brad Linaweaver, Esq. ranks number-one because of its absurd, almost Harry Stephen Keeler-esque writing style. For a novel based on a game where cyber demons invade Mars, the writers of “Doom: Knee Deep in the Dead” by Dafydd ab Hugh and Sir Brad Linaweaver over-explain every non-important detail with such care, you can’t help but wonder if they’re actually messing with you.

Pulitzer-winning passage:

In the Marines, you spend eternity so bored you’d look forward to your own court-martial as a break in the tedium. Then an unexpected danger with huge, jagged edges comes rolling over all the set routines, a reminder that the universe is a dangerous place.

That’s not after the demons attack, guys. It’s way early in the book. That’s how the authors foreshadow.

And if that doesn’t convince you to pick up “Doom: Knee Deep in the Dead” by Dafydd ab Hugh and Brad Linaweaver, Jr., how about the most beautiful, understated line in videogame novel history?

Funny thing is, I always hoped I’d go into space one day… but not like this.

Honorable Mention: “Pipe Down! (Nintendo Adventure Books, Featuring the Super Mario Bros. No. 5)” by Clyde Bosco

I couldn’t actually get my hands on this masterpiece. Without reading the Amazon summary, I’m guessing it’s about Mario & Luigi trying to avoid playing basketball with Princess Toadstool because of toxic sludge in the gym / boiler room / pipe organ.

On the other hand, they could be sneaking up on her while she works out. So that’s also something that could be going on here. – Gamespy