The Problem with Licensed Games: Difference between revisions

* ''[[Doctor Who]]: Return to Earth'' by Asylum Entertainment on the Wii. The gameplay consists, for 90% of the game, of shooting crystals at '''floating smiley faces''' with the Sonic Screwdriver (which, on top of being completely nonsensical for ''Doctor Who'', is even more bizarre than the [[Out of Character]] Amiga platformer ''Dalek Attack'') and shoddy stealth while dealing with an [[Camera Screw|uncooperative camera]] and severe framerate lag on some occasions, the graphics look like they came from an upscaled PlayStation One game with special effects that make the classic series look like modern Summer blockbusters and a decent dosing of [[Uncanny Valley]] animations, the plot's an incoherent excuse to have Cybermen ''and'' Daleks in the same story, [[Artificial Stupidity|reducing their in-game intelligences to herp-derping, walls-staring levels]] in the process, the level designs involve tedious backtracking to fill up on crystals and (in the endgame) messy masses of floating platforms with reckless disregard for in-universe sense and the mandatory ball maze minigames are frustating enough to make you want to toss your Wiimote. The only positives are the Murray Gold soundtrack and the Sonic Screwdriver Wiimote that was released alongside it. The kicker? Nintendo reportedly paid [[The BBC]] £10,000,000 for exclusive ''Doctor Who'' games, and yet the '''free''' <ref>(if you live in the UK, that is)</ref> ''Adventure Games'' have far better production values. As the Official Nintendo Magazine in the UK [https://web.archive.org/web/20141007234959/http://www.officialnintendomagazine.co.uk/21460/reviews/doctor-who-wii-game-review-review/ put it], Asylum are "people who hate games, sci-fi, and everything decent about humanity". Ouch.

** The [[Nintendo DS]] game ''Evacuation Earth'', released at the same time as ''Return to Earth'', wasn't nearly as badly received...although few considered it to be anything better than [[So Okay It's Average]].

* 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.

** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=finUoxop0Pg The Harry Potter games have this as well.]

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

* ''[[Avatar (film)|Avatar]]'''s game (by [[Ubisoft]]) is visually amazing, but lacking in many of the final details of the film, likely due to being released before it. Some of these are minor things, while others are...not. It's by no means the very worst as licensed games go, but still has a storyline that both makes no sense and in places openly contradicts canon, suffers from some very bad voice acting and mistakes with the Na'vi language, as well as inexplicably low-quality models and textures for the Na'vi which really stand out against the rest.

* 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".