Wild Pitch Wednesday – Death Wish: The Video Game

I haven’t cared about video game in quite some time.  I’m pretty sure that my interest in video games began to decline when a) cartridges were phased out for discs and b) when my younger cousins got good enough to beat me.  Regardless of how they’re marketed, video games are a young man’s game.  

But there are a few things that get me excited about video game.  I’m a sucker for a new Zelda game and I’m always willing to try a new Mario game.  And of course I loved the video game adaptations of both The Warriors and The Godfather. 

Of course my dream video game would be Death Wish. 

The awesome thing about both The Warriors and The Godfather video games is that they were fully entrenched in the world of the films.  

The Godfather was an open world action-adventure game (think the Grand Theft Auto franchise) that allowed you to play as a soldier for the Corleone family and work your way up.  As a fan of the film, it was dope explore that world and interact with those familiar characters.  Just thinking about it right now makes me want to play it. 

The Warriors wasn’t an open world action-adventure game, but it was just as dope as The Godfather.  Where The Warriors was just a beat ‘em up game, what it lacked in freedom it made up for depth.  Not only do you essentially play out the movie, but you also explore the origins of the gang and see how the various members joined up. 

I cannot express to you how much I love The Warriors video game.  To me, that’s the crowning achievement of video games as a medium.  Seriously, that game is the truth. 

So with those two game in mind, I think that the Death Wish video game should be like a melding of the two.  Because of the nature of the Death Wish franchise, you’ve got to sort of have the beat ‘em up elements, in order to be true to the source material.  But I also think it’d be dope to have it as an open world game too. 

Hear me out, this game has legs.

So you start out just like the movie.  You have Paul Kersey going about his daily business in Manhattan (not modern Manhattan, but de Blasio’s NewYork.)  Of course the tragedy befalls Paul’s wife and daughter.  Then you play as Paul when he goes out to Tucson and get his target shooting on (as the sort of training level.)  And from there you get to play out the film.  You get to clean up the streets of de Blasio’s New York.  How awesome would that be? 

Now here’s where it gets tricky; I don’t know enough about video games to figure out if you fit the entire Death Wish saga into one game or if you would spread it out over multiple games.  I’m guessing since it’s an open world game, you could probably work the New York chapters of the Death Wish saga (the odd numbered Death Wish films) and then do the L.A. chapters (Death Wish II and Death Wish 4) as a sequel. 

Then you can also have a final Death Wish video game, The Lost Years, which recounts Paul Kersey’s vigilante sprees in Chicago, Kansas City, incidents that are referenced in the films but never seen. 

Come on people!  Don’t you want to see this video game happen?  Does anyone have an connects in the video game industry?  I’ll totally write the story of the game on spec.  Just say the word. 

Thus ends another Wild Pitch Wednesday.