Something went wrong. Try again later
    Follow

    Licensed Game

    Concept »

    These games are based off of established licenses, such as movies, comics, or TV shows. Examples are the James Bond 007 and Spider-Man franchises.

    Franchises which should have good games but don't

    Avatar image for lies
    Lies

    3985

    Forum Posts

    32517

    Wiki Points

    0

    Followers

    Reviews: 12

    User Lists: 14

    Edited By Lies

    You ever run across something in another media form and think to yourself: "this would make a great videogame"? No? Well no matter. Because I did... and this is horrible stylistically. Let's cut to the chase, shall we? These two franchises should have better games than what they currently have.

    Harry Potter

    Dude look at this PS2 shot of HBP. Wait... PS2???
    Dude look at this PS2 shot of HBP. Wait... PS2???
    This is a no-brainer, as the books are practically already set up like a game as is. A large, open castle environment with lots of secret places to explore, going to classes to increase abilities, sports mini-games, a continuing story that isn't too overbearing and progresses slowly throughout the year- there could even be dialouge trees or a dating mechanic to inteact with other students and form relationships a la Bioware games. And you know... magic. Spells and potions and shit. Unfortunately, Electronic Arts has seemed content to pump out movie tie-ins with little creative use of the license. The Harry Potter world is vast and expansive- it would be a perfect game world that could support many different game styles. All EA is likely to show us though is Harry's story, which isn't all that compelling since we know where it ends, and it allows the player almost no freedom to make their own choices. Think about an action-RPG or the like set in Hogwarts, putting you in the shoes of a new character as a completely new story unfolded. The setting and world could make great videogames, especially with Wii controls. Maybe after the last movie comes out EA will get a little more creative with the license (or maybe it's something to do with J.K. Rowling). All I know is that Harry Potter has tons of videogame potential, but we haven't seen very much of anything yet.

    Lord of the Rings

    LOOK AT ALL THAT
    LOOK AT ALL THAT
    This one is slighty different, as there are some pretty decent LOTR games out there. Nothing too spectacular though (ignoring LOTRO, because I have no experience with MMOs :P). Again, LOTR has an incredible wealth of source material, with Tolkein having essentially mapped out the history, geography, and social structure of this entire world from the moment of creation. The mythos has been treated to an almost insane amount of detail, and there are plenty of interesting ways to use that canon for games. All that we've really seen so far though is hack-n-slash and RTS, set during or around the story put forth in the books and movies. There was a Hobbit game from Sierra recently which was surprisingly good, and The Third Age, which was hilariously bad, but besides that it's been mostly rote. This is probably related to the Tolkein estate, as they tend to keep a tight fist on his work, but the possibilities for games are limitless. Any of the stories from the Simillarion, Aragorn's travels in Harad and Rhun, only breifly touched upon in the books, Gandalf and his Wizard homies (RIP The White Council, it was not yet your time). Middle Earth is so broad, it could do so much more besides RTS and Hack n Slash- or at least try different time periods besides the frame around the books and movies.

    Both of those franchises (Both EA Licenses, oddly enough) really are something special, but haven't been put to good use in the videogame space. It's kind of saddening to see such potential not fully utilized, although I'm sure EA is laughing all the way to the bank. Any franchises you feel this way about? Disagree with my choices? Sound off in the comments :)

    Thanks for reading. It is appreciated.
    Avatar image for lies
    Lies

    3985

    Forum Posts

    32517

    Wiki Points

    0

    Followers

    Reviews: 12

    User Lists: 14

    #1  Edited By Lies

    You ever run across something in another media form and think to yourself: "this would make a great videogame"? No? Well no matter. Because I did... and this is horrible stylistically. Let's cut to the chase, shall we? These two franchises should have better games than what they currently have.

    Harry Potter

    Dude look at this PS2 shot of HBP. Wait... PS2???
    Dude look at this PS2 shot of HBP. Wait... PS2???
    This is a no-brainer, as the books are practically already set up like a game as is. A large, open castle environment with lots of secret places to explore, going to classes to increase abilities, sports mini-games, a continuing story that isn't too overbearing and progresses slowly throughout the year- there could even be dialouge trees or a dating mechanic to inteact with other students and form relationships a la Bioware games. And you know... magic. Spells and potions and shit. Unfortunately, Electronic Arts has seemed content to pump out movie tie-ins with little creative use of the license. The Harry Potter world is vast and expansive- it would be a perfect game world that could support many different game styles. All EA is likely to show us though is Harry's story, which isn't all that compelling since we know where it ends, and it allows the player almost no freedom to make their own choices. Think about an action-RPG or the like set in Hogwarts, putting you in the shoes of a new character as a completely new story unfolded. The setting and world could make great videogames, especially with Wii controls. Maybe after the last movie comes out EA will get a little more creative with the license (or maybe it's something to do with J.K. Rowling). All I know is that Harry Potter has tons of videogame potential, but we haven't seen very much of anything yet.

    Lord of the Rings

    LOOK AT ALL THAT
    LOOK AT ALL THAT
    This one is slighty different, as there are some pretty decent LOTR games out there. Nothing too spectacular though (ignoring LOTRO, because I have no experience with MMOs :P). Again, LOTR has an incredible wealth of source material, with Tolkein having essentially mapped out the history, geography, and social structure of this entire world from the moment of creation. The mythos has been treated to an almost insane amount of detail, and there are plenty of interesting ways to use that canon for games. All that we've really seen so far though is hack-n-slash and RTS, set during or around the story put forth in the books and movies. There was a Hobbit game from Sierra recently which was surprisingly good, and The Third Age, which was hilariously bad, but besides that it's been mostly rote. This is probably related to the Tolkein estate, as they tend to keep a tight fist on his work, but the possibilities for games are limitless. Any of the stories from the Simillarion, Aragorn's travels in Harad and Rhun, only breifly touched upon in the books, Gandalf and his Wizard homies (RIP The White Council, it was not yet your time). Middle Earth is so broad, it could do so much more besides RTS and Hack n Slash- or at least try different time periods besides the frame around the books and movies.

    Both of those franchises (Both EA Licenses, oddly enough) really are something special, but haven't been put to good use in the videogame space. It's kind of saddening to see such potential not fully utilized, although I'm sure EA is laughing all the way to the bank. Any franchises you feel this way about? Disagree with my choices? Sound off in the comments :)

    Thanks for reading. It is appreciated.
    Avatar image for crunchuk
    crunchUK

    6052

    Forum Posts

    0

    Wiki Points

    0

    Followers

    Reviews: 0

    User Lists: 0

    #2  Edited By crunchUK
    Both EA Licenses

    you see, there's the problem ;)
    Avatar image for krazychris
    krazychris

    231

    Forum Posts

    20

    Wiki Points

    0

    Followers

    Reviews: 1

    User Lists: 0

    #3  Edited By krazychris

    Crank could have a good game, the concept of needing to doing exciting things to keep alive really shouts out a sort of time attack style of gameplay to me.

    Avatar image for deactivated-5f9398c1300c7
    deactivated-5f9398c1300c7

    3570

    Forum Posts

    105

    Wiki Points

    0

    Followers

    Reviews: 2

    User Lists: 0

    #4  Edited By deactivated-5f9398c1300c7

    Batman, defiantly. It's been a long time since we had a great game involving the franchise. Ever since the NES 1989 Batman, the rest after that started to be mediocre or just plain abysmal.


    I guess there's still hope.
    I guess there's still hope.









    Avatar image for systech
    Systech

    4155

    Forum Posts

    2448

    Wiki Points

    0

    Followers

    Reviews: 1

    User Lists: 0

    #5  Edited By Systech
    Yeah, Superman should be much much better.









    Avatar image for themanohall
    Themanohall

    402

    Forum Posts

    1593

    Wiki Points

    0

    Followers

    Reviews: 0

    User Lists: 2

    #6  Edited By Themanohall

    I think an Atlas- made Harry Potter game would be insanely cool, but that'll never happen...

    Avatar image for jamesf
    JamesF

    1546

    Forum Posts

    1337

    Wiki Points

    0

    Followers

    Reviews: 19

    User Lists: 3

    #7  Edited By JamesF

    I actually thought the Order of the Phoenix game was pretty enjoyable for the most part.


    Fingers crossed the Half Blood Prince game is good.
    Avatar image for handsomedead
    HandsomeDead

    11853

    Forum Posts

    -1

    Wiki Points

    0

    Followers

    Reviews: 0

    User Lists: 0

    #8  Edited By HandsomeDead

    Lord of the Rings is so generic that I feel even the best game to come from that, assuming it's not an RTS, would be dominated by The Elder Scrolls.

    Avatar image for lestater
    Lestater

    397

    Forum Posts

    1

    Wiki Points

    0

    Followers

    Reviews: 0

    User Lists: 1

    #9  Edited By Lestater
    @JamesF said:
    " I actually thought the Order of the Phoenix game was pretty enjoyable for the most part.

    Fingers crossed the Half Blood Prince game is good.
    "
    It's not so much that the games were bad, but that there is so much more you can work with to create an awesome game within the Harry Potter universe.
    Avatar image for jakob187
    jakob187

    22972

    Forum Posts

    10045

    Wiki Points

    0

    Followers

    Reviews: 8

    User Lists: 9

    #10  Edited By jakob187

    LOTR has a LOT of good games, actually.  LOTRO, BFME 1 and 2, Return of the King, and The Two Towers are prime examples of this.  The Hobbit from Sierra, LOTR: Fellowship from Universal, and Third Age from EA are prime examples of how to make the games suck (even though I still think that if the development time and budget had been more substantial for Surreal in the making of Fellowship, it could've been a killer game like they made out of The Thing).


    As for what franchise I think should have good games but doesn't:
    Transformers
    Avatar image for thekidnixon
    TheKidNixon

    1619

    Forum Posts

    2182

    Wiki Points

    0

    Followers

    Reviews: 1

    User Lists: 5

    #11  Edited By TheKidNixon
    @HandsomeDead said:
    " Lord of the Rings is so generic that I feel even the best game to come from that, assuming it's not an RTS, would be dominated by The Elder Scrolls. "
    It feel generic largely because it set the ground rules for the genre. Elder Scrolls belongs to a long tradition that grew directly out of the work of the Inklings. Not saying that that makes it okay for LotR games to be so damn dull, but there you go. Same reason I find Superman to be fairly trite and limited compared to other superheroes.

    Moving on to the original topic, I'm consistently shocked that there has never/like will never be a truly excellent Matrix game. The franchise seems perfectly suited for the medium, and you could do some really fascinating storytelling stuff where you're not only directly controlling someone in the Matrix, but your actions on the controller also effect the world at large, IE futzing with the programming of the Matrix itself. Of course, the whole franchises time has come and gone, so probably never will be full realized. Plus bullet-time has certainly been carried over, done to death and buried.
    Avatar image for jamesf
    JamesF

    1546

    Forum Posts

    1337

    Wiki Points

    0

    Followers

    Reviews: 19

    User Lists: 3

    #12  Edited By JamesF
    @Lestater said:
    " @JamesF said:
    " I actually thought the Order of the Phoenix game was pretty enjoyable for the most part.

    Fingers crossed the Half Blood Prince game is good.
    "
    It's not so much that the games were bad, but that there is so much more you can work with to create an awesome game within the Harry Potter universe.     "

    Very true.
    Avatar image for tylea002
    Tylea002

    2382

    Forum Posts

    776

    Wiki Points

    0

    Followers

    Reviews: 4

    User Lists: 6

    #13  Edited By Tylea002

    Interesting Blog, Lies, I may just have to counter blog on this one in response, cause I can think of many others.

    Avatar image for oni
    Oni

    2345

    Forum Posts

    5885

    Wiki Points

    0

    Followers

    Reviews: 26

    User Lists: 12

    #14  Edited By Oni

    LOTRO makes great use of the license. I enjoyed the hack n' slash games but yeah, it's not exactly making the most of LOTR's lore.

    Avatar image for death_unicorn
    Death_Unicorn

    2879

    Forum Posts

    12136

    Wiki Points

    0

    Followers

    Reviews: 3

    User Lists: 6

    #15  Edited By Death_Unicorn
    @Lies: I think EA only has the license to the Lord of the Ring movies, any thing other than that is territory only the Tolkien family can lease.
    Avatar image for lies
    Lies

    3985

    Forum Posts

    32517

    Wiki Points

    0

    Followers

    Reviews: 12

    User Lists: 14

    #16  Edited By Lies
    @Death_Unicorn said:
    " @Lies: I think EA only has the license to the Lord of the Ring movies, any thing other than that is territory only the Tolkien family can lease. "
    Sierra was making games based off of the book licenses for a while, which was weird because they couldn't use any movie licenses, so the characters were designed to look ALMOST like the movie versions, but not quite close enough for EA to sue. See: War of The Ring, a forgotten Sierra RTS based on the books. And the Hobbit was good dammit Jakob. Nice art style and pretty fun honestly.
    Avatar image for arbitrarywater
    ArbitraryWater

    16104

    Forum Posts

    5585

    Wiki Points

    0

    Followers

    Reviews: 8

    User Lists: 66

    #17  Edited By ArbitraryWater

    Oddly enough, I found both brawlers based on the movies (The Two Towers and Return of the King) to actually be pretty good, as were the GBA versions (which were basically Diablo lite) and the RTS games. Conquest was pretty bad though.

    But then you reminded me that The Third Age existed. For those who haven't played it: Imagine the most generic and unoriginal J-RPG in the world (Yes, I said J-RPG. There is no hint of the customization found in most western RPGs), but then have characters that are like the Lord of the Rings characters but slightly different, then make it have tons of random encounters to pad out the length and make it linear as hell. That is The Third Age.

    Avatar image for kashif1
    kashif1

    1543

    Forum Posts

    882

    Wiki Points

    0

    Followers

    Reviews: 1

    User Lists: 1

    #18  Edited By kashif1

    i wish that the guys who made oblivion could make a lord of the rings game

    Avatar image for claude
    Claude

    16672

    Forum Posts

    1047

    Wiki Points

    0

    Followers

    Reviews: 2

    User Lists: 18

    #19  Edited By Claude

    These are great franchises to get better games. I'm sure publishers will keep trying... but of course will they be good. I thought the LOTR action games on the PS2 were pretty fun. As for Mr. Potter, I've played one and it was the Chamber of Secrets, not a bad game. I thought about picking up a copy of the Order of the Phoenix for the Wii, just for the kicks, plus it got some decent reviews.

    Avatar image for jmrwacko
    jmrwacko

    2537

    Forum Posts

    50

    Wiki Points

    0

    Followers

    Reviews: 0

    User Lists: 2

    #20  Edited By jmrwacko

    I agree with the OP. Harry Potter and LOTR both should make great subjects for video games. But we all know how movie to video game tie ins work out, excluding Goldeneye.

    Avatar image for end_boss
    End_Boss

    3386

    Forum Posts

    385

    Wiki Points

    0

    Followers

    Reviews: 0

    User Lists: 1

    #21  Edited By End_Boss
    @HandsomeDead said:
    " Lord of the Rings is so generic that I feel even the best game to come from that, assuming it's not an RTS, would be dominated by The Elder Scrolls. "
    Actually, the Lord of the Rings already dominates Elder Scrolls by default, since almost all of the source material contained within can be found in the groundwork that was laid down by Tolkien's trilogy.

    Many are those who would rage indignantly at your comment.
    Browse Boards
    Jump to Top

    ×

    Move topic to another board

    Pick a board and hit submit

  • (Or search for a more specific forum)
    • Close
    ×

    Pick a List

    Close

    This edit will also create new pages on Giant Bomb for:

    Beware, you are proposing to add brand new pages to the wiki along with your edits. Make sure this is what you intended. This will likely increase the time it takes for your changes to go live.

    Comment and Save

    Until you earn 1000 points all your submissions need to be vetted by other Giant Bomb users. This process takes no more than a few hours and we'll send you an email once approved.