Sopranos game nothing to do with TV show - David Chase
And that's how he wants it.
Sopranos creator David Chase says that he doesn't want any cross-pollination between the TV show and the forthcoming videogame adaptation, and that it wasn't his idea in the first place - although it is based on a story idea he came up with ages ago.
Speaking to MTV, Chase - who admits that he lost interest in games like Pong and Donkey Kong as soon as a local bar opened - said he still hopes people find it "entertaining and engrossing" and "have a good time playing it", but is adamant about its separation from the TV show.
"What I didn't want to have happen was that the game and the show bleed together, that any of the stuff in the real story arcs that we have - or any of the real narrative we have - was in the game or had anything to do with the game," he said.
Apparently it doesn't even acknowledge the New York elements of the show. "We don't even talk about New York mobsters," he notes. "The other people in the game are from Philly. We tried to separate it completely."
That's not to say it won't have ties though. Publisher THQ has previously said that James Gandolfini and others would form part of the voice-cast. IMDB notes that principle members of the TV show cast Michael Imperioli (Christopher), Tony Sirico (Paulie), Steve Van Zandt (Silvio) and Joesph R. Gannascoli (Vito) are involved. You'll also get to visit locations including the Bada Bing.
Back to Chase though, and his lack of interest seems to stem from deep-seated views about what he sees as videogames' lack of narrative capacity. "Games have a function," he told MTV. "It's a physical function. The character has to go from here to there, has to shoot that, has to drive this, has to knock that down, has to jump up here."
"That's how a game works. So cooking dinner, going to Lamaze class, there's no way to figure that into a game at this point. Maybe somebody else can do it and maybe somebody will, but that wasn't really what this game was about."
"It really isn't - well it is a narrative, I suppose, in its own way - but the act of watching a movie or a TV show or reading a book, God forbid, is you're seeing someone else's story and you can go through their story and learn from it or feel with it or laugh at it without having to go through any of the pain or the adventures. The game is different: There is no identification, really, any emotional identification," he concluded.
Still, look forward to it, eh? The Sopranos, in development at 7 Studios, is due out on PS2 in November from THQ. A proposed Xbox 360 version has been cancelled.