Sin City game to use novels as inspiration

Red Mile has revealed that it is going back to the graphic novel roots of Sin City for inspiration.

"We decided that the Sin City graphic novels, with their dark images and non-linear stories, would work better as the basis for an interactive game," Glenn Wong, boss of Red Mile, told GameDaily.

"We don't have to track the linear movie screenplay and try to translate it into a game; we prefer to create an original story based on the characters from the books which, we think, will make for a longer, deeper video game experience."

The relatively unknown publisher secured the rights to Sin City in May 2007. Australian outfit Transmission Games has been working on the Unreal Engine 3-based project for six months, and aims to release it on 360, PS3 and Wii.

Sin City creator Frank Miller and good friend Flint Dille - writer of The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay - are on board.

"All I can say is that it will be heavily story- and character-driven, with multiple crossing story lines, and it will contain the same kind of violence, the same kind of sexiness, the same kind of edginess that are the hallmark of the graphic novels," said Dille.

"There will be a wide variety of things for the gamer to do, from fighting to shooting to driving. We're trying to deliver it all in a very stylized, very bold, very surprising way. What makes this so dangerous a project is that, quite frankly, the source material is so damn good. It sets a very high bar for us to hit."

The Sin City game has a rough release date of Christmas 2009 - although it has nothing to do with the film sequel - and Red Mile is aiming for the top of the charts and hopes to establish a gaming series that will last for years to come.

"We'd like to finish game No. 1 in a year and a half, and then turn out a sequel every other year after that," added Wong.

"The beauty of Frank Miller's work is that it's so rich with so many characters that, once a gamer gets a real good taste of Sin City, they're not going to say, 'OK, I've seen it all.' They're going to say, 'So when do I get more?'"

We rather liked the 2005 film, although nearly everyone we know shouts and screams and tells us the graphic novels are much better.