A little birdy let slip that Microsoft has a brand new franchise in the works, and it’s a doozy. In an attempt to capitalize on what has already been a proven success, and combining that proven success with a big-name actor, Microsoft came up with this: LithGoW.

Take the basic structure of Gears of War, but then add in John Lithgow as your main character, and you get LithGoW. A Microsoft spokesman had this to say in a phone conversation earlier today:

“We’re very excited to have John Lithgow on board for this project. In fact, it couldn’t be done without him! Combining his versatility as an actor and the freedom of expression videogame development offers, we have come up with a Halo-killer. I mean seriously, have you ever seen Harry and the Hendersons? Imagine that movie except Harry the bigfoot has a machine-gun, and John Lithgow takes his kids along to help the bigfeet (that’s more than one bigfoot) murder all the hunters, then use the dead hunters as building materials because the bigfeet are eco-friendly. And that’s just one chapter. Imagine that, and you’re only beginning to see our vision.”

Turns out, there are many more chapters in the game. John Lithgow has been in a lot of movies: Raising Cain, Buckaroo Banzai, the bad guy in Cliffhanger — not to mention his TV show, Third Rock from the Sun, and a little movie called Shrek (he was the voice of Lord Farquaad). These worlds will be fully explored in LithGoW as well, albeit in a dilapidated Gears of War motif.

John Lithgow had this to say about his involvement in the game:

“I love videogames. I love the idea of being in a videogame. I’ve been spending a lot of my time recently doing theater and writing children’s books, so I wanted to show that I can still be cool. Microsoft gave me that chance. It’s really fun to see myself doing awesome stuff like stomping heads, and voicing the game has been a blast. My favorite part in the game so far is when you discover that Shrek is running a prostitution ring with Gingerbread people, and you can take Shrek out and run it yourself, or you can just destroy his business by eating all the Gingerbread people… but that makes you puke and… well, I don’t want to ruin it.”

Microsoft briefly toyed around with the idea of having every character in LithGoW being played by John Lithgow, but they ultimately axed that idea. Apparently having John Lithgow face off against an army of John Lithgows wouldn’t make sense within the context of the story — it would always result in a stalemate because John Lithgow cannot possibly ever be more awesome than himself.

Personally, I don’t understand why Microsoft didn’t just put Tom Berenger in there since he was the obvious inspiration for Marcus Fenix. Then again, a Tom Berenger game doesn’t seem like it would have the same diversity as LithGoW — mainly war movies, baseball, and sex scenes. Actually, that sounds pretty sweet! I guess there’s always hope for a sequel.

Marcus’s daddy Tom Berenger from the movie Platoon, complete with scar and doo-rag.

LithGoW is labeled as a first- and third-person open-world shooter/trippin’ balls simulator. No release date has been announced, but I sure hope it comes out soon!

Source: Microsoft