Devil’s Island

A few days ago, I watched Battle Royale for the first time ever. If you haven’t seen it, I’ll give you a short spoiler free run-down of it: the citizens of Japan are living in fear of the country’s youth and so they all decide that the best way to deal with them is to pick a classroom full of them every so often, dump them on a deserted island off the coast of Japan and force them to fight to the death. They’ve got three days to bring the headcount from 42 to just 1, or the collars around their necks will explode and kill all of them.

I watched, with a combination of awe, disgust and intrigue, and thought about how it was unlike anything else I had ever seen. It was brutal, violent and surreal… and I loved every minute of it. Who would die next? And how? Did I mention that each of the 42 classmates were given a random item? One which may or may not be a weapon? Or a pot lid? No? Maybe I should have – you never knew what anyone had until they used it, or in some cases until it was prized from their cold, dead hands.

One thing that struck me almost immediately whilst the credits began to roll was how similar in premise it was to a video game. I mean, 40 people battering and blasting each other to smithereens, using a boatload of weapons to achieve ultimate victory – am I describing the plot of Battle Royale, or have I just jumped into a game of Black Ops? Or Halo: Reach?

That isn’t to say that Battle Royale is just 100% undiluted bloodbath – what it delivers in style it more than makes up for in substance. In terms of story, Battle Royale could easily be considered the original Bioshock – excellently eccentric characters all mixed up in a crazy battle for survival, with a surprising twist towards the end.

It has occurred to me, however, that this film came out in the year 2000, and it, in turn, was based on a book that came out the previous year. In truth, I thought this film was much older than it is and was going to launch into a blog about how they could have made a game, but couldn’t because they didn’t have the technology or whatever – but that’s no longer the case. Now I’m wondering why, when they had the technology, didn’t they think of turning it into a game?

I suppose I really shouldn’t speculate – not only does speculation achieve nothing, but it would no doubt make everyone think that I didn’t enjoy Battle Royale as a film. Hell, I thought it was a damned masterpiece, and to speculate on the subject of why they did or didn’t do such and such would serve only to undermine my appreciation of the film. But can you imagine if it was a game? Personally, Battle Royale in game form would have easily been just as good as – maybe even better than – the film. Think of how much closer to it all that that extra level of interaction would have brought you!

Will we ever see a Battle Royale game? Who knows? I know of no plans for one, but there are older films that have had video game tie-ins – you only need to look at Ghostbusters and Hard Boiled to see that. I don’t know about you, but my fingers will remain firmly crossed.