@Jace got me thinking on this… It’s like a meme and historically known that games based on movies usually are bad in some way. In the past, they typically were marketing tools and were usually bad titles. But maybe, it’s worth mentioning ones that actually were/are pretty good! I can think of some that I really liked anyway and well, one of the things that got me into anime was actually video games. Because so many of them were actually based on anime.
Here are some of the ones I really like that would reccomend:
Halloween for the atari 2600. The music alone makes it worth it. great game, and interesting history behind the cartridge. Demolition man for Sega Genesis. Personally I just like it. (I like anything Demolition Man lol) Blade Runner for PC. I thought this was great. It was a different story from the movie but really captured core ideas and went in it’s own direction. Feels like it was written by a fan of PKD!
i’m short a bit of sleep, and these are old games only… sorry!
Movies made off games… thats another story (i cant think of a single one that was GOOD, that meme is like twice as strong as the previous one. feel free to prove me wrong) Super Mario Bros (i actually liked that!) Hitman, good grief i’m surprised we dont have a command and conquer movie yet…. imagine that being good! Denis Villeneuve should take the mantle upon himself…. LOL
omg the more i think about it, the more i want it…. WESTOOD MADE THE BLADE RUNNER GAME. It’s Denis Villeneuve’s god given duty to make the C&C movie!!! damn thats making my head spin just thinking about it
Halloween for Atari 2600 is a really good shout. There’s something to how the concepts of the movie are abstracted, distilled and simplified into a simple game that unnerves me. I still think this game is creepy. The fact that some copies of it weren’t even properly labelled is even scarier, it’s like it’s cursed!
Maybe I’m still in the afterglow of October thinking about horror stuff, but even if it’s not a great game Friday the 13th for NES has some concepts I really like—Jason just popping up out of nowhere to scare the pants off of you feels like a pre-cursor to the great “stalking” enemies of video games, like Nemesis in Resident Evil 3.
Here’s a weird list of movie tie-in games I like off the top of my head:
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game might be one of the best tie-ins, if not the best! Deeply captures the spirit of the property, very well-produced, just a fun time with decent single-player and great multi-player. Ubisoft has done some good work in the movie tie-in space, surprisingly: I remember thinking the home console versions of TMNT that were tie-ins to the 2007 movie was more decent than it had any real right being.
I got a demo for Wanted: Weapons of Fate in an issue of PC Powerplay (remember PC gaming mags coming with demos on a disc? Hell yeah dude), and while I never played the full game or even seen the movie it’s based on, I remember being really impressed with this demo, had a unique approach to its cover system that felt more inspired by rail shooters than its contemporaries. I dug it.
I can’t believe it took me this long to remember, but GoldenEye 007 is a no brainer. The game manages to stand tow-to-tow in importance with the film its based on, which is also a banger, I love that movie! Not sure if I’ve seen a media tie-in game do this before or since.
I thought the attempts at making games based on the Matrix were really solid. I appreciate Enter the Matrix more than I like playing it, but The Matrix: Path of Neo is a genuine good time. I’ve always always always wanted to try The Matrix Online but never got to before it went offline.
Spider-Man 2 (home console)! This game rules.
The Game Boy Colour versions of the first two Harry Potter games I remember being kind of awesome, and acted as a gateway for me to understanding the fundamentals of turn-based RPGs and the wider world of JRPGs that I have enjoyed in the years since.
That’s all I got right now!
The Super Mario Bros. 1993 movie is great and that’s the hill I will die on. I love that movie. I want to see what a Mario game based on that movie would look like.
