I do think that the "homages" or "rip offing" or "influences" or whatever you want to call it, were a bit too far. The idea of playing as an FBI Agent investigating a murder sounds very cool, but they should have just left out the really obvious Twin Peaks things.

I don't want to be overly critical, but parts off it looks good, & parts of it look bad. I think the "red room" scenes don't look very good at all. The game might be fun for a little while, but in the long run, I don't think it would be that great.

I think they could have learned from the Silent Hill games. The SH games are definitely influenced by Lynch's work, but the "references" weren't over the top like this Rainy Woods game seems to have. The Alan Wake game sounds very cool though.

Speaking of video games though, I remembered seeing on IGN a page about a Twin Peaks video game that was in development for the original Nintendo. It was cancelled, & there is no information available. Does anyone else know what I'm talking about?

Well fellas let's give credit where credit is due. In the autopsy scene they decided to give Twin Peaks a break and rip-off Silence of the Lambs instead. I'm proud of them for watching a non-David Lynch directed film. It's good to expand your boundaries and whatnot.

That NES game was cancelled before any real work was done on it. I think the reason was either they were having trouble coming up with ideas for the game or the show was going down ratings wise at the time or both, so it wasn't worth the effort. There's never been a leak of any kind of prototype ROM unfortunately, but I think all they had done was a title screen before they threw in the towel.

Wow. I'm glad that didn't happen. I don't think I've played as much as one decent film/tv-based NES game. They all sucked. The Simpsons games were dreadful. Superman was even worse. And Dick Tracy made no sense.

Well, the gaming forum crowd are of course not the brightest bunch in the world, and are probably for the most part too young to have any idea what Twin Peaks even is. It's pretty redundant to call ripoff on any of these games anyways, Silent Hill was basically just a patchwork of homages to horror stories, directly acknowledging them through the street names. There is, of course, a world of difference between a patchwork of homages, and completely ripping off Twin Peaks and Twin Peaks alone.

Alan Wake certainly looks like it has some potential, though. The Silent Hill-esque genre really has a lot of room for innovation, and I've been pretty disappointed with where it's been taken lately. I had high hopes for Rule of Rose, and that one turned out to be a gigantic letdown.

Anyone ever play Killer 7? Now there was a game that felt like it'd be something Lynch would come up with.

Good post.

I mostly agree, but when I was a lot younger and still playing I recognised "Outlaws" as a well-done Sergio Leone pastiche and "Alone in the Dark" as a good haunted house story. And the Tex Murphy games were (and still are) my favourites because of the nice combination of P.I. elements and all the nods to Hammett and Chandler. I watched "The Big Sleep" on TV with my mom when I was a lad. And that's not unprecedented. The only dedicated gamer I know is also probably the most intelligent man I know.

I guess my point - if I indeed have one - is this: we can expect more. Both of the audience and of the games themselves. "Under a Killing Moon" was, in my opinion, brilliant. And even if they were derivative to the point of plagiarism, "Outlaws" and "Alone in the Dark" were cool because of the ease with which they shuffled the old ingredients. "Rainy Woods" goes further, and it looks extremely heavy-handed to boot. It doesn't feel like a tribute (though the finished game could be different. Alan Wake, on the other hand, looks like it could be just that. Just some thoughts.

PS: I will check out Silent Hill. As for acknowledging inspiration through naming: Gordon Cole, Leland Palmer, Madeleine Ferguson, Laura, Lydecker and Waldo come to mind.

I'm a long time Silent Hill fan. That's where I get my screen name from. I've been playing the series since the first game got released on the Playstation. If possible, play them in order. A lot of people will tell you 2 is the best but if you ask me, 1 is. The second game by far has a better narrative, but the first game is an experience like none other.

I would have loved to see a decent twin peaks video game, but like
Evenreven said all the show/movie based ones that came out on NES seemed very poorly concepted and used terrible controls more often than not. I can imagine they were going to make 'peaks into a sub-par platformer where you play Coop and go around shooting at Bob's, Owls and avoiding falling logs - i bet i'm not far off.

did anyone play the back to the future video games for NES? as a child i wanted to break my controller trying to figure them out

I played it, never finished it because the gameplay wore extremely thin after a while. Nothing directly analogous, but definitely a little on the Lynchy side.

Also, on the topic of Silent Hill, although David Lynch/Twin Peaks is one of the lighter influences (much more Stephen King type stuff being referenced), Silent Hill 2's scene with Pyramidhead gangraping mannequins in the kitchen while James watches through the slats of a closet door was straight-up 100% Blue Velvet homage.

This sickens me, for several reasons.

1) It's so obviously a complete steal. It's not even like they tried covering their tracks on this one. "Yeaaah, I think if we add one more midget they'll never ever know...". Ffs, the "Truman" character even has a Michael Ontkean type voice! Fuck! Sorry, but this is what pisses me off the most.

2) I never, ever, ever want a continuing of Twin Peaks. Ever. One of the brilliant things about the show was the ending and all the loose ends that kept you (and still do btw) awake at night thinking about what might have happened after that last scene. I feel there are some people who are just glad to get some more Twin Peaks and I just can't understand that. If there was ever a "new" TP announced, with or without Lynch, I'd cry and probably not watch it. Leave it the hell alone, is what I'm saying.

3) From a gaming standpoint, it looks terrible. The graphics are really lousy. Reminds me of the first Silent Hill game, wich btw is the only good TP inspired piece of gaming there will ever be.

4) The title, Rainy Woods, is laughable.

I truly and deeply, from the bottom of my heart, hope this game will crash and burn.

any evidence of a BOB-like character in the game?

MarcusofaDown. Chill out! It's only a computer game! They haven't wiped every existing master of Twin Peaks. And, indeed, the gamer community doesn't seem to get the TP references anyway. End of the day, who cares? It's not worth worrying about.

As for wanting more TP, there are plenty of us who do!

I see no reason as to why anyone who cares about TP should let this one slip through. When someone, especially as a big an industry as the gaming world, steals almost everything from one of the most inspirational things in ones life, you must speak up. This is one of those times. They're gonna be making money (that is unless Lynch/Frost finds out and sues) from this thing and they have absolutely no right to. Stealing creative ideas and trying to pass it off as an original is messed up, period.

Yes I know plenty of you want more TP, thats my whole point. I cant understand why, but thats just me.

I want more "Twin Peaks". You should also keep in mind that the story as it is is not open ended due to an artistic choice but due to a 100% financial one. (ABC's cancelation and the poor box office of FWWM resulting in sequel plans being dropped.)The plot feels fractured and not in a good way. I think what Robert Engels hinted at that what they would have done next was to get into the whole Josie Packard/ Judy/Windom Earle buenes aires situation that eventually tied into what happened in ghost wood sounded extremely interesting, certainly not like desperate writers trying to breathe life into a dying franchise. I think it would be such a wonderful thing to have "Twin Peaks" exist in a complete form. I'm not saying there can't be things to keep you dreaming afterwards but some sort of closure would in my opinion make the whole a lot stronger.