The Best Video Games Based on Movies

Kay TurnerApr 25, 2018

It’s practically some kind of law that the bigger a movie is, the more likely it is to have a video game adaptation. It also seems to be a law that these games will be terrible. There are some games that break the mold however. While just about every movie video game starts life as a way for a ruthless corporation to make even more money, they are also the largest project that the game developer is likely to take on that year. There are many that do end up being worth played many times over even as the movie itself fades from popular culture. Here are some of the best video games based on movies.

Ghostbusters; The Video Game

Many videogame movies are only great ideas because of how great the original source material is. A great example of this is the Ghostbusters game from 2009. This game is actually the third Ghostbusters game, and the first two were so terrible that people had given up on the idea of a good Ghostbusters game existing. After all, trapping ghosts will eventually get boring and you can’t really translate the brilliance of Bill Murray into cut scenes. So what makes this game so good? To put it simply, it’s that you get to be a ghostbuster yourself. It’s worth playing just to get to explore the ghostbuster firehouse and live the dream of busting ghosts.

The Ghostbusters Slot Machine

Ghostbusters wasn’t just a great video game; it was also a great slot machine. There are many casino games based on movies and this really is one of the best. It’s one of the latest releases by IGT. Slimer is the main character of the game, which also features the rest of the Ghostbusters cast including the team themselves and the Marshmallow Man. Slimer will occasionally tease players and the slot machine even features classic clips from the movies themselves.

Blade Runner

Blade Runner from Ridley Scott is a surprisingly deep movie considering it’s a movie about hunting robots featuring Harrison Ford. It’s not like anyone is questioning if Indiana Jones and Han Solo are replicants. The most daring thing about Blade Runner isn’t the script though, is the point-and-click adventure game that was created for it. While point-and-click games have fallen out of favor in recent decades, there’s nothing quite like tracking down dozens of clues and watching cut scenes and fighting AI characters that have their own agendas. This game is basically LA Noire but set in the future.

Disney’s Aladdin on the Sega Genesis

Some people would class Aladdin on the Sega Genesis as being not just their favorite movie tie-in game, but also their favorite game on the system as a whole. Virgin Interactive put a lot of love into this game and made smart decisions such as letting Aladdin use a sword. The world of the game is brilliantly animated by the original animators working on the Disney movie, and the game features 16 bit versions of songs from the movie such as A Whole New World.

Spiderman 2

One of the best things to come from the Sam Raimi trilogy of Spider-Man movies is the Spider-Man 2 videogame. It features just about everything someone could want from a Spider-Man game including an incredible sandbox environment and the second-best videogame rendering of New York City. This is one game that you really should check out for yourself if you’ve not played it yet. Just do yourself a favour, and play one of the console versions.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine Uncaged

We go from a game where you play as the ultimate nerd, to a game where you place the ultimate badass. X-Men Origins: Wolverine Uncaged lets you slice and dice your way through hordes of enemies with your adamantium clause and do things that weren’t in the Wolverine Origins movie, which let’s face it was a letdown. Watch as Wolverine fights down to his skeletal layer, and then just keeps fighting some more, because that’s just how cool he is.

Goldeneye 007

In some ways, the Goldeneye movie really saved the James Bond franchise, which had been side tracked by movies from Timothy Dalton and lay dormant until Pierce Brosnan and Sean Bean brought it back to life, which is almost ironic given how often Bean dies in movies (which is every movie he’s in). Goldeneye 007 did something similar for video games. It proved to be the first great FPS game for a console and had a stunning multiplayer mode. To be honest, Goldeneye 007 may be better than the original movie. It’s certainly the best video game based on a movie ever made.

Not every video game based on a movie is going to suck. There are plenty of great examples of how these games can be done right. So don’t discount a game just because it’s based on a movie. There’s a chance, however small, that it won’t be that bad.