5 Movie Inspired Games That Don’t Suck

If any medium should be able to translate well into video games, it’s movies. Ripe for action and suspense, the same qualities that make a movie legendary are the ones that make a video game memorable. It’s a cliché that movie games haven’t faired well and instead of harping on the ugly ones, PSUni wants to celebrate the good.

The games in this list may not find themselves winning numerous awards but they’ve stood their ground in the fight against inadequacy. Let future movie games take note that there is hope.

 

5. Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire (1996 – N64/PC)


Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire was a multimedia project from Lucasfilms set between the events of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. It came in the forms of novels, comic books, trading cards, erotica and a video game. One of the first to arrive on the Nintendo 64, Shadows of the Empire was a single-player action game where players took the role of mercenary Dash Rendar helping Luke Skywalker save Princess Leia( before she became fat) from Prince Xizor. This game was a true joy to play and was among the first movie games that didn’t completely suck.

 

4. Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2002 – Gamecube/PS2/Xbox)

Not to be confused with the cell shaded animated series, Star Wars: The Clone Wars has you playing as a Grand Army of the Republic during the Clone Wars. The game mostly consists of vehicular combat, though you will sometimes play as Anakin Skywalker or Mace Windu: which is pretty much Samuel L. Jackson with a lightsaber . That is about as cool as stuff gets. This is one of the only times in gaming history where a game was better than the movie is was based on, and for that is makes our list.

 

3. Spiderman 2 (2004 – Mulitplatform)

This game has the unforunate honor of not only being a movie game but a superhero game as well; this combination is about as close as a you can get to selling bags of poop to gamers. Spiderman 2 webslings above the rest though with amazing web mechanics, a great sandbox feel, and Bruce Campbell as the tour guide. I won’t say my creepy obsession with Bruce Campbell made this get on the list but I wont say it wasn’t.

 

2. The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay (2004 – PC/Xbox)

A prequel to the films, the Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay finds protagonist Richard Riddick attempting to escape from Butcher Bay maximum security prison. A stealth game at heart, the action is mainly first-person. No HUD and little feedback to the player made this game truly unique. Not to mention that Vin Diesel actually owns the studio that made this game. The actor within the actor within the game movie would make Inception jealous.

 

1. Goldeneye 007 (1997 – N64)

Based off of the film of the same name, Goldeneye 007 was critically acclaimed and commercially successful. Though there is a compelling single player campaign, the game shines in its multiplayer format. This was the first game to introduce split-screen multiplayer, and thus the first game to invoke massive arguments about screen looking from friends. Goldeneye’s simplicity allowed anyone to pick up and play and helped it maintain large and loyal fan base.

Readers Comments (3)

  1. I’m surprised Xmen Origins: Wolverine wasn’t on this list!

    • Colten Timmons January 30, 2013 @ 22:45

      I feel really stupid for forgetting about that game, played it with fellow contributor Hunter when it was released and we didn’t get up till it was beaten. Good times, Good times.

  2. i know Goldeneye 007 gets a lot of love and is viewed as a gem from the old days
    but for some reason i hated it
    it was a shitty unresponsive game when i played it

Comments are closed.