Sometimes your favorite book gets turned into a movie. This experience is both thrilling and terrifying at the same time. Will they get the characters right? How are they going to transfer the relationships on screen? Are the characters going to go to the x, y, z place in the movie or will it be forgotten? Will they include all the gambling scenes? Are they going to show how the characters gamble online in a casino like the Meridian Kazino? They have to keep up with the times after all, right? Will they keep the plot? Will they go in a completely different direction?
These questions are also asked by gamers who enjoy books as well when their favorite series or franchise is placed on paper. Sometimes, books are able to piece together the rest of the material. Other times, they are there to feed our need to get immersed into the world of the game, regardless of the most popular characters in the series. So, here are some of my picks for the books that came from games that you should check out. For this list, I have decided to not include Richard Knaak’s work, as they are discussed in greater detail in other posts. Sit back and enjoy these three titles.
Ico: Castle In The Mist
Let me start by saying that I adore Shadow of the Colossus and I have thoroughly enjoyed its predecessor, Ico. While the game features breathtaking visuals and audio, creating a sense of longing, loss, and adventure, Miyuki Miyabe has done a truly remarkable job with putting her own interpretation of the series mythos. The novel is not canon and just as well – we all have our own ideas what happened in the Ico Series, as well as whether the stories are all connected. If you’ve played the game, and even if you haven’t, put this on your reading list.
Mass Effect Series
The first three novels of the series are written by Drew Karpyshyn. The first book, Revelation, sets the stage for the Mass Effect universe – it follows the story before the first game. The second book’s timeline’s located a couple for months after the ending of the first game. The third book in the series deals with the plans of the Illusive Man. There are four more books, but I enjoyed Karypshyn’s take on the universe, especially since the fourth book, Deception, was such a disappointment. If you are looking for stories about Commander Shephard, you are in the wrong place – the books tell us more about the Mass Effect universe, the Andromeda Galaxy, and the Reapers.
Bioshock: Rapture
If you have played the original Bioshock, you are already familiar with Rapture, a utopia gone awry with scary constructs, psychotic creatures, and enhancements to the human body that help you survive in this underwater haven-turned-prison. The book shows us one step at a time where things went horribly wrong. You are going to find some of your favorite baddies here as some of them slowly descend into madness.
