Videogame movie tie-ins: The good, the bad and the ugly

The mediums of film and game have been flirting for years now, but their relationship is a turbulent one to say the least. Super Mario Bros, Dead or Alive, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li are just three examples of how ball-achingly bad films based on games can be, and unfortunately games based on films are equally as flawed. Some are better than others, however; a fact we’ll demonstrate through the beautiful form of a Top 10 list. Here then, is the top 10 games based on films, categorised into the good, the bad, and the ugly (which are also, needless to say, bad as well).

The Good

GoldenEye 007 – Nintendo 64, 1997

Licensed video games and the failures that come with them is a frequently voiced topic in gaming circles, and GoldenEye is the first game on everybody’s lips to counter that argument. Whilst the majority of Bond’s interactive outings are instantly forgettable, GoldenEye was genre defining, bringing the FPS to the home console at a time when it was almost unheard of. The multiplayer aspects of the game were arguably its finest asset, a legacy that was continued with the spiritual sequel; Perfect Dark.

Aladdin – SNES, Mega Drive, 1993

A good film-to-game adaptation manages to successfully capture the atmosphere of the film on which it’s based, a point illustrated perfectly by Disney’s Aladdin. Seeing the rooftops of Agrabah brought to life in all their 16-bit glory was a joy to behold, providing the SNES and Mega Drive with one of the best platformers this side of Mario and Sonic. Other than The Lion King – which was brought to the 16-bit home consoles just as successfully as Aladdin – it’s doubtful that there’s been a better use of a Disney license to this day.

Lego Star Wars – Multi 2005

Games based on one license are bad enough, so imagine how worried we were about a game based on two. Thankfully, the game turned out just great, and was successful enough to spawn a whole franchise of Lego hybrids. The co-op mode at the heart of each game is particularly worthy of praise, bridging the gap between two generations of gamer, allowing parents to play alongside their children in such a way that both parties are entertained.

The Warriors – PS2, Xbox, 2005

One reason film-to-game adaptations are notoriously bad is due to the tight schedules that developers work to in order to coincide the release with the film. This was not a problem that faced The Warriors, which was picked up by Rockstar some 26 years after the release of the film. With violent tones that complimented Rockstar’s development style perfectly, The Warriors was received well by both fans of the film, and the industry’s harshest critics.

Moonwalker – Mega Drive 1990

In the months leading up to his death, Michael Jackson wasn’t spoken about all too fondly, but when Moonwalker was released on the Mega Drive back in 1990, the King of Pop was the coolest guy on the face of the Earth. Jacko’s video game debut followed the plot of the film, allowing players to assume the role of MJ as he attempted to rescue a group of children from the tyrannous Mr. Big. A recent PEGI rating suggests that the game will soon be heading to the Wii Virtual Console, which will be music to the ears of anybody who played the game two decades ago.

The Bad

The Fifth Element – PlayStation 1998

As a film, The Fifth Element is a fairly accomplished piece of cinema, offering an interesting glimpse at the 23rd century from the perspective of Korben Dallas (Bruce Willis). As a game, however, the only thing The Fifth Element offers is an interesting look at how not to design a video game. With The Fifth Element, developer Kalisto combined poor character models, poor level design and poor combat for the video game equivalent of a train wreck.

Terminator 2 – Amiga / Atari ST, 1991

In the late 80s and early 90s, Ocean Software was the number one producer of movie licensed video games. Some of its releases were quite passable, but most were pretty dire – and Terminator 2 fell into the latter camp. The most exciting film of 1991 was reduced to a series of tiresome, disjointed mini-games: a very basic one-on-one fighter, an overhead driving game and a pair of sliding block puzzles. Oh, and there was a sideways-scrolling bit where Ahhhnold walked past a very long brick wall – a piss-poor attempt at depicting the Cyberdyne building.

Charlie’s Angels – PlayStation 2, GameCube, 2002

Riding off the success of the film reboot starring Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore and the lovely Lucy Liu, came the official Charlie’s Angels game on the PlayStation 2 and GameCube. To say the game was bad would be an understatement of truly epic proportions, one that not even the virtual likeness of Lucy Liu herself could hope to save.

The Ugly

Street Fighter: The Movie – PlayStation, Sega Saturn, 1994

Street Fighter: The Movie is a game spoken about in hushed voices; a title that fans have banished to the deepest depths of their subconscious as not to tarnish the great Street Fighter name. And rightly so, Street Fighter: The Movie (The Game) is a truly cringe-worthy piece of interactive entertainment, swapping Street Fighter’s gorgeous 2D sprites with hideous digitised models based on those of the live action film. What were they thinking? Seriously.

E.T. – Atari 2600, 1982

E.T’s failure as a video game was nothing short of monumental. Not only was the game down-right awful, it financially crippled Atari and contributed to the video game industry crisis of 1983. Players were so outraged at the quality of the game that many of them returned it. The game sold so badly it prompted Atari to dump a truck load of copies at a landfill site in New Mexico. E.T. was not only the worst film game of all time, but arguably the worst game ever in its own right.

Let us know what you think are the best and worst movie-licensed video games in the comments section below.