The Problem with Licensed Games: Difference between revisions

Of course, [[Video Game Movies Suck|movies based off video games]] don't tend to go over well either, for much of the same reasons...and yes, this Trope carries over into [[Trading Card Lame|other game mediums]].

 

 

This Trope is so widespread, it's probably easier to list only [[Egregious]] examples. [[No Problem With Licensed Games (Sugar Wiki)|Exceptions should be listed here.]] See [[Spiritual Licensee]] for a way some games go around this, intentionally or not. Quite often, this Trope is a result of a product being [[Christmas Rushed]].

** [[YouTube]] reviewer [[Stuart Ashen]] featured ''Grange Hill'' in his list of the quickest game overs, and said that the fastest way to die is to walk back home and prepare to get scolded by your mother.

{{quote|'''Ashen''': Gonch's mother really does look like she's going to kill him. Look at her! [[Nightmare Fuel|She looks like a cross between an alien and a praying mantis!]]}}

* Do you know the reason why there's a lack of [[Studio Ghibli]] video games despite their massive success and popularity? Well, way back in [[The Eighties]] when ''[[Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind]]'' was released, Technopolis Soft made a video game version of it. It was a generic [[Shoot'Em Up]] ([http://www.anime-games.co.uk/nausicaamsx.php a mediocre one, based on the experience of those who played it])...for a film that has a [[Green Aesop]] and an anti-war message. Rumor has it that [[Hayao Miyazaki]] was absolutely horrified, to the point where he has never allowed his films to be turned into video games from then on.

* Kemco's ''[[Superman]]'' game for the NES, a side-scrolling [[Action Adventure]] game which provides a fun experience in neither action (Superman has pathetic attacks, moves slowly and can be harmed by bullets) nor adventure (Superman's "flight" power works like a broken [[Warp Whistle]], and there are places which he can only reach by riding the subway). Its [[Guide Dang It|bizarre abstract nature]] is legendary.

* A variety of games based on ''[[Bram Stoker's Dracula|Bram Stokers Dracula]]'' were released for various platforms. None of these were particularly good, but the SNES/Genesis version stands out as a disappointment: it's an action platformer with annoying combat mechanics, boring level design, a laughable attempt at presenting a story, and the inexplicable requirement in some levels of contacting an old guy who imagines weapons in thought bubbles. The developer of this version, Traveller's Tales, was not too old and certainly needed the money; later [[Licensed Game]]s of theirs would set a higher standard.

* ''Chester Cheetah: Too Cool to Fool'' and ''Chester Cheetah: Wild Wild Quest'' are two of the sorriest 16-bit [[Mascot with Attitude]] platformers. The snack food mascot may be [[Totally Radical]], but he doesn't seem like the fastest animal on land in either game.

* The ''[[Home Alone]]'' video game series that [[THQ]] made in 1991 and 1992. The first one on the NES is completely awful, thanks to unresponsive controls, and your reward for beating the game in the twenty minutes? [[A Winner Is You|The same bad ending you get for losing]]. Even worse is its sequel, ''Lost in New York'', which ranges from unredeemably terrible (Game Boy and NES) to [[So Bad It's Good]] (Super NES). The NES and Game Boy versions feature terrible play control, below average graphics, [[Fake Difficulty]], and also its weird assortment of enemies, including a vacuum out to kill Kevin.

* The SNES version of ''[[The Lord of the Rings|The Fellowship Of The Ring]]'' is really bad, even by the standards of that console's generation. Good luck trying to get anywhere in ''that'' game. If you [[Guide Dang It|lose your instruction booklet]], you're pretty screwed, as it has the layouts of all of the (very large) cave maps.

* ''Toys: Let The Toy Wars Begin'', made for the SNES and Genesis by Absolute Entertainment in 1993 as a tie-in to the [[Robin Williams]] film of the same name from the previous year. It's not like the makers of the game had to do much to improve the plot - the film was a goofy story about a toy designer fighting to get back his father's ailing company from the hands of a military general who plans to weaponize children's toys, and it flopped critically and commercially at the box office. The resulting game was a dismal top-down shooter with a whopping ''four'' stages, wherein [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard|the player commanded a limited amount of toys against an unlimited stream of AI enemies from the opposing general's side]]. The game was mercilessly panned - Gamepro and several other publications blasted the game for many missed opportunities, the lack of a two-player mode, terrible visuals (even by SNES standards) and one of the least-relevant adaptations of a film ever made.

* One game that many people don't realize was intended to be a licensed game was [[Acclaim]]'s ''[[Warlock (film)|Warlock]]'', created for the SNES and Genesis two years after the second movie of the same title was released. It included gems like bad collision detection, enemies that would spawn with no warning and had little to no pattern to them, [[Not the Fall That Kills You|a mechanic that kills you if you fall from a height that's anywhere higher than the height of the playable character]], wonky player movements (like the protagonist ''crouching automatically when firing forward''), and having only a single life to get through the game unless you die with a ''specific item in your inventory'' (although there ''was'' a password system, thankfully) meant the game was particularly putrid. Its only saving grace was an [[Good Bad Bugs|item use exploit]] that effectively made you invincible and harmful to the touch during the item's effect.

* The 16-bit version of ''[[Wayne's World]]'' is possibly one of the most loathed, least playable 16-bit games ever. Bad collision detection, hideous sprites and atrociously digitized voices (especially in the Sega version) are just part of the problem with this. Mainly considered [[Snark Bait|only worthwhile to mock]]. [http://www.sega-16.com/review_page.php?id=966&title=Wayne%27s%20World Read this review for more details.]

* The NES ''[[Where's Waldo]]'' game (released by [[Acclaim]] in 1992), owing to the severe graphical limitations of the system, was barely playable (as all the people in the crowds are identical stick figures) and has none of the visual fun that made the books memorable.

* One notable crappy ''[[Power Rangers]]'' game is the [[Nintendo 64]] version of ''[[Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue]]''. The cutscenes were done in a comic style, which might be good... if they weren't drawn really, really, crappily. The gameplay and graphics weren't anything special either.

* The ''[[Shannara]]'' video game adaptation. For RP elements it wasn't too awful, just badly cliched, but the gameplay mechanics—especially the combat engine—sucked horribly.

* ''[[Star Trek]] New Worlds'', a dreadful clunker of a ground-based RTS featuring fuzzy graphics, ludicrously complicated resource management ([[You Require More Vespene Gas]]? How about ''five fucking flavours of it'' or you can't build anything?), and wonky AI. The only thing the game has going for it is the ''[[Awesome Music (Sugar Wiki)|fantastic]]'' [http://www.youtube.com/user/StalwartUK#grid/user/3394895A311A015D soundtrack].

* The Playstation and PC adaption of ''Star Wars: [[The Phantom Menace]]'' is below average. Excellent audio (which is the common strong point of [[Star Wars]] franchises anyway) and fairly looking full 3D graphics aside, the decent level design is doomed by unfitting puzzle/adventure levels tacked on breaking the pace, awkward controls, horrible camera placement, buggy coding, imbalanced weapons and seriously-flawed dueling mechanic can totally ruin your experience halfway through.

* The ''[[Catwoman (film)|Catwoman]]'' game (based on the movie) was so bad that a [[Warner Brothers]] executive threatened to impose punishments into all future property licenses such that if the videogame didn't get sufficiently positive reviews, the company would have to pay a fine for damaging WB's property. The irony of a WB executive complaining about ''another'' studio damaging their property is highlighted when you realize the game under discussion was the tie-in to the execrable ''Catwoman'' movie.

* On the surface, [[MTV]]'s ''[[Celebrity Deathmatch]]'' sounds like something tailor-made for an addictive brawler. Annoying celebrities beating the snot out of each other until one of them finally lays down and dies, with a slathering of [[Bloody Hilarious|gratuitous violence and bloodshed]] on top? It made for an awesome show, so why shouldn't it work? Unfortunately, it came with an incredibly small roster, a short story mode that could be beaten in two hours or less, a create-a-character mode more shallow than the celebrities that it was skewering, and crappy controls, condemning it to the bargain bin.

* ''[[Dirty Dancing]]'' had a licensed PC game which was released nearly 15 years after the film was made, containing almost no music from the movie, almost no connection to its plot, and gameplay consisting entirely of mostly unplayably buggy minigames, the most functional of which is ''[[Follow the Leader|just a ripoff of]] [[Bejeweled]]''.

** For those interested, [http://www.spoonyexperiment.com/2008/08/03/dirty-dancing-pc-review/ here's] the Spoony One's take on the game.

* There was a particularly crappy video game adaptation of ''[[Fight Club (film)|Fight Club]]'', released in 2004. Perhaps worse is that there are people who actually believe [[Older Than They Think|the movie was based off of the video game]].

** The main difference is that you're meant to win in the game. And the game rewards you for it. The game based on a nihilistic view of the human race and the human success instinct REWARDS YOU FOR WINNING. So, that's [[Misaimed Fandom]], ''and'' the game is a blatant attempt at taking commercial advantage from a film that was deeply critical of the consumerist culture.

* The adaptation of ''[[Harry Potter]] and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1''. Incredibly unimpressive graphics, horrible ''[[Gears of War]]''-like gameplay, no freedom at all during missions and really poor story-telling.

* The ''[[Eragon (video game)|Eragon]]'' video game was somewhat bad, though the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwOJZCSn5rk soundtrack] is ''[[Crowning Music of Awesome|amazing]]''. Not surprisingly, the music was also the only half-decent thing about the movie.

* Speaking of ''[[Video Game/Ghostbusters|Ghostbusters]]'', Atari and Terminal Reality's 2009 revival is considered [[No Problem With Licensed Games (Sugar Wiki)|a great use of the license]]. Its sequel, 2011's ''Ghostbusters: Sanctum of Slime'', is much less so, with the most obvious strike against it being the absence of the original Ghostbusters team - leaving the day to be saved by a group of fresh-faced rookies who aren't quite as charming. Also working against ''Sanctum'' are its overuse of [[Copy and Paste Environments]], AI partners who do more to harm than help, and the general monotony of gameplay (get trapped in a room, fight a bunch of color-coded ghosts, move on to next room, rinse, repeat).

* ''[[Hell's Kitchen|Hells Kitchen]]'' received a PC game adaptation that was, while not horrible, decidedly sub-par. Spoony severely disliked it, noting that star Gordon Ramsay looked weird and pretty nearly the entire point of the show was lost — there's no competition factor whatsoever and it's almost impossible to make Ramsay angry unless you're a damn perfectionist who wants gold stars.

* ''Transformers: The Video Game'' (the one of [[Transformers (film)|the 2007 live-action movie]]) wasn't merely bad (a 15-foot robot could get stuck on a broken tree branch), it was inexorably ''boring''. Most of the game involved driving to your next destination within a time limit with a car that handles like an ice-cream van in an Alaskan winter without snow-chains. Oh, and kicking things until they explode. And the graphics were pretty mediocre, too.

** The video game based on ''Dark of the Moon'' (which is more or less a [[All There in the Manual|prequel/sidestory]] of the movie) was developed by the same folks behind the well-received ''[[Transformers: War for Cybertron]]'', and yet it got hit with some less than average review scores. The main issue? It's a ''[[Transformers]]'' game where you '''don't transform.'''

* ''[[Looney Tunes]]: Acme Arsenal'' could've been a decent ''[[Ratchet and Clank]]'' clone if it wasn't marred by bland visuals, music that ranges from bad to nonexistant (save for the remix of the old Looney Tunes factory theme), bad enemies (the final boss is colossal before you fight it but shrinks down to less than half as large during the actual fight, and you can beat it in one or two minutes), and an abysmal plot with an equally-abysmal ending.

** ''[[Looney Tunes]]: Cartoon Conductor'' was a boring music game for the DS with little to no replayability or fun.

* Mostly averted with the main ''[[FIFA Soccer]]'' games but the [[World Cup]] and [[European Championship]] games tend to suffer from this up until the ''Euro 2008'' game.

* The ''[[NCIS]]'' video game was very poor and described as "a point and click adventure without the venture".

 

 

[[Category:Videogame Culture]]

[[Category:The Problem with Licensed Games]]