The Problem with Licensed Games: Difference between revisions

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{{quote|''"Movies have always been a questionable source for video game adaptations, partly because they have plots and stories, and partly because people in movies don't jump around a lot or pick up power-ups very often."''|'''Josh "Livestock" Boruff''', ''[[Something Awful]]''}}

The problem is that [[Licensed Game~~|Licensed Games~~]] tend to be mediocre at best. But why?

The problem is that [[Licensed Game]]s tend to be mediocre at best. But why?

There are two ways to sell video games: Quality of game, and reputation of name. Most video games that sell fall into at least one of the two categories. Game developers could take some time to develop an original property made with care for the end product and the idea of developing a brand new franchise.

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Or, they can just buy up the name of something everyone already knows. A much easier way to make money is to make mediocre games based on ''licenses'' — a TV show, or a movie, or a comic book, or a work of literature, or anything really ([[wikipedia:Chester Cheetah: Wild Wild Quest|and]] [[wikipedia:Yo! Noid|we]] [[wikipedia:Kool-Aid Man (video game)|mean]] ''[[wikipedia:Cool Spot|anything]]''). These games don't require nearly as much effort to make, since they're pretty much counting on the people buying them because of familiarity.

Of course, the ability of licensed games to sell on name alone is a major reason for their poor quality, but it's hardly the only one. Developers are often pressured by [[Executive Meddling|movie studio execs]] to have the game ready for release alongside the movie (which, in the studio execs' eyes, practically equates these games to tie-in action figures, lunchboxes, and other low-grade merchandise), which can shorten development time. Stretching the plot of a [[Story to Gameplay Ratio|100 minute movie into a twenty hour game]] can lead to a lot of filler material or serious diversions from the movie's plot. Licensed games also attempt to emulate the most popular genres at the time in an effort to maintain appeal — side-scrollers and [[Fighting Game~~|Fighting Games~~]] were popular in the 1990s and more recently, ''[[Grand Theft Auto]]'' clones and shooters are common as well. Sometimes they will be a confusing [[Gameplay Roulette|mesh of gameplay genres]] as the developers attempt to figure out just what their license could be used for to fill up enough game time to push it out the door, and that's assuming the product isn't chock full of [[Game Breaking Bug~~|Game Breaking Bugs~~]] because of the short Q/A window.

Of course, the ability of licensed games to sell on name alone is a major reason for their poor quality, but it's hardly the only one. Developers are often pressured by [[Executive Meddling|movie studio execs]] to have the game ready for release alongside the movie (which, in the studio execs' eyes, practically equates these games to tie-in action figures, lunchboxes, and other low-grade merchandise), which can shorten development time. Stretching the plot of a [[Story to Gameplay Ratio|100 minute movie into a twenty hour game]] can lead to a lot of filler material or serious diversions from the movie's plot. Licensed games also attempt to emulate the most popular genres at the time in an effort to maintain appeal — side-scrollers and [[Fighting Game]]s were popular in the 1990s and more recently, ''[[Grand Theft Auto]]'' clones and shooters are common as well. Sometimes they will be a confusing [[Gameplay Roulette|mesh of gameplay genres]] as the developers attempt to figure out just what their license could be used for to fill up enough game time to push it out the door, and that's assuming the product isn't chock full of [[Game Breaking Bug]]s because of the short Q/A window.

And despite what one might expect with a title based on a lucrative property, there is often ironically ''less'' money available than usual for a company to spend making a licensed game; a not insignificant amount of the funding that would normally be channeled into the title's actual development is instead used up ''before'' development ''just to buy the license in the first place''.

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* 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.

* ''The [[Transformers]]'' for the Commodore 64 and Sinclair Spectrum back in the mid-1980s, published by Ocean Software. Memorable incidents include Autobots dying from a fall of any distance, Autobots dying from landing on a slope after flying, Autobots dying from not being pixel-perfectly positioned when switching characters, Autobots dying from the bizarre collision detection, Autobots dying for no apparent reason, Autobots dying... perhaps the game was designed by Decepticons? Except for the fact that the Decepticons were even MORE fragile, as the game inverted the typical 'touch me and you die' game ~~mechanics -- any~~ Autobot who was flying or in vehicle mode would instantly kill any Deceptacon by ramming them. This meant that Bumblebee, who had ridiculous amounts of shields, was a death machine in car form.

* ''The [[Transformers]]'' for the Commodore 64 and Sinclair Spectrum back in the mid-1980s, published by Ocean Software. Memorable incidents include Autobots dying from a fall of any distance, Autobots dying from landing on a slope after flying, Autobots dying from not being pixel-perfectly positioned when switching characters, Autobots dying from the bizarre collision detection, Autobots dying for no apparent reason, Autobots dying... perhaps the game was designed by Decepticons? Except for the fact that the Decepticons were even MORE fragile, as the game inverted the typical 'touch me and you die' game mechanics—any Autobot who was flying or in vehicle mode would instantly kill any Deceptacon by ramming them. This meant that Bumblebee, who had ridiculous amounts of shields, was a death machine in car form.

** According to [http://www.crashonline.org.uk/36/denton.htm this interview], even the development team thought this particular ''Transformers'' game was awful.

* An early Famicom game based on the ''Transformers'' franchise, ''Mystery of Convoy'', was hardly any better, thanks to having ludicrous amounts of [[Fake Difficulty]] — your Autobot could [[One-Hit-Point Wonder|barely take a single hit before dying]], and the game had an embarrassing [[A Winner Is You]] ending to reward players for their efforts.

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** Its sequel, ''Back to the Future Part II & III'' (yes, into one game) was made by the same company (Beam Software) and released by the same publisher (LJN) and still isn't that good. It has you return a lot of [[Plot Coupons]] to their appropriate time period in the second part. The only problem is that Marty is again a [[One-Hit-Point Wonder]]. What makes this worse is that you had to play ''Part II'' in one sitting. You're bound to run into your clone while returning, which also kills you in one hit. ''Part III'' is much shorter and has you do the same, but less [[Plot Coupons]] needed to finish the game. The music, at least, was pretty good, although it was often drowned out by the obnoxious sound effects.

* ''[[Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde]]'' was a game for the NES, loosely based on the book ''The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde'' by Robert Louis Stevenson. Featuring mangled controls, [[Fake Difficulty]] everywhere (the [[Demonic Spiders|mad bombers]] can easily take your health away in one bomb if you're right in the bomb's way and Jekyll moves really slow), [[Everything Trying to Kill You]] including cats, dogs, birds, etc. Hyde's levels aren't much better. You have to press Up+B to shoot a fireball, which isn't so bad...but sometimes it only works when it wants to. The Hyde levels are technically "timed" in a sense if you catch up to where Dr. Jekyll went insane, you'd instantly get game over (but at least you get continues). The level format is different between the Japanese and US versions.

* ''The Uncanny [[X-Men]]'' for the NES, published by [[LJN Toys]] and developed by some mercifully unknown company. The six available player characters were mostly blotchy [[Palette Swap~~|Palette Swaps~~]] of each other, and the characters that used melee attacks had no animation for them. Computer-controlled characters had [[Artificial Stupidity]]. The level design, sound effects and music were like a bad nightmare. Those few players who made it through most of this poorly designed, [[Nintendo Hard]] game were in for a nasty surprise: a secret code was required to unlock the last level. This code was hidden within the fine print on the cartridge, and even that was missing a crucial button.

* ''The Uncanny [[X-Men]]'' for the NES, published by [[LJN Toys]] and developed by some mercifully unknown company. The six available player characters were mostly blotchy [[Palette Swap]]s of each other, and the characters that used melee attacks had no animation for them. Computer-controlled characters had [[Artificial Stupidity]]. The level design, sound effects and music were like a bad nightmare. Those few players who made it through most of this poorly designed, [[Nintendo Hard]] game were in for a nasty surprise: a secret code was required to unlock the last level. This code was hidden within the fine print on the cartridge, and even that was missing a crucial button.

* The Japan-exclusive 1987 ''[[Star Wars]]'' game by Namco stars Luke Skywalker as a [[One-Hit-Point Wonder]] whose in-game sprite has black hair. There are levels requiring precise jumping in between [[Spikes of Doom|spikes of instant death]], and the [[Nintendo Hard~~|Nintendo Hardness~~]] is aggravated by Luke's lightsaber having poor hit detection. This game's real notoriety, however, is not based on difficulty but because it plays fast and loose with the ''Star Wars'' canon. Before leaving Tatooine, there is a [[Boss Battle]] against Darth Vader... who turns into a ''giant scorpion'' after one hit. This sort of thing happens on every level, including several worlds that don't figure in the original movie.

* The Japan-exclusive 1987 ''[[Star Wars]]'' game by Namco stars Luke Skywalker as a [[One-Hit-Point Wonder]] whose in-game sprite has black hair. There are levels requiring precise jumping in between [[Spikes of Doom|spikes of instant death]], and the [[Nintendo Hard]]ness is aggravated by Luke's lightsaber having poor hit detection. This game's real notoriety, however, is not based on difficulty but because it plays fast and loose with the ''Star Wars'' canon. Before leaving Tatooine, there is a [[Boss Battle]] against Darth Vader... who turns into a ''giant scorpion'' after one hit. This sort of thing happens on every level, including several worlds that don't figure in the original movie.

* ''[[Kinnikuman]]: Muscle Tag Match'', one of the earliest anime licensed games released for the Famicom/NES. The anime hadn't been released outside Japan, but the toyline had been distributed as ''M.U.S.C.L.E.'', which gave Bandai an excuse to export this pathetic excuse for a wrestling game under that name. The eight characters all share the same basic moves and differ mostly in how ugly their sprites were.

* The Famicom game ''A Week of Garfield'' starts going wrong with its [[Excuse Plot]], where Garfield wants to save Odie (whose sprite looks half his size) despite not caring about him in the comic strip except to abuse him. In actual gameplay, it's a side-scrolling platformer with ugly graphics and primitive level design. Beating a level requires jumping around randomly to make a key appear. Difficulty comes mainly from having to face enemies like spiders with a pathetic kick attack and no [[Mercy Invincibility]], extra lives or continues.

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* ''The Adventures of [[Rocky and Bullwinkle]] and Friends'' for the [[NES]] was a video game based on a 1960s cartoon. It was released on other systems, but the most infamous one was the NES version, released in December 1992 by THQ and Radical Entertainment. It features [[Fake Difficulty]] in [[Demonic Spiders]], very stiff and unresponsive controls, no [[Mercy Invincibility]], subpar graphics for a late NES game, and the [[Most Annoying Sound|droning and annoying music]] in the background that loops every 20 seconds or so. You get a [[A Winner Is You|YOU WIN!!]] screen as your reward for beating this wretched game.

* The game based on the classic anime motion picture ''[[Akira]]'' for the Amiga is notably bad, often considered one of the worst for the system. Why? It's a side-scrolling action game where you play as either [[Tyke Bomb|Tetsuo]] or Kaneda, in at least four levels of ''extreme'' difficulty and unfairness. The idea of a difficulty curve is thrown out with the first level, a motorbike racing stage somewhat like the infamously difficult level 3 of ''[[Battletoads]]'' but with more random obstacle placement and the added challenge of constantly needing to pick up fuel cans; the publisher supposedly had to give out ''passwords'' for reviewers to clear it. The third level has keycards to collect, and while you don't need them all to reach the end of the level, if you don't get all of them anyway, you will be trapped and unable to complete the level. The fourth level can't be completed at all because of poor play testing; one of the platforms is placed too far away for you to jump on. [http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/kusoge/kusoge8.htm#akira It apparently even drove its developers, ICE Software of the United Kingdom, crazy].

* ''Ariel: [[The Little Mermaid]]'' was developed for the [[Sega Genesis]], and so could offer fancier graphics than [[Capcom]]'s NES game ''[[The Little Mermaid (video game)|The Little Mermaid]]'', which was better in almost every other way. It also ''tried'' for greater complexity of gameplay, but ended up forcing the player to swim around labyrinthine levels with unresponsive controls and terrible collision detection hunting for [[Baleful Polymorph~~|Baleful Polymorphed~~]] friends to shoot musical notes at; these musical notes are also a very weak primary attack. Flounder and Sebastian can be summoned, but don't really help much. After slowly putting down [[Final Boss]] Ursula, the ending consists mainly of a [[A Winner Is You|"Congratulations!" screen]].

* ''Ariel: [[The Little Mermaid]]'' was developed for the [[Sega Genesis]], and so could offer fancier graphics than [[Capcom]]'s NES game ''[[The Little Mermaid (video game)|The Little Mermaid]]'', which was better in almost every other way. It also ''tried'' for greater complexity of gameplay, but ended up forcing the player to swim around labyrinthine levels with unresponsive controls and terrible collision detection hunting for [[Baleful Polymorph]]ed friends to shoot musical notes at; these musical notes are also a very weak primary attack. Flounder and Sebastian can be summoned, but don't really help much. After slowly putting down [[Final Boss]] Ursula, the ending consists mainly of a [[A Winner Is You|"Congratulations!" screen]].

* ''[[Bebe's Kids]]'' wasn't a good movie to begin with, but its SNES licensed game, developed by Radical Entertainment, is one of the worst to receive Nintendo's Seal of Quality. Wretched controls, hideous graphics, dull music, unintelligent yet tough enemies, a 2-minute timer...and that's just the first level. It doesn't get better from there.

* 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~~|Licensed Games~~]] of theirs would set a higher standard.

* 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.

* ''[[Eek the Cat|Eek! The Cat]]'' for [[SNES]] is a miserable platformer. Instead of simply moving Eek! through the various levels, Eek! has to safely guide an NPC to the exit by kicking or pushing him or her out of harm's way. This is frustrating, as the NPC constantly walks forward. Combined with miserable controls, the game is jam-packed with [[Fake Difficulty]]. Additionally, the Eek! game features some of the [http://www.emuparadise.org/Super%20Nintendo/Snaps/Eek!%20The%20Cat%20%28U%29.png darkest, dingiest graphics] on the platform, and possibly ever. To add insult to injury, it's a mere [[Dolled-Up Installment]] of an Amiga game called ''Sleepwalker''.

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** The SNES ''Terminator'' game could use some mention too, the levels are brutally long (the 2nd level is INSANE) Sound Effects tend to drown out all two of the music tracks in the game, and it was just [[Nintendo Hard|cruelly difficult]].

** Another was any of the ''Terminator 2'' games, namely the [[Game Boy]] version, deserves a more clarified mention. You had only one life and no continues. The [[That One Level|sequence where you have to reprogram the T-800]] was also hard with a strict time limit and two mistakes results in a [[Nonstandard Game Over]]. As with the Super NES Terminator game, it was also [[Nintendo Hard]].

* ''[[Total Recall]]'', published by Acclaim and developed by Interplay for the NES, frustrated many players early into the game with a movie theater showing the game's credits and [[Inescapable Ambush~~|Inescapable Ambushes~~]] in alleys by midgets wearing purple jumpsuits. The rest of the game bears more relation to the movie (it includes the X-ray scanner and the subway shootout), but it's mostly a mediocre [[Beat'Em Up]] with bad hit detection and a lot of cheap hits.

* ''[[Total Recall]]'', published by Acclaim and developed by Interplay for the NES, frustrated many players early into the game with a movie theater showing the game's credits and [[Inescapable Ambush]]es in alleys by midgets wearing purple jumpsuits. The rest of the game bears more relation to the movie (it includes the X-ray scanner and the subway shootout), but it's mostly a mediocre [[Beat'Em Up]] with bad hit detection and a lot of cheap hits.

* ''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.

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* ''KISS Pinball'' for the PC and [[PlayStation]] consisted of two pinball boards which were utterly undistinguished aside from the graphical styling and a few voice clips. The soundtrack was made of generic rock riffs and contained no [[KISS]] songs. The [[PlayStation]] version also suffered from nauseous camera panning.

* 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.

* 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.

* In a rare example (see the others below) a ''[[Star Trek]]''-based licensed game was a real stinker. Well, ''sort of'' Star Trek. Some of the elder statesmen out there might remember a tactical fleet game called ''Star Fleet Battles''. Complex even to the point of [[Dungeons and Dragons]] 3.5, but balanced out over years and years of play to create a strong thinking-man's starship wargame. It even had a "turn sequence" ''which set out in detail'' which step was to follow ~~which -- basically~~ writing the subroutine for the players. Now, what happened when somebody ''finally'' figured out you could put something like ''Star Fleet Battles'' out as a computer RPG and wash your hands of all the pencil-based bookkeeping? ''Starfleet Command'', that's what happened. Missing several core races in the original release, horribly buggy at the best of times, sometimes could not even install on your computer ''without the game crashing the machine as it was transferring files''.

* In a rare example (see the others below) a ''[[Star Trek]]''-based licensed game was a real stinker. Well, ''sort of'' Star Trek. Some of the elder statesmen out there might remember a tactical fleet game called ''Star Fleet Battles''. Complex even to the point of [[Dungeons and Dragons]] 3.5, but balanced out over years and years of play to create a strong thinking-man's starship wargame. It even had a "turn sequence" ''which set out in detail'' which step was to follow which—basically writing the subroutine for the players. Now, what happened when somebody ''finally'' figured out you could put something like ''Star Fleet Battles'' out as a computer RPG and wash your hands of all the pencil-based bookkeeping? ''Starfleet Command'', that's what happened. Missing several core races in the original release, horribly buggy at the best of times, sometimes could not even install on your computer ''without the game crashing the machine as it was transferring files''.

* ''[[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.

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

* The ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'' game ''[[Temple of Elemental Evil]]'' is evil indeed. [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard]], and we're not talking your average run-of-the-mill cheating. Probability distributions on the game's dice show that they are horrifyingly flawed. The AI's d20 rolls go higher than 10 about 90% of the time, and you can safely assume that any chance short of 100% on your end is going to actually end up around 50% or lower. The game also takes some pragmatic interpretations of the random encounter table; if you try to rest, and you're not in an inn, you ''will'' be interrupted by monsters, most likely in a group whose EL is greater than yours, and they ''will'' get a surprise round. The odds of you actually getting eight hours to recharge your spellcasters' spells are close to zero.

** Even worse was ''Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor''. Aside from horrible balance issues and a thoroughly dull campaign, it had one [[Game Breaking Bug|spectacularly awful bug]]~~--if~~ you installed the game to anything other than the default filepath then tried to ''uninstall'' it... kiss the entire contents of your hard drive goodbye!

** Even worse was ''Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor''. Aside from horrible balance issues and a thoroughly dull campaign, it had one [[Game Breaking Bug|spectacularly awful bug]]—if you installed the game to anything other than the default filepath then tried to ''uninstall'' it... kiss the entire contents of your hard drive goodbye!

* ''[[The Lord of the Rings|The Fellowship Of The Ring]]'' for the GBA (licensed from the book, not the movie) was a tedious [[RPG]] riddled with bugs, some of them [[Game Breaking Bug|game-breaking]].

* There was a particularly crappy video game adaptation of ''[[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]].

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* ''[[Futurama]]: The Game'', while not a terrible game, is merely [[So Okay It's Average]] by most fans' standards. While the graphics do look rather nice and the character designs translate well into 3D, its main saving grace is its hilarious story, which was penned by the actual writers and performed by the voice actors of the show. Not only does it manage to lampshade a few aspects of the show, but it makes fun of a few video game cliches as well. Luckily, all of the cutscenes (and some filmed gameplay) were strung together and released as an unofficial episode, which is available as a special feature on the second [[The Movie|film]] release, ''The Beast With a Billion Backs''.

* ''[[Gods and Generals]]'' (by Stellar Stone, "developers" of the infamous ''[[Big Rigs Over the Road Racing|Big Rigs]]'') that came out in 2003. It was a Civil War-themed FPS, riddled with bugs, sloppy gameplay, horribly outdated graphics for the time, and to top it off, terrible AI and [[Department of Redundancy Department|more bugs to top it off]].

* ''[[Enter the Matrix]]'' was a brave but ultimately doomed attempt to make a game that actually tied in with its parent title, in this case ''The Matrix Reloaded''. It had footage shot especially for it during the shoot of ''The Matrix Reloaded'' and ''Revolutions'', and explained several critical plot points in the former film. Unfortunately, this failed for two ~~reasons -- firstly~~, the game just wasn't very good. It wasn't ''awful'' by any means, but the imbalanced difficulty and horribly designed game engine made it annoying to play. Secondly, what many viewers felt should have been the big action sequence of ''Reloaded'', namely the power plant takeover, was barely even mentioned in the film because it had been reserved for the game, which pissed off ''quite'' a few people and contributed to the impression that ''Enter the Matrix'' was just an excuse for the Wachowskis to get even more money out of their fans. The game did at least get some praise for the nifty hacking minigame that was included, but mostly just contributed to the [[Hype Backlash]] that the franchise was starting to suffer from.

* ''[[Enter the Matrix]]'' was a brave but ultimately doomed attempt to make a game that actually tied in with its parent title, in this case ''The Matrix Reloaded''. It had footage shot especially for it during the shoot of ''The Matrix Reloaded'' and ''Revolutions'', and explained several critical plot points in the former film. Unfortunately, this failed for two reasons—firstly, the game just wasn't very good. It wasn't ''awful'' by any means, but the imbalanced difficulty and horribly designed game engine made it annoying to play. Secondly, what many viewers felt should have been the big action sequence of ''Reloaded'', namely the power plant takeover, was barely even mentioned in the film because it had been reserved for the game, which pissed off ''quite'' a few people and contributed to the impression that ''Enter the Matrix'' was just an excuse for the Wachowskis to get even more money out of their fans. The game did at least get some praise for the nifty hacking minigame that was included, but mostly just contributed to the [[Hype Backlash]] that the franchise was starting to suffer from.

** The subsequent two ''Matrix'' titles, ''The Matrix Online'' and ''The Path of Neo'' are somewhere in-between. Most people don't consider them to be especially bad (apart from the PC version of ''Path of Neo'', which was widely regarded as a [[Porting Disaster]]), but the general consensus seems to be that they're [[So Okay It's Average]].

* ''[[The Simpsons]]: [[The Simpsons Road Rage|Road Rage]]'' was an otherwise not-offensively-bad driving game that was completely ruined by [[Loads and Loads of Loading]]. We're talking one minute long load screens followed by 15 second tasks. And that's before we bring in [[Sega]] suing Fox over allegations of ''Road Rage'' being a [[Plagiarism|rip-off]] of ''[[Crazy Taxi]]''.

* Pick any 6th generation console ''[[South Park]]'' game. ''South Park Rally'' was a forgettable, confusing ''[[Mario Kart]]'' clone, ''Chef's Luv Shack'' was a bizarre game show with questions that made no sense if you weren't American, and the ''South Park'' [[First-Person Shooter|FPS]] has been accurately described as "the Mr. Hankey of FPS games: A turd of a game who comes to people who don't read [[Reviews Are the Gospel|game reviews]]". It got 8% from PC Gamer magazine in the UK and a 30/100 from a Finnish games magazine which also sourced the previous quote.

** It should be noted that the PC version of the ''South Park'' FPS was horribly buggy and had performance issues, which is part of the reason why it was reviewed so badly by most. The [[Nintendo 64|N64]] version was generally rated much better, although that's not saying much (Game Stats gives it an average of 5.9/10 from the major sites). At the very least, it had the good fortune of being built on the ''[[Turok (series)|Turok]]'' engine, so most of the bugs had been ironed out beforehand.

* ''[[SpongeBob SquarePants]]: Legend of the Lost Spatula'', published by [[THQ]] in 2001, is sort of an odd case; the graphics are decent for a [[Game Boy Color]] game, the music is [[Crowning Music of Awesome|really nice]], and there are plenty of [[Continuity Nod~~|Continuity Nods~~]] throughout. It has the potential to be a good game, but is almost completely wrecked by unintuitive jump physics and [[Camera Screw|a bizarre camera system that makes it impossible to see what's immediately above or beneath you]], and even then there are only four unique enemy behavior patterns (discounting bosses).

* ''[[SpongeBob SquarePants]]: Legend of the Lost Spatula'', published by [[THQ]] in 2001, is sort of an odd case; the graphics are decent for a [[Game Boy Color]] game, the music is [[Crowning Music of Awesome|really nice]], and there are plenty of [[Continuity Nod]]s throughout. It has the potential to be a good game, but is almost completely wrecked by unintuitive jump physics and [[Camera Screw|a bizarre camera system that makes it impossible to see what's immediately above or beneath you]], and even then there are only four unique enemy behavior patterns (discounting bosses).

* The ''[[Teen Titans (animation)|Teen Titans]]'' game, called simply ''Teen Titans'', is a lame excuse for a game that consists of an extremely generic plot, lazy, glitch-filled graphics and an extremely disappointing ending. Pretty much every major villain from the series is randomly running rampant and the Teen Titans have to go stop them. You can choose the difficulty level, but there's no noticeable difference between them besides the ''too'' good Pong level, and there are these two levels that are dang near impossible anyway! It's not the ''worst'' licensed game ever, but it sure has its problems.

** The one good thing it had going for it was that the entire voice cast of the actual show was onboard. But even that is [[Fridge Horror|kind of depressing]] if you stop to think about it too much.

* Not even foreign films are safe from bad video game adaptations. The PC game ''Torrente'' (based on the Spanish cop movie spoof ''Torrente: The Stupid Arm of the Law'') is a mediocre [[Third-Person Shooter]] whose only unique point is that the protagonist is a fat, bald, dimwitted sluggard.

* While most of [[THQ]]'s ''wrestling'' games based on [[WWE]] tend to be well regarded, two of their attempts to branch into different genres were not so lucky. First there was ''Betrayal'', a [[Game Boy Color]] [[Beat'Em Up|beat em' up]] panned for "[[Artificial Stupidity|idiot AI]]" among other things. Then there was ''Crush Hour'' for the [[PlayStation 2]] and [[Xbox]], which was essentially a poor man's ''[[Twisted Metal]]'' whose only redeeming feature was the [[Narm~~|Narmtastic~~]] commentary provided by [[Jim Ross]] ("TWISTY ROCKETS!"). Fortunately, THQ learned their lesson and stuck to ''wrestling'' games with the WWE license, which is what ''wrestling'' fans usually want when they hear about an upcoming game based on their favorite ''wrestling'' company anyway.

* While most of [[THQ]]'s ''wrestling'' games based on [[WWE]] tend to be well regarded, two of their attempts to branch into different genres were not so lucky. First there was ''Betrayal'', a [[Game Boy Color]] [[Beat'Em Up|beat em' up]] panned for "[[Artificial Stupidity|idiot AI]]" among other things. Then there was ''Crush Hour'' for the [[PlayStation 2]] and [[Xbox]], which was essentially a poor man's ''[[Twisted Metal]]'' whose only redeeming feature was the [[Narm]]tastic commentary provided by [[Jim Ross]] ("TWISTY ROCKETS!"). Fortunately, THQ learned their lesson and stuck to ''wrestling'' games with the WWE license, which is what ''wrestling'' fans usually want when they hear about an upcoming game based on their favorite ''wrestling'' company anyway.

** Well at least they tried to for nine years. 2012 will see the debut of ''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BssF6scsfSE WWE Brawl]'', which will be a pure beat em up game ''without'' a wrestling ring.

* ''[[Yu Yu Hakusho]]: Spirit Detective'' for the GBA was abysmally boring in addition to sporting graphics that made the characters only distinguishable by their hair and outfits.

* ''[[The Polar Express]]'', a multi-platform Adventure game based on the hit movie. The graphics are okay for the time, nothing phenomenal and they don't reach [[Uncanny Valley]] like the film. The gameplay features various [[Unexpected Genre Change~~|Unexpected Genre Changes~~]], though they're poorly played out. The voice acting for some of the characters isn't so great either. The worst part of the game has to be the timespan; it can be beaten within a few hours or less, one sitting and it makes you feel you're missing out.

* ''[[The Polar Express]]'', a multi-platform Adventure game based on the hit movie. The graphics are okay for the time, nothing phenomenal and they don't reach [[Uncanny Valley]] like the film. The gameplay features various [[Unexpected Genre Change]]s, though they're poorly played out. The voice acting for some of the characters isn't so great either. The worst part of the game has to be the timespan; it can be beaten within a few hours or less, one sitting and it makes you feel you're missing out.

== Seventh Generation (2006-Present) ==

* ''[[Alice in Wonderland (2010 video game)|Alice in Wonderland]]'', the video game adaptation of [[Tim Burton]]'s [[Alice in Wonderland (film)|2010 film]], was a decided letdown to fans of the movie. Many of the battles are unintuitive, and the player doesn't even play ''as'' ~~Alice -- rather~~, as five residents of Underland (though they do fortunately consist of fan-favorites such as the Mad Hatter), who have to make their way through the entire map while preventing [[The Load|Alice]] from being captured. It's not horrible, but it's extremely disappointing.

* ''[[Alice in Wonderland (2010 video game)|Alice in Wonderland]]'', the video game adaptation of [[Tim Burton]]'s [[Alice in Wonderland (film)|2010 film]], was a decided letdown to fans of the movie. Many of the battles are unintuitive, and the player doesn't even play ''as'' Alice—rather, as five residents of Underland (though they do fortunately consist of fan-favorites such as the Mad Hatter), who have to make their way through the entire map while preventing [[The Load|Alice]] from being captured. It's not horrible, but it's extremely disappointing.

* Two of the games from the ''[[American Girls Collection]]'' for the Nintendo DS, namely ''Julie Finds a Way'' and ''Kit Mystery Challenge'' were given scathing reviews, mainly due to piss-poor gameplay and controls. The ''American Girls Premiere'' game for the PC and Mac was [[So Bad It's Good/Video Games|a different story, though]].

* For the 2012 Battleship movie, they are of course releasing a tie-in game. Is it based on the classic turn based original? Maybe naval combat like the last game to bare the name? Nope, it's a [[First-Person Shooter]].

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* ''[[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.

* Awesome as the ''[[Iron Man (film)|Iron Man]]'' films are, the next-gen adaptations of them are shockingly bad. The first game was riddled with poor controls, horrendous graphics, bugs that could force you to restart, bad hit detection, and placed you on maps where there was literally nowhere you ''weren't'' under constant fire from respawning enemies, even though [[Death Is a Slap on The Wrist]]. The second game cleaned things up somewhat and threw in War Machine as second player, but it wasn't much better than mediocre. ''How did they take a game where you fly through the air in an invincible power suit at the speed of sound while blasting terrorists with missiles from ten thousand feet and make it '''bad'''???''

* ''[[Lost]]: Via Domus'' for Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and Windows. It's faithful to the show, and even utilizes the flashback system. The high points are the story, the use of music from the show, and the very realistic environments. The gameplay is slightly reminiscent of 1990s [[Adventure Game~~|Adventure Games~~]] like ''[[King's Quest]]'' and ''[[Monkey Island]]'', only in full 3D. However, the game's overall lousy — you get a gun but only use it a few times throughout the entire game, and there's the recurring ([[That One Level|and annoying]]) fuse-plugging minigame. The actors for Ben, Sun, Desmond, Mikhail, Tom, and Claire lent their voices for the game (mostly because they have only 4-5 quotes for the whole four hours of the game), but the rest of the characters were voiced by stand-ins. For this reason, they often sound a little different than from the show (this hit Locke the worst) and some characters (Jin, Desmond, Tom after he takes his beard off) are horribly [[Off-Model]]. To top it all, the game is short, and the ending? {{spoiler|A [[Gainax Ending]]; you get onto a boat and ride off the island...only to see Oceanic 815 break up and crash onto the island, with you waking up on the beach as opposed to the jungle, and your love interest, who was killed shortly before your flight, having been restored to life, albeit bloodied.}}

* ''[[Lost]]: Via Domus'' for Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and Windows. It's faithful to the show, and even utilizes the flashback system. The high points are the story, the use of music from the show, and the very realistic environments. The gameplay is slightly reminiscent of 1990s [[Adventure Game]]s like ''[[King's Quest]]'' and ''[[Monkey Island]]'', only in full 3D. However, the game's overall lousy — you get a gun but only use it a few times throughout the entire game, and there's the recurring ([[That One Level|and annoying]]) fuse-plugging minigame. The actors for Ben, Sun, Desmond, Mikhail, Tom, and Claire lent their voices for the game (mostly because they have only 4-5 quotes for the whole four hours of the game), but the rest of the characters were voiced by stand-ins. For this reason, they often sound a little different than from the show (this hit Locke the worst) and some characters (Jin, Desmond, Tom after he takes his beard off) are horribly [[Off-Model]]. To top it all, the game is short, and the ending? {{spoiler|A [[Gainax Ending]]; you get onto a boat and ride off the island...only to see Oceanic 815 break up and crash onto the island, with you waking up on the beach as opposed to the jungle, and your love interest, who was killed shortly before your flight, having been restored to life, albeit bloodied.}}

** Also, you could die randomly in the cave sections, which are all built like mazes.

** It should come as no surprise that the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMM2k4tBrIs only] [[Let's Play]] of the game at the time of this writing is actually called "Let's '''Endure''' ''Lost: Via Domus''".

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** Also, it features [[Kari Wahlgren]], that's right, Kari ''freaking'' Wahlgren as Mary Jane Watson. This should be good right? Wrong. ''SWING HIGHER!'' ''SWING HIGHER!''

** The PS2 version of ''Spider-Man: Web of Shadows'' is borderline unplayable. It's got graphics on par with an early '''PlayStation One''' game, next to no voice acting, no actual ending, and just bad 2D fighting mechanics.

* ''[[Terminator]]: Salvation''. While it has decent graphics, great music, and a decent combat system that feels more than a little [[Gears of War|familiar]], in general it's pretty lousy. Sure, the combat's decent — it's just a shame that the battles are so damned repetitive and generally feature the same two enemies: [[Goddamned Bats|annoying flying]] robots, and [[Giant Spider|spider-like]] robots that require flanking to defeat. To flank them effectively, it's best to have your partner keep their attention while you come around back and finish them. Too bad the AI's fairly terrible, and while the game does have a co-op option, it's not online enabled — so if you don't have anybody to play with and don't have Xbox Live, you're pretty much screwed. Oh, and it's very short, but considering how you'll spend those ~~4-5~~ hours fighting the same annoying enemies over and over again, that's probably a positive thing. Unsurprisingly, ''Salvation'' was one of the factors behind developer GRIN's shutdown...and it was their '''only''' game that can be considered a definite flop.

* ''[[Terminator]]: Salvation''. While it has decent graphics, great music, and a decent combat system that feels more than a little [[Gears of War|familiar]], in general it's pretty lousy. Sure, the combat's decent — it's just a shame that the battles are so damned repetitive and generally feature the same two enemies: [[Goddamned Bats|annoying flying]] robots, and [[Giant Spider|spider-like]] robots that require flanking to defeat. To flank them effectively, it's best to have your partner keep their attention while you come around back and finish them. Too bad the AI's fairly terrible, and while the game does have a co-op option, it's not online enabled — so if you don't have anybody to play with and don't have Xbox Live, you're pretty much screwed. Oh, and it's very short, but considering how you'll spend those 4–5 hours fighting the same annoying enemies over and over again, that's probably a positive thing. Unsurprisingly, ''Salvation'' was one of the factors behind developer GRIN's shutdown...and it was their '''only''' game that can be considered a definite flop.

** The negative reception of the ''Salvation'' console game led to Raw Thrills delaying their ''Terminator: Salvation'' arcade game until Spring 2010 so they could get it right. Luckily enough, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMn-Hm1Qmf8 it looks pretty awesome.]

** However it is [[Nintendo Hard]], no way to instantly take out Terminators in one shot (and a health bar to boot) and some enemies are [[Demonic Spiders]] which simply overwhelm you. Plus there is no way to regain lost health or protect yourself like similar games of its genre.

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== Specific Companies ==

* [[Acclaim]] and LJN Toys (which merged in 1990) were really, ''really'' bad for this during the 8- and 16-bit days. A similar [[Video Game]] company, [[THQ]], has gotten better with it over the years, but Acclaim didn't learn its lesson and continued to produce crap until its eventual bankruptcy (and limited [[Revival]] as a distributor of Korean [[MMORPG~~|MMORPGs~~]]). LJN and Acclaim were so bad at this that they received extreme scorn as [[The Angry Video Game Nerd]]'s most hated game companies.

* [[Acclaim]] and LJN Toys (which merged in 1990) were really, ''really'' bad for this during the 8- and 16-bit days. A similar [[Video Game]] company, [[THQ]], has gotten better with it over the years, but Acclaim didn't learn its lesson and continued to produce crap until its eventual bankruptcy (and limited [[Revival]] as a distributor of Korean [[MMORPG]]s). LJN and Acclaim were so bad at this that they received extreme scorn as [[The Angry Video Game Nerd]]'s most hated game companies.

* Brash Entertainment did ''nothing '''but''''' these games, with their ''[[Alvin and The Chipmunks]]'' and ''[[Jumper (novel)|Jumper]]'' tie-ins receiving some of the absolute lowest scores this generation. Naturally, the studio was quickly shut down 18 months after being formed.

** Incidentally, Brash were working on a ''[[Saw]]'' game just as they went under; Konami eventually snagged the publishing rights from their ruin and the final game ended up being somewhat decent. Well, except for the combat system.