The player

For every dud action movie stumbling out of Hollywood, there's a game that's getting it right, writes JOE GRIFFIN

LAST WEEK I saw Zack Snyder's much-hyped action fantasy Sucker Punch, which disappointed on just about every level.

On the same day I loaded up The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile. It also featured a young woman, wrongfully incarcerated, who struggles to distinguish fantasy from reality. But while the film is a bloated, nonsensical mess, DVSis faster-paced and more coherent.

This isn’t the first time a videogame and movie were released at the same time and had roughly similar themes. In fact, with action movies dipping in quality and videogames becoming more sophisticated, a pattern is emerging.

Last summer Clash of the Titansopened a few weeks after Sony's game God of War III.Both are sword-and- sandal fantasies that dabble in Greek mythology. But while Clash is a less-fun retread of the original, God of War IIIis artfully told, passionately acted and filled with thrilling set pieces.

The disparity between the film and game highlighted some of the advantages that the games industry currently enjoys over films: Major studio films are now usually made for kids, and edgy, expensive action movies are a relic of the 1980s and 1990s.

To put it another way, the biggest action movie of 1988 was Die Hard,and the biggest action movie of 2009 was Transformers 2.Videogames (for now) are still free to tell adventure stories without the need to dial down the violence or peril.

Also, while game graphics are improving, allowing for more elaborate and exciting set-pieces, action movies are becoming more frenetically edited to the point of incoherence. Compare, for example, the combat scenes in Battlefield: Bad Company 2with those of The A-Teamfilm (both properties build their premise on bromance and bullets). The former was thrilling; the latter was a caffeinated mash of hyper- fast edits and never-ending camera sweeps.

Even thematically, mainstream movies are struggling to catch up with games now. Battle: Los Angelesis fun, but it didn't have any of the storytelling ambition of Crysis 2. And if you're looking for more innocent, swashbuckling thrills, the Unchartedgames easily surpass the last Indiana Jonesin adventure, story and characterisation.

Of course, games can't yet compete with films in other genres. I'll take Se7enover Heavy Rainand Toy Storyover Little Big Planet. But for those disappointed by new action movies, there are other ways to get your fix.