Games based on movies/tv - any good?

From my experience, games based on movies or tv shows are generally garbage or near to it. A few of the many many many examples:

• Most of The Simpsons games
• The Terminator games
• Fantastic 4
• Most of the pirates of the caribbean games

Although it's not a pc game, that ET Atari game was supposed to be one of the worst games of all time.

Here's a few counter examples to my point that I've heard of:

• Chronicles of Riddick
• The Godfather
• Some of the Lord of the Rings games

I'm sure there are more. I think the main reason most game-based movies suck is because the companies know people will buy the game regardless because they liked the movie. If there are guaranteed sales, why even try? If you make the game mediocre at least, you'll probably profit despite all the corner-cutting.

Do most agree with my point? Any counter-arguments? Any other examples?

You know the plastic merchandise crap that comes out with movies? Lunchboxes, pencil cases, posters - all that junk. I think games tie-ins go in with that crowd. Cheap junk. It's low quality, but it always runs at a profit, so it always gets made.

One of the most notable exceptions is Escape from Butcher Bay - but EfBB is also exceptional in that it isn't actually based on anything. It's an original, unique and legitimate part of the storyline and it serves as a prequel to Pitch Black. This may be a contributing factor as to why it's so amazing - instead of trying to make a game version of a movie, they've made a game. A real game that works as a game and doesn't try to blithely recreate as many scenes of the film as possible.

In order for a game like this to be sucessful, the studio producing it needs to have decent backing and background. Most of the time I get the feeling (even when it's a major title), that the two most useless guys on stage of the movie/tv show are told to come up with a plot for the game and work with the game devs... Either that or the game devs consist of one guy that actually saw the movie and 5 asians made up of random job histories and professions... Of course, going in the reverse flow, we have people like Uwe Boll, and his type is probably not limited to one direction (I can't decide if I meant to have a double entendre in there or not!)...

In order for a game like this to be sucessful, the studio producing it needs to have decent backing and background. Most of the time I get the feeling (even when it's a major title), that the two most useless guys on stage of the movie/tv show are told to come up with a plot for the game and work with the game devs... Either that or the game devs consist of one guy that actually saw the movie and 5 asians made up of random job histories and professions... Of course, going in the reverse flow, we have people like Uwe Boll, and his type is probably not limited to one direction (I can't decide if I meant to have a double entendre in there or not!)...

KillOBKilled

For the Saw game they probably just took 2 of the douchebags that were killed early on in the first movie and they were like, "hey, you were in Saw, help them come up with a plot"

To that douchebag #1 replied, "Saw? Saw what? I didn't see anything. Oh, wait... that movie named Saw? Was that the one about the killer robot that came back in time to kill that kid cause he was a jackass?"

The movie producer replies, "uhhh, sure, why not. Here's your payment. A free lunch voucher for McDonald's."

And now you know how they choose who comes up with the plots for the video games based on movies...

You know the plastic merchandise crap that comes out with movies? Lunchboxes, pencil cases, posters - all that junk. I think games tie-ins go in with that crowd. Cheap junk. It's low quality, but it always runs at a profit, so it always gets made.

One of the most notable exceptions is Escape from Butcher Bay - but EfBB is also exceptional in that it isn't actually based on anything. It's an original, unique and legitimate part of the storyline and it serves as a prequel to Pitch Black. This may be a contributing factor as to why it's so amazing - instead of trying to make a game version of a movie, they've made a game. A real game that works as a game and doesn't try to blithely recreate as many scenes of the film as possible.

fatshodan

Yeah, Kotor and Outcast are two more examples. They do not follow the Star Wars movies at all. Both are excellent games. Ten times better than the modern SW-trilogy imho.

The biggest problems with all the tie ins that try to follow the story of the movie is that the film is two hrs long, while games should be 8 hrs or longer. That's a lot of time to fill up with gameplay. How the hell do you convert a 15 minutes long sequence in LOTR into a one hour long level? I've yet to see anyone figure that out. Filler in a game is never good in the first place, filler made hastily to make a dead-line (the cinema release date) is even worse.

Those two things alone are enough to ruin any decent game-idea. The makers of Riddick, Kotor and JK2 did the right thing. They distanced themselves from the movies and instead used the lore to make fantastic games that fans can relate to immediately, while people who do not care about the franchises can play the games without having to "relive" the films (that they might hate).

I have not played Blade Runner yet, but I believe that devs used the same approach to make it. Right, JF?

[QUOTE="fatshodan"]

You know the plastic merchandise crap that comes out with movies? Lunchboxes, pencil cases, posters - all that junk. I think games tie-ins go in with that crowd. Cheap junk. It's low quality, but it always runs at a profit, so it always gets made.

One of the most notable exceptions is Escape from Butcher Bay - but EfBB is also exceptional in that it isn't actually based on anything. It's an original, unique and legitimate part of the storyline and it serves as a prequel to Pitch Black. This may be a contributing factor as to why it's so amazing - instead of trying to make a game version of a movie, they've made a game. A real game that works as a game and doesn't try to blithely recreate as many scenes of the film as possible.

artur79

Yeah, Kotor and Outcast are two more examples. They do not follow the Star Wars movies at all. Both are excellent games. Ten times better than the modern SW-trilogy imho.

The biggest problems with all the tie ins that try to follow the story of the movie is that the film is two hrs long, while games should be 8 hrs or longer. That's a lot of time to fill up with gameplay. How the hell do you convert a 15 minutes long sequence in LOTR into a one hour long level? I've yet to see anyone figure that out. Filler in a game is never good in the first place, filler made hastily to make a dead-line (the cinema release date) is even worse.

Those two things alone are enough to ruin any decent game-idea. The makers of Riddick, Kotor and JK2 did the right thing. They distanced themselves from the movies and instead used the lore to make fantastic games that fans can relate to immediately, while people who do not care about the franchises can play the games without having to "relive" the films (that they might hate).

I have not played Blade Runner yet, but I believe that devs used the same approach to make it. Right, JF?

Yes, the game was made after the film, so was not trying to make the deadline (though it might have been around the time of the Director's cut) and, although the plot of the game clearly borrows from the film, it essentially takes that whole scenario and provides a variation on it with its own plot

Movie-based games have enough good games to not be ignored and overlooked. "Movie-games suck" just doesn't apply all the time.GodLovesDead

You're sorta right. You shouldn't just totally write off a game as garbage simply because it was based on a movie... but it seems like if you compare regular games vs games based on movies, you'll find that regular games have an astronomically higher chance of being really good.

One of the worst cases along ET must be Street Fighter: a crappy movie based on a great game that originated an horrible game that tried to emulate Mortal Kombat!

On the good side Indiana Jones & The Fate of Atlantis was one of the best and most complex adventure games ever. Funny thing that it wasn't based on a movie story either. Well, in its moment I enjoyed the Robocop arcade game too. Good fun.

One of the worst cases along ET must be Street Fighter: a crappy movie based on a great game that originated an horrible game that tried to emulate Mortal Kombat!

On the good side Indiana Jones & The Fate of Atlantis was one of the best and most complex adventure games ever. Funny thing that it wasn't based on a movie story either. Well, in its moment I enjoyed the Robocop arcade game too. Good fun.

pilouuuu2004

Yeah, usually movies based off games are pretty stupid too.

From my experience, games based on movies or tv shows are generally garbage or near to it. A few of the many many many examples:

• Most of The Simpsons games
• The Terminator games
• Fantastic 4
• Most of the pirates of the caribbean games

Although it's not a pc game, that ET Atari game was supposed to be one of the worst games of all time.

Here's a few counter examples to my point that I've heard of:

• Chronicles of Riddick
• The Godfather
• Some of the Lord of the Rings games

I'm sure there are more. I think the main reason most game-based movies suck is because the companies know people will buy the game regardless because they liked the movie. If there are guaranteed sales, why even try? If you make the game mediocre at least, you'll probably profit despite all the corner-cutting.

Do most agree with my point? Any counter-arguments? Any other examples?

df853

Many of the Star Wars based games are good, including the old X-Wing and Tie Fighter games, Dark Forces, Jedi Academy, Battlefront... Even the MMORPG Star Wares Galaxies was a pretty good game at one time. Can't think of any other good adaptations, though.Royas