Will the video game cartoon revolution spark again ?

No, I don't. In the 1980s, nearly every animated series was based on a book, a toy or a video game. It showed a severe lack of imagination on the writers' part, as well as the embodiment of crass commercialism that unfortunately was the prevailing attitude at the time. Thank goodness for the "revolution" of the late 1980s-early 1990s with the launch of FOX Kids and the debuts of quality cartoons from the Warner Brothers and Disney studios, who sought out to make cartoons good again, not just 30 minute toy commercials.
 
After an American Gladiators cartoon was announced, I don't know what to believe anymore. Anyone who thought we were past the age of rampant commercialism in TV is sadly mistaken.
 
Thats good in the sense of looking for that kind of thing, but make no mistake shows like Transformers, G I Joe and Silverhawks were great fun and playing with the toys was even better. As a kid I liked a wide variety of cartoons, but I was always disappointed not being able to find toys for the more thought provoking shows.
 
Yeah, and we know how creative our shows now are. Like that Coconut Fred show. That really smacked of imagination.

Seriously, yes. I don't agree with the business practices of making a cartoon based on a toy line, but that's the state we are at now. I'd love to see a videogame cartoon revolution again, but what games do we have? Halo? GTA? How can you make a children's cartoon based on them? Didn't Mortal Kombat tell us that an adult videogame should never ever ever be marketed to kids?

I mean, I'm all for another Mario cartoon, or something else with Sonic in it, but that's about it. Earthworm Jim was the best of the bunch, and if that ridiculous 3-D game didn't kill his career, we would probably have gotten another show somehow. Look at how imaginative and creative that one was. Leaps and bounds over Dic' catalogue.
 
Back in the day video games were a relative scant few pixels, and some text in game and some in the manual.

These days most outside the handheld systems elaborate productions with high quality graphics and voice acting.

It could be argued that most video games these days already are their own animated production.
 
News flash, gang: it's not the 80's-90's anymore.

Dr. Tooth raised a good point earlier: aside from Mario, Zelda and Sonic, what other current video games could be safely made into children's shows? Grand Theft Auto? Halo? Hitman? Bioshock? Resident Evil? Half-Life? Kane & Lynch: Dead Men? God of War? I don't think so. Most of the kid-friendly titles that could become shows, like Kameo: Elements of Power, just to name one example, aren't big enough sellers to warrant such a thing. (Although last year I heard that a Kameo movie was in talks.)
 
I think the Sly Cooper series might work as a TV show, but it seems that they're pretty much done making those games, so I guess there's not much point.

A very important point raised by Anyone00 is that back then, there was plenty of room for the makers of a game-based show to come up with new characters, subplots, etc. but these days there's not really as much potential for a show to expand on the game due to games having more detailed graphics, stories and cutscenes. For example, with the Sly games I mentioned, while I do like the characters, the thing is that they have a fairly set continuity, and there's not really much room for an episodic show where they could have stand-alone half-hour adventures. Unless they were to adapt specific levels, or the stories of the three games, into episodes, but I think that would be pretty redundant and boring to watch.
 
(Spit take) I... Me.. I made a good Point?!?! Ehh Ahem. Of course I did. I knew that.

Anyway, I couldn't see why an adult friendly channel like G4 or something couldn't get a show based on Halo or something to work, Theoretically. But I agree with what was said earlier. With all the cut scenes and bells and whistles with new games, is there any room left for an animated series?
 
Nik had that show based on Tak, so that's something. And I'm kind of surprised no one's trie to adapt Spyro into his own show yet.

But, yeah, the time of shows based on toy lines is pretty much over, unless you count Power Rangers/Ben 10 (I'm only counting Ben because you just KNEW that show was going to move toys the second it was announced, even if the toyline didn't show up until a good while after the show debuted)
 
I could see them make another Final Fantasy serie, but better than Unlimited. Maybe something LOOKED like one of the game (one of the more FANTASY one, not the emo-bishy big sword neogothic one). In fact I think they could have easily make a Tactic Advance anime, it had all the trappings of a 'otherworld' shonen serie and plenty of room for episodes what with all the various missions and stuff.
 
I think you're right. A lot videogames don't need to be made into cartoons for television. Think of 'em more like cartoons with interactivity. Of course this mainly goes with games that have a strong storyline already, like ones by Square Enix.
 
Why not have a mega-crossover series with almost every game, cartoon, and comic book character? I know licensing issues would prevent it to ever be greenlighted, but still, that would be cool.
 
I forgot that Tak is based on a video game. A show based on a Spyro game would be awesome. I did hear that that Spyro was getting his own movie, but no one is sure how well that will turn out or when that movie will come out.

It would be interesting to see a video game story adapted into a cartoon show, but there aren't too many new games out there that have enough popularity. There are plenty adult-themed video games, but those obviously wouldn't work out so well. Maybe some of the classic video games like Zelda or Mario could work well as a cartoon, if it had good enough writing on its side, but I can't see anything new coming out of the video game system to the television screen.
 
I actually want another Sonic cartoon, but only if the writing is going to be good and the show has to be done right. Sonic X was ok, but it wasn't great.

IMO, Tomb Raider would make an awesome cartoon with the right writers on board. I'm actually surprised it hasn't been done yet.

Well here's a few games I think would make good cartoons or should get new shows:

- New Sonic
- Tomb Raider
- Crash Bandicoot
- Jak & Daxter
- New Earthworm Jim
- Legend of Zelda
- Kingdom Hearts (series or movie)

Those are just a few that stick out in my mind right now.
 
I think it it kind of did already thanks to Pokemon, this time it was Japan instead of America, we got Pokemon, Monster Rancher, Digimon, Kirby, Sonic X, F-Zero just to name a few there are many others. We already got tons of VideoGame cartoons in the past few years and a lot better than any american incarnation.
 
Indeed it was, and if it had been around longer, they really could have gotten into amazing storylines and storyarcs. I mean, Samus only appeared in the comic book, and I think she would have been perfect in the series. Too bad Season 3 was just half cartoons with no real direction.



I think the only flaw of Sonic X was the fact it focused on the human characters way too much. If TMS was to make an ALL sonic series that took place entriely on Mobius, it would have been a much better show. Still, I really enjoyed it. And I like Sonic Dropping the "S"-bomb in English in the second episode in Japanese.

I'd love to see another EWJ game, but it will only work if they get Doug Langdale back as a writer. And Doug TenNapel works on it as well.
 
Yeah i agree, there were other games they could of done the show would of lasted for 2 more complete seasons, which i think would bascially cover most of what was the NES generation, of course it was streching into the SNES era.

And yeah having own all the comics, i was disappointed she didnt appear in the series, even if it was briefly like how Link and Zelda did.
 
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