Why the Movie Is Better than the Game

[Not G. Ivingname]

Actually a Die Hard game with only a few bad guys I think might just work. Have most of the game be about puzzle solving and stealth, and when the fighting does come around, make the player very suspectable to bullets, make the enemies use cover very wisely and force the player to think about every single kill.

 

[afaceforradio]

I personally have never really played a movie based video game that I've enjoyed. Die Hard, Pirates of the Caribbean, Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park, Fifth Element, The Mummy, Scorpion King... all terrible.

The old Alien 3 game I had on my Atari wasn't too bad, but it had too much of a time limit for me. I like my games sans time limits for the most part.

Actually no, I will say I enjoyed the Indy Lego games, but I think that lego could have any image or brand slapped on it and the games would be generally enjoyable because it goes off into a slightly different category.

Actually a Die Hard game with only a few bad guys I think might just work. Have most of the game be about puzzle solving and stealth, and when the fighting does come around, make the player very suspectable to bullets, make the enemies use cover very wisely and force the player to think about every single kill.

I agree, give it a mixture of Splinter Cell sneaky balls and whatnot and throw in some gunshootin' and you may have a good game there. But it would definitely have to be voiced by Bruce Willis, no knock offs!

 

[Falseprophet]

Going way back, the old Data East RoboCop arcade game was one of the best 2D sidescrollers of its day. Of course, back then sidescrollers didn't need much plot beyond "walk to the right and shoot everything that moves". It was basically a sprite swap with any other game in the genre, but with better graphics and controls, direct vocal sampling from the movie (a new thing at the time) and the target shooting bonus game between levels.

It seems the rule applies more to games that are timed to coincide with a current film, where the constrained release schedule and whole marketing machine wreck the process. Whereas adaptations based on a setting or with time to develop are better, even if they're not necessarily great.

Most of the Bond games are competent, even if they can't all hold a candle to Goldeneye, because the Bond setting and formula have been inspirations for hundreds of games themselves. The typical Bond plot incorporates FPS, stealth, combat driving, and puzzle solving (mostly via gadgets). You can even work in roleplaying if you wanted to. Yeah, mixing genres usually makes the whole game shallow, but honestly, Bond films in general are shallow (and I say that as a huge fan of the franchise).

The Star Wars setting is so vast and varied it allows for a variety of different games. And it's perennially popular so LucasArts can release SW games whenever they want without always having to time things for a film release. Interestingly, the non-Jedi/Sith games tend to be the best: X-Wing, Tie Fighter, Battlefront and the like. Coincidentally, those ones are rarely based on specific films. Similarly, some of the Indiana Jones games were good. The Emperor's Tomb for PS2 depicted Indy's fighting style extremely well, but was sadly padded during the puzzle-platforming sections.

 

[Phuctifyno]

Also, E.T. was awesome.

 

[Xander_VJ]

"Is there something inherent in the process of adaptation that ensures most games based on movies will be terrible? Frankly, yes."

I strongly disagree with that.

There are plenty of good video game adaptations, but most of them have one thing in common: They were not rushed projects.

Either because they came out after the movies or because they got lucky with the schedule. The very first thing a developer needs for making a good game is having enough time. Give it to them and the probabilities for doing a good movie game increases dramatically.

Actually, I can't remember a movie game that was bad because it followed the film's plot too closely. All of them were because they felt either rushed or clumsily designed, whether the mechanics, the levels or both.

And for good movie games examples, they may not outweigh the bad ones, but that doesn't mean that there are not plenty of them.

"GoldenEye 007" is arguably the best movie adaptation in video game history. "Spider-Man 2" was an amazing surprise and became a cult classic. The SNES "Star Wars" games had a couple of difficulty balance issues, but they really reproduced the feeling of playing the movies. Hell, even the EA "The Lord of the Rings" games were pretty good. And play the 2002 "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" game for a pleasant surprise.

And of course, if we go to games that aren't based directly in movies, but rather their universe, the list grows. We even have timeless master pieces like "Knights of the Old Republic" and "Fate of Atlantis".

So no, there's nothing that makes a game worst than the movie just because it is a game. Honestly that's being way too narrow-minded. And it's not anything new either. Movie fans have always had to endure the critics of movies that were based on books or comic books.

 

[literallyanythingelse]

Well the pedigree of movies based on video games is pretty piss-poor too. Maybe Uncharted will prove this trend wrong? (Ha ha)

 

[Rakkana]

I don't think there's a reason beyond they were lazy. They didn't want to make a good game, they wanted a cash in. Seems like they've been doing this with the games since the 4th one.

If they wanted to make a good game it isn't as hard as people make it out to be. Star wars battlefront being my example.

 

[Folio]

The programmers just need to work around a story but when the game isn't good enough for selling standarts they add some irrelevant elements to it that either doesn't match the movie or the game as a whole.

Sometimes I wonder if they really think about it. Listen to the players, look at the result of: Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game.

 

[Eideann]

I really liked the early GBA Harry Potter Movie Tie-ins, they had the story and they were RPGs (which suits the story more than FPS).

Also the lego series works well, probably because it doesn't take itself too seriously.

 

[badgersprite]

This article is right on the money. I agree completely.

There have been movie tie-ins I liked (and I only count a game as a movie tie-in if it's released to coincide with a film, not just a game set in the same universe like Dark Forces or KOTOR for Star Wars), but no movie tie-in game has ever exceeded the film it's based on for me.

From my recollection, the best movie tie-ins let you do something different, and let you get the experience of being in the movie you just watched without rehashing the same experience, and maintaining a degree of variety. Spiderman 2 is an example of this, and, come to think of it, so were some of the older Harry Potter games I could remember playing. They just let you loose in the HP world and let you dick around with your powers a lot, and that worked. The levels and encounters were varied and interesting, despite all of them being set in Hogwarts, with your powers being solutions to pretty witty puzzles and there were enough different challenges that it never really got boring.

That didn't make the game better than Chamber of Secrets, not by a long shot, and it still had the problems this article mentioned storywise, but it certainly made it worth playing for fans of the series, or just for people who wanted a fun game.

 

[badgersprite]

Just look at LotR to see how to do it right. I can count the number of bad games that they've made on one hand. And they've made a lot of games.

Actually, come to think of it, there was a Fellowship of the Rings game I can remember playing that definitely stayed more faithful to the book than the films did. And it was a hard, challenging game. Not as good as the films, for sure, but definitely a game that legitimately worked as an RPG on its own merits.

 

[(name here)]

There was a Return of the King gamecube game I liked enough to unlock literally everything.

 

[Flying Dagger]

I think it's a cost/reward problem.

An average game is going to be mostly profit, whereas a good game could end up being a massive loss.
Why bother trying when people are going to buy it either way?

 

[ethaninja]

I loved the Chronicles of Riddick games

 

[Anacortian]

As a child, I really loved the Lion King game one the Genesis. I think that stands alone as the only Game-to-Movie that I really enjoyed.

 

[Kellerb]

The 'Wanted - weapons of fate' tie in actually wasnt crap. it was really enjoyable, a bit short, but worth a rent anyhoo.

 

[bladeleaper]

I really enjoyed Scarface and Spider-man 2, King Kong wasn't too bad either. I also thought X-men origins was ok for what it was, it wasn't great but I admittedly had some fun, I did however think it was too long, which is a complaint I never thought I'd have for a game.

 

[rvdm88]

if games are allowed to part slightly from their movies or francises they can come a long way.

For instance the Batman: Arkham Asylum game, its not acting out any of the movies or even graphic novels from the past. But still it is in the universe of batman, doing the stuff batman does and using the dandy gadgets he has.

Also Metro2033 is a pretty good game, though i havnt read the book about it yet.

 

[TheMadDoctorsCat]

"Robocop vs Terminator" on the Sega Megadrive was awesome, and "Ghostbusters" was pretty good as well. Neither of which took much from the films, or rather the characters, that they were based on, which is probably why they worked so well.

Don't think I've ever played a recent movie tie-in game, but I used to love "Ghostbusters" on the C64, at least the bits before the annoying ending where you had to "sneak past the marshmallow man" (terrible game design, that - why leave the success or failure of the game up to a bit of split-second timing after all that's happened before then?)

Oh, and I was going to mention E.T, but I suspect I'll have been ninja'd at least three times before I hit the "post" button!

 

[TheMadDoctorsCat]

As a child, I really loved the Lion King game one the Genesis. I think that stands alone as the only Game-to-Movie that I really enjoyed.

Ugh, I remember that. If the player had had a half-decent amount of energy it would've been ok, but there were SO MANY one-hit kills. Those damn rolling logs in the second level... and the ostrich-run... ugh. Why was it that water was instantly fatal in every platform game ever made at a certain period?

EDIT: Also, lions can SWIM!