The Problem with Licensed Games: Difference between revisions

** ''The Simpsons Wrestling'', for [[Playstation]]; “Worst"Worst [[Fighting Game]] game ''ever''!”" is what the Comic Book Guy would likely say if he played it. This is practically a documentary on how ''not'' to design a licensed game, it plays poorly, has little actual content, and an [[Excuse Plot]] that [[All There in the Manual| is only mentioned in the instruction book]] and has almost ''nothing'' to do with the source material. Basically, you just pick a character, and then fumble with ''really'' bad controls to fight another character, that’sthat's it. The controls are so bad that you have a better chance to win a match via [[Button Mashing]] than any actual strategy; there’sthere's not even a block option! (This game was made in 2001, long after game developers figured out blocking was an essential part of Fighting Games). It has the ''worst'' 3D animated models, ''and'' the worst flat 2D images! The one thing it had going for it was a few funny quotes made by the series’series' actual VAs, plus characters interacting differently depending on who the opponent is (a feature ahead of its time) but that wasn’twasn't nearly enough save this train wreck.

** ''[[Bart Simpson's Escape from Camp Deadly]]'' for [[Game Boy]]. The title of this game might suggest the show’sshow's season 4 episode “Kamp"Kamp Krusty”Krusty", but the only real similarity is, both take place at summer camps run by villains (in fact, the game was released about a year before that episode). [[Excuse Plot| The “plot’"plot' of this game]] involves Bart and Lisa trapped at a camp run by Mr. Burns’Burns' sadistic nephew Ironfist Burns (and no, this guy is not in the actual show; exactly why they couldn't actually use Mr. Burns as the villain is anyone's guess) who [[For the Evulz| wants to kill them for… reasons]]. The game suffers from bad controls with input delay, and there’sthere's a lot of [[Artificial Difficulty]] and [[Trial and Error Gameplay]] involved; some enemies can OTK Bart, and there’sthere's no way of even knowing that until they actually hit him. The graphics are poor, even compared to other Game Boy titles released in 1991, and the scenery is very bland, without much to differentiate one level from the next. Sound effects are weak, and the only music is the cartoon’scartoon's theme, playing over and over. Worst of all, if you actually make it to the ending, [[A Winner Is You| all you get is a picture of the family and the closed camp, that’sthat's it.]]

* ''[[Fester’sFester's Quest]]'' was the first game to attempt to make an adaptation of ''[[The Addams Family]]'', but it failed miserably. It’sIt's even a mystery as to why this game was made; released in 1989, three years before [[The Addams Family (1991 film)|the movie]] came out, the franchise wasn’twasn't exactly popular at the time.<ref>In fact, that may have been the point. This was the first licensed game made by Sunsoft, they figured they'd need something recognizable, and while ''The Addams Family'' fit the bill, it wasn't popular, and thus the licensing rights would be easy to get.</ref> Notoriously [[Nintendo Hard]], ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKDOwzfRBwk the commercial for the game]] even warns you [[At Least I Admit It| that it's difficult]]) the gameplay and controls are pretty bad. Fester moves very slow, can’tcan't move diagonally; even the most basic enemies take a long time to kill, have a tendency to gang up and get in your way, and some of them use projectiles that make Fester even slower. The big problem is Fester’sFester's gun, which automatically upgrades (or downgrades) upon getting certain power-ups, but the erratic way it fires after upgrading makes it hard to hit anything with it, and there’sthere's no way to choose the setting. Worst of all, Fester has only one life and two units of health (you can get more later, but it takes a while). Adding to the frustration is [[Check Point Starvation|the complete lack of checkpoints]]; dying and using a continue sends you back to the starting point, although you do get to keep everything in your inventory. It’sIt's hard to even say, “if"if you’reyou're a diehard fan of ''The Addams Family'' it might be worth a look”look", because for the record, the plot (or [[Excuse Plot|what passes for it]], with Fester fighting [[Alien Invasion|invading aliens]]) seems out of place for the Family, and [[In Name Only|the game barely references the source material at all.]] It even seems likely that a lot of the game's material was recycled from ''[[Blaster Master]]'', an earlier Sunsoft game. Still, the game does have some fans; when IGM posted their list of the top 100 NES games of all time, this one got a respectable spot at number 45.

*** The first game, (Blossom’sBlossom's game) was ''[[The Powerpuff Girls: Bad Mojo]]''. This game may have been doomed from the start, as someone had the bright idea to release it on the same day as ''[[Dexter's Laboratory: Robot Rampage]]'', meaning BAM! had in effect, put two of their own games in direct competition with each other. Both games were marketed for younger audiences, and such buyers are usually on a limited budget. It's doubtful this helped sales. But that was hardly all. The animation and controls were poor. Blossom moved like a robot, controls are clumsy, and floaty, and the game had abysmal framerate drops. The plot was pretty dumb even compared to other [[Excuse Plot]]s; Mojo takes over Professor Utonium’sUtonium's house and uses the lab to create monsters, so Blossom has to fight them, and with Bubbles and Buttercup nowhere to be found, has to do so alone. (Possibly, the events of the three games are happening simultaneously, and the Girls have split up for some reason.) In this game, you have to fight enemies, rescue citizens, and grab collectibles, all of which becomes tedious quickly, and the game actually becomes easier if you just fly past and ignore them. And speaking of which, the enemies really don’tdon't look like they’rethey're in the wrong game, as they have nothing to do with the cartoon. For example, flying jellyfish and a weird demon-thing. The boss battles are a little better, and you get to fight some villains from the show like Princess and Roach Coach, but mostly you just fight Mojo again and again, and this repetitive quickly. And of course, there are the glitches. For example, the Rowdyruff Boys disappear when you try to confront them in battle for absolutely no reason whatsoever. The music is [[Ear Worm]] hell, and even plays through the introduction and cutscenes, grating on the player’splayer's nerves and ruining any attempt to follow the dialogue.

*** The second game - (Buttercup’sButtercup's game) was ''[[The Powerpuff Girls: Paint the Town Green]]''. The biggest difference here was that the protagonist is Buttercup and the villains were the Gangrene Gang, but little else. The basic enemies were the same as the first game, the collectibles were the same and Buttercup was controlled the same as Blossom - badly. The boss battles showed more variety, as each member of the Gangrene Gang is different, but still got boring fast. There’sThere's also a glitchy boss battle with Fuzzy Lumpkins where your stun attack sometimes doesn’tdoesn't work on him for no reason. And the soundtrack was the same too, grating and annoying.

*** Very few reviews exist for the third game, ''[[The Powerpuff Girls: Battle HIM!]]'' (which as the title implies, has Bubbles go up against HIM) possibly because nobody wanted to play it after playing the first two. Any masochist who ''does'' will feel the urge to throw their Game Boy Color away. Bubbles is a lot stronger and faster than Blossom or Buttercup was in the previous games, but the controls are still bad. This game also has bad level design and [[Trial and Error Gameplay]]; you never know whether the pit you’reyou're flying over has an item below that you need to fly down and take or whether it’sit's a bottomless pit that will kill you if you try. The Boss Battle with the Boogie Man is even glitchier than the one with Fuzzy in the previous game; sometimes Bubbles’Bubbles' punches simply don’tdon't harm him at all even when the stun attack works.

** ''[[The Powerpuff Girls: Chemical X-Straction]]''. This game was released in 2001, and the reason it’sit's not under Sixth Generation titles is because it was released for [[Nintendo 64]] and [[Playstation]], meaning they released it when the superior [[Sega Dreamcast]] and ''[[PlayStation 2]]'' were already out and both [[GameCube]] and [[Xbox]] were only a few weeks away. But then, this game was little more than a shameless reskin of ''[[Tom and Jerry: Fists of Fury]]'' (a video game adaptation of a movie adaptation of a cartoon, made by the same company as this game) so at least they have that as an excuse. Again, the [[Excuse Plot]] of this game is pretty dumb; the Girls are baking pies, and Bubbles decides that, since the pies are made with sugar, spice, and everything nice (the three base ingredients the Girls themselves were made of) why not add some Chemical X (the accidental fourth ingredient) to make the pies “super”"super"? Unfortunately, Mojo Jojo steals the pies, he and the other Townsville villains eat them, they gain superpowers, and the Girls have to go and beat them all up. The gameplay here is, well, if you’veyou've ever played ''[[Power Stone]]'', start with that, but give it bad controls, bad animation, a lot of input delay, and difficulty that’sthat's all over the place, and you have a general idea. The fights range from too easy to drawn out and frustrating, and ''all'' of them are boring. The game is incredibly short (you can finish it in about an hour) and while each Girl can unlock something by beating Mojo, the [[Final Boss]] it’sit's impossible to unlock everything, as once you beat him with one Girl, you can’tcan't unlock anything else. Each Girl has a story mode, but all three are pretty much the same, although the “true”"true" ending can only be achieved with Blossom. For some reason.

*** Now, if you’reyou're playing it on Playstation, the problems end there, but the Nintendo 64 version is much, much worse. First of all, it’sit's way too easy. Each Girl has an “explosion"explosion attack”attack" which is practically a [[One-Hit Kill]] attack because it depletes the enemies’enemies' health quickly when used in succession. The limited memory of the N64 cartridge causes many of the better content in the Playstation version to be omitted. There’sThere's no voice acting, the cutscenes have no animation (just pictures with lines of dialogue) and only one piece of music (the cartoon’scartoon's theme tune) plays throughout the whole game, [[Ear Worm| on a continuous loop!]] Even fans of the show are going to find that annoying sooner or later.

* As mentioned above, BAM! also released a ''[[Dexter's Laboratory]]'' adaptation on ''[[Game Boy Color]]'' on the same day it launched the first of three Powerpuff Girls titles, and this was also the first of three. Were they any better? Sadly, no. ''[[Dexter's Laboratory: Robot Rampage]]'', was, in fact, nothing but a reskin of ''[[Elevator Action EX]]'', another game from BAM! for the Game Boy Color. The objective was to move Dexter up and down floors in his mecha-suit, avoiding enemies, and opening as many doors as possible, something that may have reminded a lot of fans of ''[[Hotel Mario]]''. It had generic music, generic enemies (basically all were the same robot, but different colors) and Mandark as the main antagonist, which might have been cool if he didn’tdidn't also act like nothing more than a generic bad guy.

* ''[[Addams Family Values (video game)|Addams Family Values]]'', released in 1995 for SNES. Slightly better than ''Fester’sFester's Quest'', but as this was a direct movie tie-in, and like most such games, was pretty bad. Moby Games described this as “an"an action-adventure game with slight RPG elements”elements". By “slight’"slight', that basically meant Fester (the protagonist) gained hp as he leveled up, but not much else. Unlike Fester’sFester's Quest, the game had a lot of humor that was indeed loyal to the franchise, but the graphics were bad, the game mechanics were almost broken, and the gameplay was just dull, consisting mostly of Fester going from point A to point B, getting an item, and back to point A. The save points were the worst part, requiring players to write down a ridiculously long passcode before turning the game off in order to save progress.

* 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]]. How’sHow's this for irony, the movie is ranked the 11th best film of all time on [[Internet Movie Database|IMBDB]], but [[Metacritic]] lists the game adaptation as the 17,332nd best (that means there are only about 200 games that are considered worse, and some of those are duplicates due to being the same game on different ports).

** The game has absolutely no merits of its own that would make it stand out if it ''weren’tweren't'' a film tie-in, [[In Name Only| which it barely even is]]. It is nothing but a generic [[Fighting Game]] with bad graphics, gameplay that is way too easy, no plot of its own to stand on, (even when compared to games like ''[[Street Fighter II]]'' that have little more than an [[Excuse Plot]]) with boring characters, boring dialogue and boring cutscenes (did we mention this game was boring?) There are only three fighting styles (which copy the fighting mechanics from ''[[Tekken]]'' and ''[[Street Fighter]]'' and every playable character can use all three, meaning the whole concept of different characters is pointless.

* ''[[The Powerpuff Girls: Relish Rampage]]'' At least ''Chemical X-Straction'' was no worse than other stuff released for those systems in 2001, but this game - which was indeed released for ''[[PlayStation 2]]'' and ''[[GameCube]]'' - didn’tdidn't have that excuse. First off, the plot actually seems interesting; narcissistic arch-villain Mojo Jojo wants to run for mayor, and plans to brainwash the citizens of Townsville into voting for him. His brainwashing device attracts the attention of the Pickloids, alien [[Plant Aliens| pickle-people]] who [[Alien Invasion| invade and start abducting citizens]]. With giant jars. So, the three heroines have to fly in to save the day. Now, on the plus side, this sort of plot seems right up the cartoon's alley, the dialogue in the cutscenes are kind of funny, and [[Parental Bonus| it even has some political satire thrown in]]. Sadly, however, there's only about seven minutes of cutscenes total, and the gameplay is a different story. Townsville looks pretty… dull, and the missions you have to go on are repetitive. You have the Girls fly around, beat up some mooks, then beat up the boss, then do the same thing again and again. The missions are short, as is the whole game. The fights have little to no strategy; you punch, kick, and use the Girls’Girls' laser-vision, and there are no other moves to gain or unlock. The targeting system is pretty bad, made worse by an equally bad camera that often makes it hard to see what you’reyou're aiming at. Finally, there are glitches that sometimes cause the Girls to get stuck on an object or between two or more objects, often enemies you’reyou're trying to fight. And while the dialogue of those cutscenes is funny, the visuals and animation are ugly and crude, with [[Sickly Green Glow| far too much emphasis on the color green]], and while the music is okay, the sound effects are poor.

** ''[[Dexter’sDexter's Laboratory: Deesaster Strikes]]'', released for Game Boy Advance, was only slightly better than Robot Rampage (meaning it’sit's at least playable). The Excuse Plot has DeeDee use Dexter’sDexter's clone-o-matic, creating dozens of half-size clones of herself (124, exactly) and Dexter now has to catch them all and fix the machines they break. It seems an interesting idea that does catch the spirit of the source material until you realize it’sit's a reskinned clone of ''[[Ape Escape]]''. Movement is done with the D-pad, which isn’tisn't an easy way to move on a 3D platformer like this. Catching the DeeDee clones isn’tisn't easy, because Dexter is much slower than they are and has to corner and trap them while fighting enemies that usually can’tcan't be killed, only stunned. The worst are glitches that make some items fail to work, or don’tdon't register as picked up, or disappear, causing you to lose your progress. And for that matter, there’sthere's a confusing save system; when you lose all of your lives, it reloads from your last save, so if you save the game when you have only one life left, you’llyou'll reload with only one life left, and the game becomes almost unwinnable. Should you manage to catch all the DeeDee clones and fix all 42 machines, the [[A Winner Is You| ending is bland at best.]]

** Finally, there was ''[[Dexter's Laboratory: Chess Challenge]]'', which was kind of a ''Dexter’sDexter's Laboratory'' themed version of ''[[Battle Chess]]''. Why they would try to market a chess game to kids - with [[Nintendo Hard| very unfair AI]], even [[Fake Difficulty| on Easy mode]] - is a mystery. The animated cutscenes are slow, looking like they were made with Microsoft Paint, the music was just as bad, and the dialogue between the characters - who never shut up - got annoying quickly. Even if you do play chess, this gets boring fast, and it even seems like it was [[Obvious Beta| unfinished]] and [[Christmas Rushed| rushed.]]

* The [[Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1 (video game)|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.

* There was a cheap movie cash-in DS game based on ''[[Harry Potter and Thethe Goblet of Fire (film)|Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire]]''. Aside from the three triwizard challenges, the other levels ranged from plausible to perplexing. For example, one of the longest levels involved chasing the golden egg through the sewer system for no other reason than because Harry couldn't keep a good grip on it.