It’s a running joke within the industry that movie tie in games just aren’t very good. Well, here we try to prove some of that wrong with our favorite movie video game tie ins of all time.
10 Toy Story 3
Console 360, PS3.
Release Date June 15th 2010
Publisher Disney Interactive Studios
Developer Avalanch Software
Metacritic Score 76
User Score 8.9
A fun little game that took players completely by surprise. A direct movie tie in, that opted to avoid following the events of the film. This is a lesson for modern game designers in how to make kids games that can appeal to a whole spectrum of players.
Even adults who picked this up found themselves strangely drawn into its beautiful simplicity. Design a town and play with the residents. Players who felt compelled to could chase down bank robbers and help find Bo-Peep’s sheep, but the real magic came when you just messed around.
9 X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Console 360, PS3
Release Date 1st May 2009
Publisher Activision
Developer Raven Software
Metacritic Score 75
User Score 8.4
An enjoyable title. The story was generic and relatively uninteresting, but the mechanics and sheer brutality of the kills more than made up for any narrative shortfalls. Flying around the map chopping up your foes with big claws sprouting from your knuckles is great fun, and the added dynamic of killing everyone whilst avoiding their gunfire added an element of strategy that was most welcome. This game won’t win any awards, but those looking for good time smashing stuff up can’t go far wrong here.
8 The Lion King
Console SEGA Mega Drive
Release Date 8th December 1994
Publisher Virgin Interactive
Developer Westwood Studios
Metacritic Score N/A
User Score N/A
Simple in premise with a quality result. This side scrolling adventure included all the familiar faces of the movie, and incorporated them into a platforming experience that was just brilliant. Although the modern day graphics will put it to shame, it came during a period that the 16 bit era was really getting into its stride, providing a level of detail and character animations that were just unheard of previously.
7 Michael Jackson
Console SEGA Mega Drive
Release Date 1989
Publisher U.S. Gold
Developer Emerald Software
Metacritic Score N/A
User Score N/A
Used as the poster boy to the launch of the SEGA Megadrive, Michael Jacksons movie tie in game saw him storming around various levels, killing people with his dance moves and grabbing his crotch all in an effort to save the children from the bad guys. Leaving that thought there to linger in your mind, it’s also important to mention that this was one of the first console games to include fully digitised voices, a major step for the industry. In its day, this was one of the best looking and well designed games around.
6 Lego Star Wars
Console 360, PS3
Release Date 6th November 2007
Publisher LucasArts
Developer Travellers Tales
Metacritic Score 80
User Score 6.2
Stating a craze that appears to be showing no signs of abating, Lego Star Wars was and is a game that brings the hardcore and casual fan bases together. Deep enough for hardened gamers to sink their teeth into, but simple enough that anyone can play along. If you have kids and want to play games with them, then you really have to get into the Lego games, with the Star Wars iterations at the top of your list.
5 Aladin
Console SEGA Mega Drive
Release Date 11th November 1993
Publisher SEGA
Developer Virgin Games
Metacritic Score N/A
User Score N/A
This is one of the few game to film tie ins that, providing you like games, is every bit as good as the film. Great visuals, and a wonderful balance of gameplay that constantly kept things fresh. Those who have played the game before will undoubtably remember the challenge of the flying carpet level, a standout moment in many peoples gaming life. Anybody that wants to look back over the history of gaming should definitely get hold of this along the way. Sheer class.
4 The Chronicles Of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay
Console Xbox
Release Date 1st June 2004
Publisher Vivendi Studios
Developer Starbreeze Studios
Metacritic Score 89
User Score 8.8
This game is brilliant, and to think that it;’s a movie tie in is astonishing. This is a brutal game with fantastic visuals for the time. Chronicling the main characters time leading up to and just after him getting that funky stuff done to his eyes, allowing him to see so well in the dark. The game has you breaking free from a violent prison where the guards mostly leave people to sort their own problems out. Soon enough you escape and are aggressively pursued around the prison interior as you make a bid for freedom. Want to know how the developers behind The Darkness games learned their trade? Start here.
3 The Warriors
Console Xbox, PS2
Release Date 21st October 2005
Publisher Rockstar Games
Developer Rockstar Toronto
Metacritic Score 85
User Score 9.2
A bit of a stretch to call this a movie tie in game because it was released so far after the original film, its coincidence with remastered the re-release allows it to make its way onto our list. Rockstar grabbed the franchise and brought it into the modern era with a brutality that far exceeds the film. Smashing players heads into walls and defending your turf against the quite honestly terrifying ganges is a blast. Let down by periodically shoddy boss battles is more of a product of the games era than it being a movie tie in. A personal favorite from the original Xbox generation.
2 Spiderman 2
Console Xbox, PS2
Release Date 9th July 2004
Publisher Activision
Developer Treyarch
Metacritic Score N/A
User Score N/A
Anybody that has played video games for any amount of time will have memories of this game. Probably not from the campaign, but from flying around the open world environment. Fantastic fun and a standout memory for most. Spiderman 2 was a major improvement from the first Spiderman, as it was the first time the franchise went open world. One of a small selection of open world games in its time, players were drawn towards the nice visuals and sheer fun that could be had from climbing as high as they could and free falling to earth only to swing off at the last moment. Doing this and finding collectables was easily the best part of the game.
1 Goldeneye
Console N64
Release Date 25th August 1997
Publisher Nintendo
Developer Rare
Metacritic Score: 96
User Score 9.1
No surprises to see this sitting atop the pile, however it commands such esteem in our hearts that theres just no way anything released so far can usurp Goldeneye from its rightful place.
Great visuals for its time and a solid control scheme were only part of the attraction. What this game was really about was the fantastic multiplayer component. Utilising the Nintendo 64′s then revolutionary four controller ports, friends would huddle round tiny televisions for hours and fight fiercely contested battles, until things descended into arguments at the end because someone had been watching your screen or cheated by using Odd Job.
Goldeneye didn’t really do anything new, but it brought the multiplayer deathmatch to the home console in style. Friends would become enemies, and a small but devout core of players used to invent their own games to be played in the multiplayer map. This is a game that any gamer worth their salt needs to have played.
They’ve now become a common staple of the video games industry, but are yearly iterations of franchises a good idea? Or do they stifle talent?
I suppose the most obvious answer would be yes they do (though I don’t necessarily agree with this). Companies, probably most notably Activision stumble upon a good idea, or popular game, then churn out title after title until theres no market left. Just look at Rock-band and guitar Hero, these games were initially very popular, most of us have at least one plastic guitar lying around gathering dust in a corner, but just recently we’ve seen a massive decline in sales, as the market either reaches saturation point, or people have just become sick of the games, leading to Harmonix being sold off recently for only fifty Dollars.
The most notable yearly iteration of them all, Call of Duty has now spawned vast numbers of games, and now were surely reaching the saturation point of the genre, and this can only be a bad thing of its fans, as sales drop, so will developer support, and naturally investment and talent being pumped into the genre will fall.
I also feel that the yearly releases of sports games are also interesting. Its well know that developers have plenty of ideas to implement on future releases, but they hold them back so that they have something to add next year, surely depriving it’s customers of the the ultimate experience?
There are however solid pros to this approach that some people may not have thought about, and the haters of this also need to take a look at themselves.
Today we live in a consumer driven economy, where supply and demand is paramount. These titles obviously sell, so why shouldn’t companies release these games? At the end of the day they’re there to make money, and not sit around for the fun of it. If you don’t like it, vote with your wallets, and don’t buy the games, but more often than not, these games are often quite good, even with the small incremental improvements.
I do however feel that that although the yearly iterations can become tiresome, and frustrating, especially at the beginning of 2011 we are looking at one of the best years ever in gaming, and most of what we see are sequels, the yearly iteration has a very important role to play in gaming today. The revenue that these games provide, may push publishers towards releasing more of the same type of game over and over again, but it also gives the developer a massive cash pile that they can invest in high budget new ip’s. If it wasn’t for games like Madden of Fifa, we certainly wouldn’t have seen games like Dead Space, or at least not with the polish and high production values that the game has today, and as a result we may have a watered down version with poor visuals, and gameplay. Making us much poorer for the experience.
So yes, enjoy your rant about publishers running games into the ground, its annoying and we all hate it, but sit down and enjoy LA Noir and tickle those 10 copies of open world sandbox games sitting next to GTA under the chin, because they’ve played their part brilliantly.
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