Whenever a block-buster film comes out these days, there is usually a game to go along with it, and it’s usually by EA. Over the years, especially in the late 80’s and 90’s movie licenses gained a reputation for being pretty poor, and bearing little or no resemblance to the film that inspired their creation. One movie based game, ET, was so bad that it was rumoured that millions of unsold copies of it were buried in the desert (not sure how true this is but it’s a funny story). I believe this reputation has been a little unfair, and have sifted through the rubbish to find the cream of the crop, to show that it’s not all bad.

These are some of the best movie licences ever made, in no particluar order:

Die Hard Trilogy (PS1/Saturn 1996):

This was revolution in movie based games on its release in 1996. Basically this was three arcade style games for the price of one, each based on one of the three Die Hard films. Die Hard is a third person shooter where you have to make your way around Nakatomi Plaza clearing the levels of terrorists (thieves) and rescuing hostages using an increasingly more powerful set of weapons. The strongest aspects of this part were the strategies that you needed to employ to get the upper hand over the enemies. You needed to setup ambushes and use smoke screens to defeat them. Overall I think that this was a strong part of the game.

The Die Hard 2 section is easily the most impressive part of the trilogy. It’s an on rails shooter in the style of Virtua Cop, and you can even use a light gun with it (not so good on the ps1 version due to the lack of a first party light gun). Many Playstation gamers bought the trilogy on the strength of this section alone, as this was the first light gun game available at the time on that console. The game follows the action events of the film quite faithfully in and around Dulles airport, especially impressive is the ambush in the unfinished terminal. Though not quite as good as Virtua Cop, this was an excellent game that would have been almost worth the asking price on its own.

The game based on the third film, Die Hard with a Vengeance, is the weakest part of the trilogy in my opinion, but only due to the extreme difficulty level during the later levels. Taking the form of a driving game similar to Driver, before Driver was created, this section sees you haring around New York in a taxi cab at ridiculous speeds in an attempt to defuse the bombs which have been left across town with very tight time limits. The graphics were amazing at the time, but the highlight was when you ran into pedestrians while driving on the footpath and their blood splattered over the windscreen, only to be wiped off with the windscreen wipers, hilarious. As I said earlier this was an extremely difficult game and was almost impossible to complete, even using cheat codes.

Robocop 3 (Amiga, Atari ST 1992):

Released in 1992, this is a strange one, as it is a movie game that came out long before the film appeared, due to the film producers Orion going bankrupt soon after the film was completed in 1991. In fact the film wasn’t released until 1993. Despite the arse about face release dates, this was a real gem of a game that didn’t even suffer from following the plot of the diabolical film. It was also amazing that this was a good movie licence from Ocean, who were rapidly becoming renowned for their bellow average attempts.

The game utilised a 3d engine, very in the vein of contemporary Novagen games such as Damocles and Mercenary. In fact I was surprised when researching this article to find that the game was made not by Novagen, but DID. The game ran at a speedy pace, even on an A500, and included driving, on foot and flying sections. For once a Robocop game actually gave you the feeling of power that should accompany being in control of the cyborg copper. In the previous scrolling shooter/platformers, you could die so easily it was ridiculous.

The game was released with an innovative new dongle device, to try and deter piracy, which was rife at the time on the Amiga. This dongle plugged into the main joystick port and stopped the game from starting if it was missing. Sadly this dongle was incompatible with the new Amiga 600, on which the dongle wouldn’t fit, virtually forcing gamers to use the hacked pirate version, which has been reported to be available weeks before the game was even officially released. This couldn’t have helped sales very much at all. I strongly advise that you go out and play this game now, if you never had, you’ll be impressed by what a lowly Amiga can do.

Batman (Amiga, Atari ST 1989):

Yes, a Batman game was released in 1986 for the ZX spectrum, but it is the 1989 version, based on the Tim Burton movie, that we are interested in here. Like the film, this game was big at the time, and even appeared as a bundled in game with the Amiga Batman pack. You played the titular Batman, and you progressed more or less the same as the plot of the film progresses.

You start off in the Axis Chemical plant, where you encounter Jack Napier and his henchmen in a side scrolling platformer, defending yourself with your trusty Batarang. At the end of the level (plot spoiler alert!) you knock Jack into the vat of toxic waste, turning him into the Joker. The rest of the game is about defeating the Joker basically, through a variety of different game play styles. This is where the game excels; you get to fly the Batwing, in a game very much like Afterburner, but this plays far better than the home versions of Afterburner at the time; you drive the Batwing also, and this time the game is just like OutRun, and again is much better than the home versions of outrun at the time. These mini games really showed off the power of the newer 16 bit machines when compared with the 8 bit versions, which had to make do with cut down versions of this game.

One point that did really let the game down though was a very confusing puzzle section where you had to work out the ingredients of the Jokers Smilex (also a scene in the film). Apparently it was based on the Mastermind game where you had to use logic and luck to find the combination, but as I was only 9 years old at the time, I just finished this section by randomly moving things until the next level started. Also I was never able to complete the game as it tended to crash on the last level in the cathedral. I am not sure why this happened but was most likely caused by a corrupt disk or something. Still this was a very fine example of how a movie licence should be made.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (Xbox, PC, Mac 2003):

Over the last quarter of a century or so there have been well over 50 Star Wars games released. Though popular with the game buying public, the Star Wars experience became less innovative and stale. Then in 2003 this game appeared and invigorated the Star Wars franchise, the role-playing genre and the whole idea of movie licences in general.

Unlike the other games in this list KoTOR is not based on any film in particular, but on the concepts in the Star Wars films, based, as it was, 4000 years or so before the films. This meant that the game is not restricted in what it can portray by traditional Star Wars lore, and can still inhabit the same world with the same sights and sounds. It’s a role-playing game in the style of Neverwinter nights where combat is essentially round based, allowing each character to execute a set number of commands during a real time period. It takes a little getting used to at first, after playing games like Final Fantasy and Zelda, but once you know what your doing you’ll find the system liberating, as you can pause at anytime to issue commands for your characters to execute.

Where this game really excels in my opinion though, is through the portrayal of your Force and Jedi powers. Towards the end of the game, when you have gained many powers, you almost get the sense of being in the “zone”. Deflecting blaster fire with your light sabre back into the enemies, killing them, and causing them to drop down dead using just the power of the force are so much fun it really is worth playing through the game just for that experience. The graphics are excellent, even now three years after release, the developers have created a convincing world for you to explore and quest in. The sequel is also an excellent game. If you’ve not played it get an Xbox and get the game, you wont regret it.

The Warriors (Xbox, PS2, 2005):

This was released 26 years after the film it was based on, so unlike other movie tie-ins, was unable to capitalise on the marketing of the film to help sell the game so had to sell on its own merits. And merits it has in abundance. Best described as the bastard child of a strange union between Grand Theft Auto 3 and Streets of Rage, this is basically a third person brawler. You play as the Warriors (one of many New York gangs fighting for power/turf) in a variety of missions that build up to the events portrayed in the film, and then you play the film events themselves.

As anyone who has seen the film will know, despite being the heroes of the film, The Warriors themselves are not a nice bunch of people and this has transferred brilliantly to the game. Instead of picking up health packs, you take drugs to enable you to “keep soldiering”. But drugs cost money, so you need to earn it. This is done by steeling car stereos, mugging innocent men/women, breaking into shops or even smashing up parking meters. Alternatively you could just beat up the dealer too, but there are upsides and downsides to all these approaches. Bonus missions usually include placing your “tag” over your rivals “burners”, basically vandalising the streets. You need to be aware of your surroundings all the time though as if a policeman sees you committing a crime you’ll have quite a fight on your hands, though being arrested is not necessarily game over as one of your fellow warriors can free you if you’re lucky.

The best feature of the game is the combat which starts off simple, but becomes more complex for those people who study the system. Moves are performed by simple combinations of button presses, and there are a variety of throws, holds and special moves. Weapons can be employed to hilarious effect (meat clever to the head anyone?), and most of the street furniture can be use in some way too. You can team up with the other Warriors in combat too, for instance, one may hold the poor victim in a head lock, whilst you stick a broken bottle into his chest, great fun. The marvellous thing though is that this can all be shared by 2 players at the same time. You share a screen until you move far enough apart and it splits onto 2 screens. This takes a little getting used to, but is excellent once you’ve got used to it. Another useful feature is that the 2nd player can join in at any time, so no need to start another game from scratch and at anytime you can go back to single player again.

This game is an excellent and faithful adaptation of the film, probably the most faithful I have ever seen. Even some of the cast have reprised their roles all this time later (excluding the dead ones). This is a must for fans of the film, and if you are not already a fan, you soon will be after playing this game.

The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay (Xbox, PC 2004):

This game was released to coincide with the move “The Chronicles of Riddick”, but as with many great movie licenses, was not based on the events of the film but was set as a prequel to that movie, and “Pitch Black”. The game is essentially a first person shooter, but with out that much shooting at first as a lot of fighting is performed hand to hand and with melee weapons, set in the prisons that Riddick is famous for escaping from, in the films.

The game starts of in the style of all the best prison films (like Escape From Alcatraz and Shawshank Redemption), you get to know your fellow inmates, make friends and even more enemies. You arm yourself with typical prison weapons like makeshift blades and head off to try and find freedom. Vin Diesel lent his likeness and voice to the game as the main character, and he makes the perfect anti-hero to play with as you break necks and crawl through vents. You can also use Riddick’s ability to see in the dark to beat the enemies in the dark. Its quite satisfying to shoot out all the lights in the room before you enter, then go in and kill all the guards when they don’t have a clue what’s going on. Just make sure they don’t shine a torch in your eyes, or you’ll be blind until you get your goggles back on.

The graphics of this game are pretty amazing for an Xbox game, in some respects surpassing games like Halo and Doom 3, and on a half decent PC. But the real surprise is just how good this game is. There is no multiplayer aspect to this game but that’s not a problem when the single player aspect is so strong.

Blade Runner (PC 1997):

This is another example of a game that came out long after the film was released. Blade Runner is an adventure game that runs parallel to the events of the movie with some of the same characters appearing in both versions. You play Ray McCoy, a Bladerunner, who, as in the film, has the job of hunting down rogue replicants. This was, and still is, a great looking game, and like the film has aged quite well over the years. You spend most of your time investigating crime scenes for clues, but you also get to interview people and even use your gun on occasion.

The games’ makers have spent a lot of time on the locations you visit, and do a wonderful job of portraying the dystopian future Los Angeles of the film and original book. This game in some ways is closer to the original book than the film could be, as allows enough time to explore the identity crisis of the main protagonist as he worries whether or not he could be a replicant. The developers also included a system that allowed multiple progression paths through the game, leading to 12 separate endings. This was helped along with a certain amount of randomisation of events to create a game that has a large amount of replay value.

When it comes down to it though, you will only like this game if you are a fan of the film. If you don’t like the film you might find the game a bit “arty”.

Ghostbusters (Apple II, Atari 8-bit, Atari 2600, Commodore 64, MSX, NES, Sega Master System, ZX Spectrum 1984):

This is probably the first game based on a movie I ever played, and is also one of the best, even over 20 years on. You setup your own Ghostbusters franchise, in a city with a gradually rising PK (Psychokinetic) energy level. The aim of the game is to earn $10,000 before the PK level reaches a critical level of 9999.

There are several different game styles within this one game, which seems to be a theme among movie tie-ins. Firstly there is the city view, where you can see the buildings that need clearing of ghosts, the progression of new spooks across the city and choose where you want to drive to next. Then there is the driving section where you control the car on its way to the job, this is made interesting by being able to equip the car with tools to vacuum up ghosts along the way. When you reach the site of the infected building you get a view of the front where a Slimer ghost is floating around, seemingly minding his own business. You then position your trap and guide the ‘busters to move in with their proton packs trapping the ghost under the streams (never forget, don’t cross the streams or you kill a Ghostbuster), then with a click of the fire button the trap is deployed, hopefully trapping the ghost. If your timing is out and you miss the ghost, Slimer will attack one of the Ghostbusters, leading to him exclaiming “He slimed me!” in some impressive (for the time) sampled speech. If you are successful in capturing the ghost your income will rise, enabling you to purchase new items in the management screens. Here you can buy better cars, ghost bait (god knows what that is) and more ghost traps. Later in the game the Stay-Puft Marshmallow man will appear and walk around the city smashing it up, costing you money until you stop him or the game ends.

Unfortunately I only worked out how to actually complete this game when researching this article so I have never actually seen the end sequences, but I am reliably informed that the following happens; When the Key-master and Gate-Keeper come together (as caused by a PK level of 9999) you will either loose the game if you don’t have enough money, or be taken to fight Zuul fort he final battle. Here you need to sneak past the feet of the marauding Stay-Puft Marshmallow man to get into the building housing Zuul with at least 2 Ghostbusters where you can then fight and hopefully defeat him/her. On the defeat of Zuul there was a system in place to allow you to take your earnings through to the next time you played, enabling you to afford equipment you could not on previous attempts. The feature that makes this game so memorable to me though, is the intro sequence (on the C64 anyway), where the “instrumental” version of Ray Parker Jr.’s theme tune is played along with the lyrics and a bouncing ball displayed at the bottom of the screen. When you press the space bar, everything stops as the game shouts “Ghostbusters!” out of your telly, sheer Genius.
Aliens Vs Predator (PC, Mac 1999):

This is a strange one as it is not really based on a movie, though one did eventually appear in 2004. For years the Aliens Vs Predator licence had been kicking around but it took until 1999 to make the game deserving of the aliens and predators. Rebellion had made an AvP game for the Atari Jaguar 5 years earlier, which was considered to be one of the best games for that short lived console, but that game was no where near as good as this PC one.

A first person shooter, you play as an Alien, Predator or a Human marine. Each character has their own unique series of levels to complete, with a basic overarching storyline to bind the 3 games together. The marine is the most conventional character to play, but also the scariest. You are alone, on a planet infested with aliens, with only your motion sensor (as seen in Aliens, and all good Aliens games) to keep you company. The genius of it is that it’s not only Aliens that set off the motion sensor, but also anything else that moves, such as a door closing by it self, or some machinery that has been left switched on leading to a loose sphincter muscle and a lot of wasted ammunition. The fear is compounded by the sheer cunning of the aliens you face. While you’re confined to walking through rooms and corridors, eyes and ears concentrating on the motion tracker, the aliens can come at you from literally anywhere, as they can walk on walls and ceilings.

Playing as the Alien was a novel experience, as for the fist time I can think of since Descent, there was an FPS where you were not confined by gravity. Once you’ve crouched you can grip hold of almost any surface, and as I said earlier, can walk along walls and ceilings hunting for your prey. There is something to be said for the sense of power you are given when you’re hanging 200 feet up on the ceiling, watching a group of archaeologists going about their work, oblivious to the horrific death they are going to face very soon. You climb down the wall, sneak up behind someone, and then SPLAT, you’ve just taken a bite out of the back of their head. This is not just fun, it is a necessity as eating people gives you much needed health as, as deadly as you are, you are not impervious to damage. Another feature that’s great is that the human characters use the methods employed in the films to try and defeat you, such as herding you in ventilation shafts, but it’s always satisfying when you outwit them and emerge in the canteen and help yourself to some din dins.

The Predator mode is where you have the most power, you are not here fighting for your life like the other characters, you are here for the hunt. You can turn yourself invisible using a cloaking device, and have an impressive array of weapons including a spear gun and a shoulder mounted blaster. As in the movies, you can change your vision to a variety of modes, including infrared, to better find your prey. Once you’ve killed someone/something, you can take their head as a trophy. As fun as it is to play as the predator, it is the least satisfying campaign to play through.

The best part of this game is the multiplayer over a LAN. One person playing the predator, several others playing as marines, whoever kills the predator gets to be the predator. It’s the gaming equivalent of the playground game “It”, and is well worth playing.

GoldenEye 007 (N64 1997):

Developed by Rare, this game revolutionised console based first person shooters, which were usually limited to poor ports of PC shooters like Doom and Duke Nukem. This was the first time console gamers could actually say they had a superior first person shooter to the PC offerings. Based on the first Brosnan bond film of 1995 the game follows most of the scenes, with some extra bits thrown in to increase playability.

There are many reasons why this game is so good, and why it was so successful at the time. It used the N64’s analogue stick to allow pinpoint accuracy when aiming, rather than scrolling around the screen with shoulder buttons, as you would have before, and you could aim at individual parts of the screen. This is possibly a throw back to the origins of the game, which was originally going to be an on-rails shooter, in the style of Virtua Cop that got changed to an fps during development. The variable difficulty levels of the game enable a learning curve that is easy to learn, but also hard to master. The vast selection of gadgets and weapons also helped in making this one of the best movie licences ever.

The best feature of the game, that must have sent sales of the game and consoles through the roof, was the multiplayer mode. Up to 4 players could face off on one machine for some excellent death match fun. Playing the game now and the weakest aspect of it is the multiplayer mode, but at the time of release it was one of the best multiplayer games ever made. Ingenious game modes, based on Bond film titles, always kept the experience fresh; with The Man With The Golden Gun, where one player would have the deadly one shot kill golden gun, and the other players had to kill him to get it for themselves; You only live twice, where (you guessed it) you only get 2 lives. The multiplayer could also be played in teams so you could plan ambushes with your partner (remembering you were sharing the same TV set). The real highlight though was setting traps with remote detonated mines and lying in wait for your victim to walk past it before you detonated it. This is how movie licenses should be done, its just a shame what happened to the Bond game franchise after this, and lets not even talk about the dire GoldenEye: Rouge Agent.