It was natural that the recent boom in video game adaptations would yield a new film based on the best-known virtual universe of the modern era. Minecraft, the Microsoft-owned digital sandbox that holds the record as the bestselling video game of all time, is finally taking its place in the annals of beloved gaming franchises--like Super Mario Bros. and Sonic the Hedgehog--that have earned the Hollywood studio treatment, celebrity stars and special effects and all. Helmed by Napoleon Dynamite director and friend of Slate Jared Hess, A Minecraft Movie throws Jack Black, Jason Momoa, Danielle Brooks, Emma Myers, and Jennifer Coolidge into the titular game's pixelated universe, subjecting their real-life bodies to the simplistic physics, creative engineering, and bizarre supernatural life forms that make up the expansive worlds of Minecraft. It took about a decade to get this flick off the ground, so the anticipation is high--especially among younger gamers addicted to the online playgrounds that gained such traction during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns. Already, the film is breaking box-office records held by previous game adaptations, and if you have a child who spends a lot of time playing on the computer, chances are they're definitely ready and excited to catch A Minecraft Movie--even if you barely know what Minecraft is.

The soundtrack to the spider-bot-crawling 1997 Ghost in the Shell game adaptation is coming to the West for the first time. Titled Ghost in the Shell: Megatech Body (as an ode to the Fuchikoma mech you pilot in the game), the soundtrack was produced by Takkyu Ishino. The PS1 game adaptation had late-90s gamers piloting a spider-like mech (first appearing in the 1991 manga), blasting enemies to smithereens with twin machine guns and guided missiles. Masamune Shirow, the original manga's author, wrote and illustrated its story and art design. But as 90s shooters often figured out, firing guns nonstop for hours on end is much better with a badass techno soundtrack pumping in the background like an energy drink for your ears. In addition to Ishino, it includes "warehouse-shaking bangers" from Mijk Van Dijk, The Advent, Joey Beltram and Brother from Another Planet (among others).

Bandai Namco's Sand Land finally has a release date of April 26. This is a video game adaptation of a classic manga by artist Akira Toriyama. That's the same Akira Toriyama who created Dragon Ball, and also created the character designs for Chrono Trigger and many entries in the Dragon Quest series. Sand Land is a manga dating back to the mystical year of 2000 and it follows the adventures of the literal Devil's son, Beelzebub, as he explores a desert world accompanied by a human sheriff and a demon thief. Interestingly, the game seems like a beat-for-beat recreation of the anime, only in the form of a fast-paced action RPG.

One of the more amusing TikToks that followed the announcement of the forthcoming Legend of Zelda movie riffs on a scene from the animated series Drawn Together. In it, the blue-caped Captain Hero sits in a wheelchair at the bottom of a staircase next to the text "Zelda fans when the movie was announced." One beat later, the words "it's live action" appear, and Captain Hero screams. Another beat, then "it's produced by Avi Arad (Morbius)" flashes up, this time to a louder scream. Finally, "It was written by the writer of Batman v Superman, Rise of Skywalker, and Jurassic Worlld [sic]," and Captain Hero unleashes one last wounded wail.

Last week, at an early showing of The Super Mario Bros. Movie, the lights dimmed and the Nintendo logo glowed out over the audience. From the back, a toddler whose parents were probably their age when Mario first burst onto the scene shouted out "Nintendo!" It was a moment that cut through any debates that people might have been having about the film's quality. Ultimately, The Super Mario Bros. Movie is for the children. And the children turned out in force.

Breaking news: the internet is in uproar over something impossibly trivial. Yesterday Universal launched its trailer for The Super Mario Bros. Movie, a first glimpse at the new big-screen rendering of Nintendo's beloved leak-fixer. For most of the trailer's two-and-a-bit minute run time, fans were happy enough: there was some cutesy CGI, familiar characters were present and correct, there was some gentle PG-rated attempts at humour. But then Mario opened his gob and out came Chris Pratt's voice. The response was immediate and furious.

Interaction with games can induce emotional reactions which could have an impact on players’ game experience and performance. Physiological sensors such as EEG and eye tracking represent an important mean to track these emotional reactions. In addition, virtual reality isolates the players from the external environment, strengthening the emotional measures. In this paper, we present an explorative study of the use of eye tracking for game adaptation according to the players’ excitement. Results showed that there exists a relationship between the modification of the game’s speed and the EEG excitement index and a correlation between eye movement and excitement as well. These results suggest that eye tracking could be a valid support or replacement of EEG data in game adaptation.

Video game adaptations have a long history of being, well … mostly completely terrible, thanks largely to the vapid efforts of one Uwe Boll. And even the most ardent Angelina Jolie fan would presumably admit that the Tomb Raider movies were hardly the Oscar-winner's finest hour. So why would Alicia Vikander, Hollywood It girl and current art house dahling, sign up to star as Lara Croft in a reboot of the action-adventure series? Were there no Marvel superhero parts available? Critics have reacted with predictable sniffiness to Norwegian director Roar Uthaug's debut Hollywood outing, with the movie rated just 50% on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.

Licensed games all-but-disappeared for a few years there, swept into the trash alongside a bevy of B-tier studios. But I guess they're back--and way weirder this time around, too. Adaptations of both Planet of the Apes and Animal Farm were announced this week, and the Pillars of the Earth point-and-click hit Steam. I can only imagine Ken Kesey's logging classic Sometimes a Great Notion is next. That, plus Destiny briefly sort-of pops up on Steam, Total Warhammer II adds the ratlike Skaven, and Civilization gets adapted into board game form.