10 Worst Video Games Based on Movies

While it’s always going to be inherently difficult to amass an audience and customerbase of players for a video game for a completely original idea, it’s certainly easy to adapt an already existing property with a tie-in video game for additional profits. The movie tie-in video game has been a staple of the industry ever since the beginning, with it even helping create some of the most iconic and celebrated games of all time, such as Goldeneye 007 and Disney’s Aladdin.

However, the larger consensus for movie tie-in games is not that of quality and care for the medium, but instead rushed and cheaply made products made for no reason other than to act as a cash grab. While this largely results in various middling and forgettable game experiences, it has also led to some exceptionally terrible video games released over the years, with several of them even being considered some of the worst video games of all time.

10

‘Batman Forever’ (1995)

There’s a surprisingly intricate and vast history of superhero video games released over the years, with Batman being the central figure in so many prominent video games over the years. While many people associate the character with the amazing Arkham trilogy, some of the earliest standout Batman video games were the various video game tie-ins for the 80s and 90s Batman movies and series. While games like Batman on NES and The Adventures of Batman & Robin on SNES were well-received, Batman Forever on SNES is one of the worst games on the system.

While previous Batman games did a great job of adapting the feel and energy of their original films or shows, this game strangely utilizes the visual style of Mortal Kombat‘s digitized live-action sprites, feeling jarring and distracting. Even more egregious is the game’s control scheme, being a platformer brawler that plays like a fighting game and basic controls that are so cryptic and confusing that it will leave players stuck on the first level.

9

‘Wreck-It Ralph’ (2012)

Considering the fact that the original Wreck-It Ralph movie was a love letter to video games, it only made sense that there would be a tie-in game to capitalize on its already video game-centric story and characters. However, Wreck-It Ralph for the Nintendo Wii is so poorly made that it becomes an act of tedium to witness, defined not by the charm and wit of the movie, but instead an overwhelming abundance of cheap visuals and repetitive gameplay.

The game attempts to act as an extension of the story from the movie, seeing Ralph and Felix travel through the various worlds of the arcade to clean up Cy-Bugs invading the arcade. However, with its laughably bad PowerPoint cutscenes and ineffective platforming, the game does a massive disservice to the legendary games that it clearly wants to follow in the footsteps of. Equally as embarrassing is that the game is so short that you can complete the entire game in a time shorter than the actual length of the movie.

8

‘Dragonball Evolution: The Game’ (2009)

It only makes sense that one of the worst movies of all time would also have an exceptionally terrible tie-in movie game, although ironically, Dragonball Evolution: The Game for PSP, as bad as it is, is technically better than anything in the film it’s adapted from. It’s an incredibly low bar to clear, but this cheaply made fighting game at least has more respect and care for the Dragon Ball franchise than the movie, although this still pales in comparison to the multitude of great Dragon Ball fighting games released over the years.

The mechanics were certainly there to have an OK time with the nonexistent people you would match against online in the game, but the single-player content is laughably ineffective in this game. This is largely thanks to its terrible enemy A.I. It takes minimal effort to defeat the story mode and arcade modes in the game, as you can simply press your strongest button without a care in the world over and over until you win.

7

‘Rambo: The Video Game’ (2014)

Thanks to the massive technological advancements that the video game industry has undergone over the years, there have been various attempts to readapt classic movies to video games long after the movie’s initial release date, creating an experience theoretically more compelling thanks to modern technologies. While games like The Warriors and The Godfather found great success in this format, Rambo: The Video Game is one of the strangest and most ruthlessly bad examples of such a concept.

The game sees the player controlling John Rambo in recreations of various scenes from the first three films in the Rambo franchise, largely defined by jarringly bad visuals and repetitive rail shooter gameplay. Similarly to Wreck-It Ralph, the full content of the game can be completed in a time that doesn’t even come close to the length of the three films its adapts, all the while not having anything close to the energy and impact of the films.

6

‘Catwoman’ (2004)

Yet another awful tie-in for an already infamously terrible movie, Catwoman proves to be exactly as bad as one would expect a game tie-in for the Halle Berry Catwoman movie to be. The action adventure game sees players controlling the titular antihero in a plot that is surprisingly extremely different from the actual movie, yet still equally terrible in its execution. There was certainly an attempt to create a Tomb Raider-style action adventure game out of this, yet a bad camera, obnoxious combat, and annoying controls make it little more than a nuisance.

A lot of the aesthetic issues that plagued the movie are also incredibly present within this game, from the overly sexual Catwoman design to a complete disregard for the strength and appeal of the character in the first place. While it was already cumbersome to deal with in a 104-minute movie, this aesthetic stretched across an hours-long action game with unintuitive action and controls became an aggressive test of patience.

5

‘007 Legends’ (2012)

Image via Eurocom

Few movie franchises have been as surprisingly effective in the realm of tie-in video games as James Bond. From all-time classics like Goldeneye 007 to the recent 007 First Light, the espionage charm of MI6’s strongest asset proves to work exceptionally well in video game format. However, one such game that failed to live up to the legacy of either the movies or the games, despite setting itself up as the ultimate James Bond gaming experience, was 007 Legends, an attempted love letter to the entire franchise.

007 Legends sees players traverse through missions across Bond’s cinematic history, following the plots of Die Another Day, Goldfinger, License to Kill, Moonraker, and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. While this choice of films to adapt is already jarring enough, completely lacking in many of the truly iconic Bond adventures, the true killing blow to the game was its painfully generic gameplay. Instead of the inventive first-person action of previous games, 007 Legends is little more than a sorry Call of Duty ripoff, a major disservice to fans of the franchise and previous games.

4

‘Charlie’s Angels’ (2003)

By all accounts, McG‘s Charlie’s Angels reboot movie seems like it would have made for the perfect video game tie-in, yet reality proves to be exceptionally disappointing as this notorious GameCube/PlayStation 2 game is considered one of the worst beat-em-ups ever made. While the game had high hopes and sported all three of the movie’s actresses for voice acting, the terrible visuals completely ruin this concept.

However, the major flaws of the game come from how it attempts to translate a classic 2D style of beat-em-up gameplay into 3D without taking into account the shift in dimensions. The camera is extremely combative towards the player while the actual combat is repetitive and brainless, making the entire game a pain. It doesn’t come close to replicating the kung-fu fun of the movie, and does a complete disservice to the characters as a whole.

3

‘Back to the Future’ (1989)

In the early days of movie tie-in games, few publishers were as infamous as LJN, who became to many the face of terrible, cheaply made movie tie-ins whose poorly made gameplay clashed greatly with the amazing movies that they consistently got the licenses to. There are enough terrible LJN games to fill an entire list with, but one of the most notorious releases they ever made was Back to the Future on NES, releasing 4 years after the legendary Robert Zemeckis Movie.

The game only loosely resembles the 80s classic that it adapts, seeing an 8-bit Marty McFly skateboarding across the streets of 1955 and collecting clocks to avoid vanishing away. Complete with poorly made minigames attempting to recreate iconic scenes from the movie, Back to the Future completely fails to recapture any of the charm of the film while also being aggressively annoying to play. Fans should simply stick to Telltale’s Back to the Future: The Game from 2010 if looking for a truly great Back to the Future game experience.

2

‘Ben-Hur’ (2016)

Ben-Hur is a game that doesn’t often come to mind when considering the truly infamous movie game tie-ins, but this jarring bad game adaptation of the already bad 2016 remake of the Hollywood classic deserves infinitely more notoriety for its failures. The free racing game was released on the Xbox One and included a literal trailer for the movie as the opening cutscene for the game. It’s little more than a glorified commercial, yet the gameplay itself manages to be even worse.

Due to not really having the care or need for depth as a free downloadable title, the promotional game doesn’t go beyond the basics of races, having incredibly simplistic gameplay and about 10 minutes until you complete the game. As far as commercials go, it’s actually pretty interesting and distinct, yet it’s hard to imagine even a single person that this convinced to watch the movie, let alone anyone who played it even a few months after it released.

Image via Atari

There really isn’t any competition for the worst movie tie-in video game, as E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is a notoriously terrible video game whose quality was so abysmal that it helped almost completely destroy the video game industry in the infamous crash of 1983. With bad graphics, cryptic gameplay, and all the hype in the world as a game adaptation for the year’s premiere cinematic experience, E.T. reaches a level of low quality that needs to be played firsthand to truly experience.

It’s one of the first truly abysmal games ever released, as it’s stood as the icon of one of gaming’s worst experiences ever since its release and will oftentimes top lists of the worst video games ever made. The fact that its adapting one of the most iconic and legendary movies of the 80s only adds to its infamy and failures, as it simply wouldn’t be nearly as infamous if it didn’t have the name recognition of this titan of culture.