Vaporware Chronicles: Dirty Harry

<p>For some reason HBO and Starz are on a <em>Dirty Harry<&sol;em> kick in their programming&comma; and I have absolutely no problem with that&period; I think that Harry Callahan is one of the best on-screen creations in decades and it saddens me that we only have five movies&period; Clint Eastwood owns this character of course&comma; as he&&num;8217&semi;s got the right type of toughness&period; I remember being excited in the mid 2000s when I heard the rumblings of a <em>Dirty Harry<&sol;em> game being developed by The Collective&period; Warner Brothers was set to publish the game&comma; and Dirty Harry himself&&num;8211&semi;Clint Eastwood&&num;8211&semi;was involved in the entire process&comma; which makes me wonder why the game got shelved&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The game was to take place between <em>Dirty Harry<&sol;em> and <em>Magnum Force<&sol;em> and should have given the player a better look at Detective Callahan and what makes him tick&period; These movies are over 40 years old&comma; so expect spoilers ahead&period; At the end of <em>Dirty Harry<&sol;em>&comma; Callahan throws his badge into the water and walks away&comma; ending his time with the SFPD&period; I&&num;8217&semi;m assuming they had penned a story that drove Callahan back to the police force&comma; some sort of villain that only a man of Callahan&&num;8217&semi;s caliber could handle&period; This would explain why there was no mention of him leaving the SFPD in <em>Magnum Force<&sol;em>&comma; and would answer a few questions for the huge <em>Dirty Harry<&sol;em> buffs like myself&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;118243" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-118243" style&equals;"width&colon; 640px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-118243" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;02&sol;12152832&sol;Dirty-Harry&period;jpg" alt&equals;"&lpar;Dirty Harry - Warner Brothers Interactive&rpar;" width&equals;"640" height&equals;"360" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-118243" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;Dirty Harry<em>&comma; <&sol;em>Warner Brothers Interactive&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>The Collective announced this title in 2006 with a trailer that was later found to be doctored by Warner Brothers&period; Instead of showing actual in-game cut scenes and gameplay footage&comma; they went to an in-house animation studio to simulate a working game&period; Had we known this then&comma; we probably would have figured that the title was doomed from the start&period; Development plagued The Collective for some reason&comma; and less than a year later&comma; there was a restructuring of the studio that heavily impacted the <em>Dirty Harry<&sol;em> team&period; According to Warner Brothers&comma; the game was changing studios&comma; supposedly to Monolith&comma; but that was way back in 2007&period; I haven&&num;8217&semi;t heard of a sequel to <em>Shadow of Mordor<&sol;em> yet&comma; so maybe they finally decided to dust off the <em>Dirty Harry<&sol;em> title&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><amp-youtube layout&equals;"responsive" width&equals;"500" height&equals;"375" data-videoid&equals;"ZICPDBJW228" title&equals;"Dirty Harry Trailer XBox360"><a placeholder href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;youtu&period;be&sol;ZICPDBJW228"><img src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;i&period;ytimg&period;com&sol;vi&sol;ZICPDBJW228&sol;hqdefault&period;jpg" layout&equals;"fill" object-fit&equals;"cover" alt&equals;"Dirty Harry Trailer XBox360"><&sol;a><&sol;amp-youtube><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>What made the title interesting was the fact that The Collective was working on some specialized A&period;I&period; for the title&period; Seeing as Dirty Harry always walked the line of a psychopath&comma; the game was to capitalize on that aspect&period; Should you treat the criminals too nicely they would know and take advantage of you on the streets&comma; but if you would just shoot them indiscriminately&comma; you would be in trouble with the police chief&period; The game was also touted as having a living&comma; breathing version of a 1970s San Francisco&period; That&&num;8217&semi;s something I would have liked to have seen since I only got to see the city during the 80s when I lived around there&period; The game could have been the Warner Brothers version of <em>Grand Theft Auto<&sol;em> had they achieved the proper open-world feel&period; The Collective had a glut of great ideas&&num;8211&semi;sadly the development team just couldn&&num;8217&semi;t seem to get them all to work&period; I really wish they had&comma; though&comma; or that some other Warner Brothers owned developer would pick up the baton and carry on&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Huge stars were also signed on to do the voice-over work for the main characters&period; Clint Eastwood was ready to reprise his role as Harry Callahan&comma; albeit in digital form&period; Gene Hackman&comma; one of Eastwood&&num;8217&semi;s friends&comma; was all set to voice Al Bressler&comma; one of Callahan&&num;8217&semi;s supervisors&period; Laurence Fishburne was also signed on to play the Reverend Carlton Clay&period; In 2006 there really weren&&num;8217&semi;t many big name actors that wanted to voluntarily put their name on a video game&period; However&comma; I&&num;8217&semi;m sure some big names did get roped into sub-par licensed games because they didn&&num;8217&semi;t read their movie contract properly&comma; but none of them got to be in a game of the caliber of one starring the voices of two Oscar winners&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;118250" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-118250" style&equals;"width&colon; 640px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-118250" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;02&sol;12155630&sol;Dirty-Harry-3&period;jpg" alt&equals;"&lpar;Dirty Harry - Warner Brothers Interactive&rpar;" width&equals;"640" height&equals;"360" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-118250" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;Dirty Harry<em>&comma; <&sol;em>Warner Brothers Interactive&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>I truly believe that this title had some huge potential and could have been a huge moneymaker for Warner Brothers&period; A real-life San Francisco in much need of justice&comma; top notch voice-over talent&comma; and a story that is canon and ties two movies together would have been in my Xbox 360 faster than Clint could have drawn his gun&period; If The Collective pulled it off&comma; it may very well have spawned a few sequels and even another game they were rumored to be working on called <em>Harker<&sol;em>&period; Yes&comma; Dracula&&num;8217&semi;s Harker&comma; sounds pretty cool right&quest; Well&comma; that game got shelved as well and probably sits next to Harry Callahan on a shelf in a room of games I&&num;8217&semi;m dying to play&period; Let&&num;8217&semi;s hope someone at Warner Brothers realizes what they are sitting on and throws it to Rocksteady or Monolith for some polishing and then onto publishing&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;