They didn't make his day

Back in the mid-2000s, Warner Bros. was planning on bringing Clint Eastwood's iconic, brutality-friendly policeman Dirty Harry back to life in videogame form on the PS3, Xbox 360, PC, Wii, and even the DS. Eastwood had agreed to do voice work for the game, alongside Lawrence Fishburne, Lucy Liu and Gene Hackman, as reported in back in 2006. The game was apparently 70% done the first time that Warner Bros. pulled the plug on it, though the project limped along in the background until 2008 when it was finally put to rest for good. You can read all about it over on Unseen 64.

One of the main things GTA fans call for when discussing the future of the series is a new iteration that puts you in the shoes of a police officer. I wonder how that kind of game would play today, in the midst of the current Ferguson protests and years of mixed messages from mainstream entertainment about the role of "excessive force" in the role of fantasy police work.

Antihero cops often work great in movies and TV shows, but would the concept translate to games, where you actually play the role of the officer who shoots first and asks questions later? If so, I'd imagine that a Bad Lieutenant game might go over better than Dirty Harry. There are lines we wouldn't want to see Harry cross, like putting a perpetrator's head in a vice, whereas Nic Cage can pretty much get away with anything.