Games Based on Movies

Overview

Movie Tie-ins have a rightfully earned reputation for being less-than-stellar cash-ins on the success of the film they're based off of, with overall quality ranging from mediocre examples of the genre with some movie characters sprinkled in to games that are flat-out terrible. They are usually buggy, poorly controlled, and sometimes even feel unfinished due to the requirement of needing to be released alongside the movie (a notable example of this is the video game Sea Dogs 3, which was changed into a tie-in to Pirates of the Caribbean partway through development , resulting in a rushed game far below developer Bethesda's usual level of quality). One of the most notorious movie games was the video game adaptation of the wildly successful film E.T. The Extraterrestrial for the Atari 2600. The E.T. game is held accountable for the great videogame crash of 1983, when the industry reached a record low due to extremely poor sales. The unsold copies of E.T. were infamously dumped into a landfill in New Mexico, To this day, E.T. is considered by some to be the worst game ever made.

There are two main reasons for the poor quality of most of movie tie-in games. The first reason is because the games are rushed to meet the movie release. This is a basic marketing technique, since there are a lot of potential buyers in people who have just seen the movie. Putting out movie tie-ins while the movie is still big, ensures that a lot of people, usually uninformed of the poor quality, buy it. There are some exceptions such as Superman Returns, which was released when the movie was released on DVD, instead of when the movie was in theaters. It got low review scores regardless. Another reason is that, game companies have no intention in putting precious and costly working hours in a game that will sell very well regardless of the quality (i.e. Spider-Man 3). Usually, however, it is a combination of both.

There are a few diamonds in the rough for movie tie-in's though. One of the most famous and fondly remembered games of all time, GoldenEye was based on the James Bond film of the same name. The game was credited for being the first game to truly bring four player multiplayer to consoles when it hit the Nintendo 64 on August 25, 1997 and became a runaway success. Another example is The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay, a 2004 game by Starbreeze, which was meant to serve as a prequel to the movie The Chronicles of Riddick, released that summer. The game is widely considered to be among the best XBOX games, and is considered far better than the movie it was released alongside.