Never one to be deterred by a small thing like a 36-month prison sentence for tax evasion failure to file his taxes, progressively burning out action star Wesley Snipes is still finding ways to tarnish is good name from behind bars.
His most recent assault on his own career comes in the form of his new iOS game, Julius Styles: The International. In what might be the game development equivalent of Lil' Wayne recording verses from a prison phone, Snipes and his production company oversaw the creative production of the title with developer Lapland Studio.
A sort of isometric spy thriller featuring the titular character of Snipes' own invention, the game involves more puzzle-solving and storytelling than standard spy action. This, along with just about every other creative decision regarding the game and the property, was something Snipes took credit for in this recent interview with IGN.
I thought it would be fun to play a super-smart, cool, adventure-seeker, who uses his mind, a bit more than his muscle, to win. A Ronin, someone who lives by his own code of ethics, admired by men, loved by the ladies. I figured since I couldn't be a guy like that in real life, I darn sure could be one in a movie. Except, unlike previous characters, who often have a military special-ops/spy background, I needed a twist for this guy. Then after reading a book titled "Confession of an Economic Hit Man" it all clicked. Julius Styles would be an urban-born math wiz, a dot-com mega-millionaire, who loves the art of the deal. 'A facilitator': a man who gets his thrill from finding creative solutions to very, very difficult problems. A guy who uses his unique cache of skills and connections to get shit done... with 'style', hence the nom de guerre (which may or may not be his real name).
As radically brilliant as an urban Will Hunting meets Wesley Snipes meets Thomas Crown meets Wesley Snipes again may sound, the resulting game doesn't quite show off the level of pizzazz that Snipes seems to have wanted. Instead, the game is a desperately dull mishmash of clumsy, barely responsive touch controls, and puzzles that offer as much intellectual satisfaction as, well, pretty much any Wesley Snipes movie made after 2003.
I spent a little over an hour playing through the thing yesterday, perhaps out of some bizarre feeling that I owed at least that much to the man who was once so thoroughly entertaining in landmark films like Blade, Demolition Man, and Money Train. By the end of it, I had physically deleted the game off my phone, as I simply couldn't bear to look at the icon ever again, taunting me with the $2.99 I had idiotically paid for it. We don't tend to review iOS games around here unless there's something we feel really strongly about recommending, so consider this your due warning: No amount of involvement from Wesley Snipes makes this game worth your time or money.
Fortunately--or unfortunately, depending on how much faith you put in the man's modern endeavors--Snipes has other game ideas on tap, which he was extremely eager to share in great detail with IGN.
A fantastic animated project titled Omandi Mech 5, which is a futuristic sci-fi action adventure centered around a family of warrior scientist whose son is resurrected in the body of a giant hero robot, a MECH. Along with the allied freedom fighting forces of N.A.R.A., they battle pre-human evolution beings, who set out to reclaim the surface planet and reduce the earthlings to beasts of burden and FOOD. I screened about 18 minutes of footage, in motion graphic format, for exec at EA, who loved it. No firm deal as of yet, but prospects look great.
There are also plans to build a feature and video game around the 'graphic novel' concept Antoine Fuqua and I created titled "After Dark". The graphic novel, produced in partnership with Radical Comics, is currently on the market. We were fortunate to have some real heavy weights join the team on this one, guys like Peter Milligan, Jeff Nentrup and Francesco 'Matt' Mattina. The book is released through Radical Publishing.
It's very much worth reading the entirety of that IGN interview, if only to get the full measure of how remarkably deluded Snipes is regarding his own sense of personal persecution and the status of his career. He does, at the very least, have some positive things to say about the game industry as a creative force, and the potential merging of the different entertainment mediums into a kind of intertwining melange. So hey, at least we've got Wesley Snipes on our side, right?