Video Games From Movies Suck (funny irony in the end) - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

GakFace · 06-19-2003, 02:44 PM

LINKY!!!

You've Seen the Movie, Don't Play the Game
Enter the Matrix, yet another crummy movie-based video game.
By Mark Van de Walle
Posted Wednesday, May 28, 2003, at 3:27 PM PT

The video game Enter the Matrix was released the same day as The Matrix Reloaded, the movie that inspired it. By then, the game had already generated a fawning cover story in every video game magazine in the world, plus two Wired magazine stories, and front-page treatment in the New York Times' "Circuits" section. Writers dutifully gaped at the 244-page script the Wachowski brothers wrote for the game and at the kung fu the stars did for it. Enter the Matrix, everyone agreed, was the beginning of a New Age of Entertainment Synergy, in which there was a seamless flow from movie to game to anime to …

Unfortunately, now that people have actually seen the movie and played the game, everybody seems to agree: They're equally mediocre.

This shouldn't be a surprise. I used to write video game ads for a living. One of our clients was a company with a richly deserved reputation for putting out awful games based on licenses purchased from television and movies. During a meeting about a particularly awful licensed game, I remember one of the marketing people saying, "That show's so hot right now, we could put out any piece of crap and people would buy it." The client's company then put out several pieces of crap based on the license, and as predicted, people bought them. It's worked out for Enter the Matrix, too: Gamers bought a record 1 million copies in its first week on the shelves.

What's surprising is that gamers haven't figured out that they should stop buying these games. Historically, movie video games suck, a trend that dates back to the Atari age. Chris Charla, who designed the game Disney's Tarzan, said at a recent conference that "ET for the 2600 … really works hard to earn its reputation as one of the worst games ever made." [Correction, May 29, 2003: Charla did not design Disney's Tarzan.] Charla went on to say that "in the years after ET almost destroyed the game industry," licensed games "became synonymous with … slapped-together mediocrity." From that perspective, Enter the Matrix is right up there at the top end of the curve. Dave Perry, whose company Shiny won the Matrix game sweepstakes, knows that: The first game he ever made, way back in the days of the Sega Genesis, was called Global Gladiators. Based on a McDonald's license, the game featured the side-scrolling, platform-jumping adventures of a bunch of kids who traveled the world and fought evildoers against a backdrop of Golden Arches and Mickey D's clamshell boxes.

The trend spans all consoles. The makers of Batman Forever for Super Nintendo told you to "Brace yourself for endless action" but delivered two-dimensional, side-scrolling tedium. South Park for Nintendo 64 and PlayStation promised a hilarious adult-themed game but delivered repetitive Quake-clone monotony. And the Starsky and Hutch game that's in the pipeline for GameCube, PlayStation 2, and Xbox? Odds are, the developers didn't pick up the license because they had a burning desire to do a great game about a lame '70s TV show; they did it because they needed an easy hook for their lame mission-based driving game.

Why are movie- and TV-based games almost always so bad? Usually, the answer comes down to money. Games cost a lot to produce: $5 million and up for the big games, "AAA titles" as they're called in the industry. Licenses cost money, too, money which would otherwise be spent designing and making the game. Shiny reportedly paid $10 million just for the right to put Neo in their games (which is strange, because you can't actually play Neo in its game), and Enter the Matrix's budget topped out at about $20 million. That number includes sizable marketing expenses, along with paying Jada Pinkett-Smith to deliver lines and to spend hours doing kung fu with Yuen Wo Ping. When you're dealing with Hollywood, $20 million isn't very much at all.

Besides, the more you fork over just to participate in the Wachowski's Gesamtkunstwerk, the less you can pay your stable full of coders to come up with artificial intelligence that makes Agent Smith act smart, or to pay artists to come up with a Matrix that looks appropriately real (or is that appropriately fake?). The end result is a short game filled with boring repetitive hallways and boring repetitive streets and boring repetitive fights, with a bunch of stuff tacked on that's more movie than game. Which happen to be the qualities everybody is complaining about in Enter the Matrix.

Until recently, games with movie tie-ins were largely an afterthought, expensive Happy Meal toys. Games were rushed out the door to get the product to the public while the license was still hot. But as the gaming industry gets bigger, the way that deals are made is changing, allowing games to be developed more or less in tandem with movies. Maybe that will help: The new Lord of the Rings games are notable exceptions to the bad movie game rule. Or maybe it won't. As Enter the Matrix proves, there can be such a thing as too much involvement with a movie's creators. A 244-page script does not make a game more fun. Neither does an hour of movie footage. In fact, since you watch those components instead of playing them, insisting on their inclusion actually makes the game worse.

But until gamers wise up, companies will keep buying licenses and putting out crummy games. Can you blame them? It's hard to resist the lure of easy money and guaranteed sales. That's why there's another Dukes of Hazzard game on the way. I'll go out on a limb now and bet that it'll be awful, too.

[Correction, May 29, 2003: Chris Charla did not design Disney's Tarzan.]

Lord of the Rings The Two Towers
$29.99
Battle the forces of Mordor in the game based on the blockbuster The Lord of the Rings movies. Continue your journey through ...
EBgames.com
Earn 20% back in MSN Dollars

---------------------

As for the game sucking? I dunno, I have yet to play it, and I've heard mixed review, some good and some bad. What I find even better than the whole article, is that the article comes down to this: Video Games based on movies SUCK!!!! Then what do I see at the bottom? An Add for a game. What game might this be? Oh I see Lord of the Rings The Two Towers for XBox. Yet according to the entire article we should never buy it, cause its based off a movie.... hehehehe

YourNeverThere · 06-19-2003, 04:40 PM

look, im a fairly hardcore gamer,and i dont care what the others say, Enter the matrix was fucking great, i got it the first week it was out with everyone else, PLAY THE GAME ON HARD! i cant stress that enough, the game on easy is stupid and well easy, play it on hard, you'll love it, you feel acommplished when you beat a level, its a good game and it way way underrated, which is strange because of all the hype and marketing, i was expecting crap and i got gold.

WhoaitsZ · 06-19-2003, 06:38 PM

rule of thumb all gamers should know:

the great majority of all movies to games suck as do all games to movies.

the matrix is a game that looked h o r r i b l e to begin with. i have no desire whatsoever to play it.

the only movie to game that's playable was Willow and Batmas on the NES and the Two Towers was fun for a short rent on the PS2.

and games tto movies aren't exactly good. FF came close to being very good but failed........ street fighter.. mario..

the two should never breed.

yatzr · 06-19-2003, 07:17 PM

actually, you can find some good movie/tv games if you look at good ole anime. The live action street fighter sucked...true, but some of the anime street fighter movies are pretty good. from what i've heard, the .hack games are pretty good and the show is too (as long as you see enough episodes to get the story). Granted, there's still quite a few games they make off of those cheesy cartoon network animes that suck, but I'd say Japan has a much better hit rate than america. But yeah...i think anything american made that crosses the game/movie line is crap.

Wait...i just thought of one of the greatest move games ever...Goldeneye for n64...but i think that's the only one.

Phaenx · 06-19-2003, 07:26 PM

This guy obviously never played Minority Report for PS2. It eats his face!

schUsseln · 06-19-2003, 10:23 PM

talk about biased evidence...sheesh!

I though some of the Star Wars shoot-em-ups were pretty good, I'm sure there are others.

I challenge you though, to name a good movie that was based on a video game...much more difficult.

Examples:
Mario Brothers
Wing Commander
Pokemon (?? - could also be considerd somewhat good)
Final Fantasy

Here's hoping Spy Hunter shows how it sould be done!

227cm · 06-19-2003, 11:48 PM

::shrugs:: I love it, its VERY fun. Plus i love the matrix... so its alright with me!

The "hacking" sub-game is VERY fun

WhoaitsZ · 06-20-2003, 07:26 PM

oh, no doubt some anime based on games and vice versa can be great at times. just not live action.

I mean, that oscard worthy WIng Commander was good but

one 'bad' movie i enjoyed like these was Mortal Kombat. the again i was like... 16? 17? when it came out

I remember barely holding the urge to scream "THIS MOVIE FUCKING SUCKS!" when i saw MK2....... i rather stick my dick in a belnder turned on than see that godawfull shitty movie again.

the only true let down i've seen in anime based from games was Tekken. i didn't like it. at all.

Street Fighter II The Animated Movie is one of my all tiem faves

and the Darkstalkers were good too.

juanvaldes · 06-20-2003, 07:49 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by schUsseln

I challenge you though, to name a good movie that was based on a video game...much more difficult.

Mortal Combat. Sure it's not the best movie in the world but I'd put it higher then tons of shit that comes out of hollywood each year.

Justin · 06-21-2003, 09:28 AM

Remember goldeneye for the n64, that was the best game of the year.

cockmonger · 08-04-2003, 10:55 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Phaenx
This guy obviously never played Minority Report for PS2. It eats his face!

Minority report is the BEST example of what he said. Crappy controls, stupid villains. horrible game. i RAN back to bestbuy after i breezed through the crappy 4th level.

tenchi069 · 08-05-2003, 04:47 AM

I loved the Final Fantasy movie, but I'm a die hard fan.

Troublebot · 08-05-2003, 05:56 AM

When I hear The Thing was coming to PS2 I could barely wait. The Thing is one of my favorite movies. The tension and paranoia on screen balanced out well with the over-the-top special effects and gore. If the game was half as good at the flick, I was going to love it.

Turns out it wasn't even a tenth as good. Everything John Carpenter putinto the movie was sucked out of the game (and I do mean sucked). Difficult controls and a storyline that felt nothing like the movie made me quit after the third level. I might as well of flushed the 50 bucks down the toilet.

tj2001cobra · 08-05-2003, 06:04 AM

I loved this game. It was the whole reason I bought an N64 back in the day. My fiance likes the Harry Potter games on PS2 also.

Quote:

Originally posted by Justin
Remember goldeneye for the n64, that was the best game of the year.

Gabby · 08-05-2003, 12:02 PM

I don't care what you say, games to movies are great. I mean it! I do!

Need I say more than WING COMMANDER?!?!?!

Did anyone actually see that cinematic abortion?

Cynthetiq · 08-05-2003, 12:17 PM

i didn't buy Matrix... I got it as swag... thank god.

World's King · 08-05-2003, 12:27 PM

Damn Nerds.

06-19-2003, 02:44 PM	#1 (permalink)
GakFace Go Ninja, Go Ninja Go!! Location: IN, USA	Video Games From Movies Suck (funny irony in the end) LINKY!!! You've Seen the Movie, Don't Play the Game Enter the Matrix, yet another crummy movie-based video game. By Mark Van de Walle Posted Wednesday, May 28, 2003, at 3:27 PM PT The video game Enter the Matrix was released the same day as The Matrix Reloaded, the movie that inspired it. By then, the game had already generated a fawning cover story in every video game magazine in the world, plus two Wired magazine stories, and front-page treatment in the New York Times' "Circuits" section. Writers dutifully gaped at the 244-page script the Wachowski brothers wrote for the game and at the kung fu the stars did for it. Enter the Matrix, everyone agreed, was the beginning of a New Age of Entertainment Synergy, in which there was a seamless flow from movie to game to anime to … Unfortunately, now that people have actually seen the movie and played the game, everybody seems to agree: They're equally mediocre. This shouldn't be a surprise. I used to write video game ads for a living. One of our clients was a company with a richly deserved reputation for putting out awful games based on licenses purchased from television and movies. During a meeting about a particularly awful licensed game, I remember one of the marketing people saying, "That show's so hot right now, we could put out any piece of crap and people would buy it." The client's company then put out several pieces of crap based on the license, and as predicted, people bought them. It's worked out for Enter the Matrix, too: Gamers bought a record 1 million copies in its first week on the shelves. What's surprising is that gamers haven't figured out that they should stop buying these games. Historically, movie video games suck, a trend that dates back to the Atari age. Chris Charla, who designed the game Disney's Tarzan, said at a recent conference that "ET for the 2600 … really works hard to earn its reputation as one of the worst games ever made." [Correction, May 29, 2003: Charla did not design Disney's Tarzan.] Charla went on to say that "in the years after ET almost destroyed the game industry," licensed games "became synonymous with … slapped-together mediocrity." From that perspective, Enter the Matrix is right up there at the top end of the curve. Dave Perry, whose company Shiny won the Matrix game sweepstakes, knows that: The first game he ever made, way back in the days of the Sega Genesis, was called Global Gladiators. Based on a McDonald's license, the game featured the side-scrolling, platform-jumping adventures of a bunch of kids who traveled the world and fought evildoers against a backdrop of Golden Arches and Mickey D's clamshell boxes. The trend spans all consoles. The makers of Batman Forever for Super Nintendo told you to "Brace yourself for endless action" but delivered two-dimensional, side-scrolling tedium. South Park for Nintendo 64 and PlayStation promised a hilarious adult-themed game but delivered repetitive Quake-clone monotony. And the Starsky and Hutch game that's in the pipeline for GameCube, PlayStation 2, and Xbox? Odds are, the developers didn't pick up the license because they had a burning desire to do a great game about a lame '70s TV show; they did it because they needed an easy hook for their lame mission-based driving game. Why are movie- and TV-based games almost always so bad? Usually, the answer comes down to money. Games cost a lot to produce: $5 million and up for the big games, "AAA titles" as they're called in the industry. Licenses cost money, too, money which would otherwise be spent designing and making the game. Shiny reportedly paid $10 million just for the right to put Neo in their games (which is strange, because you can't actually play Neo in its game), and Enter the Matrix's budget topped out at about $20 million. That number includes sizable marketing expenses, along with paying Jada Pinkett-Smith to deliver lines and to spend hours doing kung fu with Yuen Wo Ping. When you're dealing with Hollywood, $20 million isn't very much at all. Besides, the more you fork over just to participate in the Wachowski's Gesamtkunstwerk, the less you can pay your stable full of coders to come up with artificial intelligence that makes Agent Smith act smart, or to pay artists to come up with a Matrix that looks appropriately real (or is that appropriately fake?). The end result is a short game filled with boring repetitive hallways and boring repetitive streets and boring repetitive fights, with a bunch of stuff tacked on that's more movie than game. Which happen to be the qualities everybody is complaining about in Enter the Matrix. Until recently, games with movie tie-ins were largely an afterthought, expensive Happy Meal toys. Games were rushed out the door to get the product to the public while the license was still hot. But as the gaming industry gets bigger, the way that deals are made is changing, allowing games to be developed more or less in tandem with movies. Maybe that will help: The new Lord of the Rings games are notable exceptions to the bad movie game rule. Or maybe it won't. As Enter the Matrix proves, there can be such a thing as too much involvement with a movie's creators. A 244-page script does not make a game more fun. Neither does an hour of movie footage. In fact, since you watch those components instead of playing them, insisting on their inclusion actually makes the game worse. But until gamers wise up, companies will keep buying licenses and putting out crummy games. Can you blame them? It's hard to resist the lure of easy money and guaranteed sales. That's why there's another Dukes of Hazzard game on the way. I'll go out on a limb now and bet that it'll be awful, too. [Correction, May 29, 2003: Chris Charla did not design Disney's Tarzan.] Lord of the Rings The Two Towers $29.99 Battle the forces of Mordor in the game based on the blockbuster The Lord of the Rings movies. Continue your journey through ... EBgames.com Earn 20% back in MSN Dollars --------------------- As for the game sucking? I dunno, I have yet to play it, and I've heard mixed review, some good and some bad. What I find even better than the whole article, is that the article comes down to this: Video Games based on movies SUCK!!!! Then what do I see at the bottom? An Add for a game. What game might this be? Oh I see Lord of the Rings The Two Towers for XBox. Yet according to the entire article we should never buy it, cause its based off a movie.... hehehehe __________________ RoboBlaster: Welcome to the club! Not that I'm in the club. And there really isn'a a club in the first place. But if there was a club and if I was in it, I would definitely welcome you to it. Last edited by GakFace; 06-19-2003 at 02:48 PM..

06-19-2003, 04:40 PM	#2 (permalink)
YourNeverThere Practical Anarchist Location: Yesterday i woke up stuck in hollywood	look, im a fairly hardcore gamer,and i dont care what the others say, Enter the matrix was fucking great, i got it the first week it was out with everyone else, PLAY THE GAME ON HARD! i cant stress that enough, the game on easy is stupid and well easy, play it on hard, you'll love it, you feel acommplished when you beat a level, its a good game and it way way underrated, which is strange because of all the hype and marketing, i was expecting crap and i got gold. __________________ The Above post is a direct quote from Shakespeare

06-19-2003, 07:17 PM	#4 (permalink)
yatzr Insane	actually, you can find some good movie/tv games if you look at good ole anime. The live action street fighter sucked...true, but some of the anime street fighter movies are pretty good. from what i've heard, the .hack games are pretty good and the show is too (as long as you see enough episodes to get the story). Granted, there's still quite a few games they make off of those cheesy cartoon network animes that suck, but I'd say Japan has a much better hit rate than america. But yeah...i think anything american made that crosses the game/movie line is crap. Wait...i just thought of one of the greatest move games ever...Goldeneye for n64...but i think that's the only one. __________________ Mechanical Engineers build weapons. Civil Engineers build targets.

06-19-2003, 07:26 PM	#5 (permalink)
Phaenx The Northern Ward Location: Columbus, Ohio	This guy obviously never played Minority Report for PS2. It eats his face! __________________ "I went shopping last night at like 1am. The place was empty and this old woman just making polite conversation said to me, 'where is everyone??' I replied, 'In bed, same place you and I should be!' Took me ten minutes to figure out why she gave me a dirty look." --Some guy

06-19-2003, 10:23 PM	#6 (permalink)
schUsseln Upright Location: San Francisco	talk about biased evidence...sheesh! I though some of the Star Wars shoot-em-ups were pretty good, I'm sure there are others. I challenge you though, to name a good movie that was based on a video game...much more difficult. Examples: Mario Brothers Wing Commander Pokemon (?? - could also be considerd somewhat good) Final Fantasy Here's hoping Spy Hunter shows how it sould be done! __________________ A moral point of view too often serves as a substitue for understanding in technological matters. -Marshal McLuhan

06-19-2003, 06:38 PM	#3 (permalink)
WhoaitsZ Crazy Location: right behind you...	rule of thumb all gamers should know: the great majority of all movies to games suck as do all games to movies. the matrix is a game that looked h o r r i b l e to begin with. i have no desire whatsoever to play it. the only movie to game that's playable was Willow and Batmas on the NES and the Two Towers was fun for a short rent on the PS2. and games tto movies aren't exactly good. FF came close to being very good but failed........ street fighter.. mario.. the two should never breed.

06-19-2003, 11:48 PM	#7 (permalink)
227cm Upright	::shrugs:: I love it, its VERY fun. Plus i love the matrix... so its alright with me! The "hacking" sub-game is VERY fun

06-20-2003, 07:26 PM	#8 (permalink)
WhoaitsZ Crazy Location: right behind you...	oh, no doubt some anime based on games and vice versa can be great at times. just not live action. I mean, that oscard worthy WIng Commander was good but one 'bad' movie i enjoyed like these was Mortal Kombat. the again i was like... 16? 17? when it came out I remember barely holding the urge to scream "THIS MOVIE FUCKING SUCKS!" when i saw MK2....... i rather stick my dick in a belnder turned on than see that godawfull shitty movie again. the only true let down i've seen in anime based from games was Tekken. i didn't like it. at all. Street Fighter II The Animated Movie is one of my all tiem faves and the Darkstalkers were good too.

06-21-2003, 09:28 AM	#10 (permalink)
Justin Banned	Remember goldeneye for the n64, that was the best game of the year.

08-05-2003, 04:47 AM	#12 (permalink)
tenchi069 Lost Location: One step closer to the padded cell...	I loved the Final Fantasy movie, but I'm a die hard fan. __________________ ERROR- PLBSAK Problem Lies Between Seat and Keyboard.

08-05-2003, 05:56 AM	#13 (permalink)
Troublebot Intently Rocking Location: Davey's	When I hear The Thing was coming to PS2 I could barely wait. The Thing is one of my favorite movies. The tension and paranoia on screen balanced out well with the over-the-top special effects and gore. If the game was half as good at the flick, I was going to love it. Turns out it wasn't even a tenth as good. Everything John Carpenter putinto the movie was sucked out of the game (and I do mean sucked). Difficult controls and a storyline that felt nothing like the movie made me quit after the third level. I might as well of flushed the 50 bucks down the toilet. __________________ Howard Moon: The wind is my only friend. Wind: [whistling] I hate you.

08-05-2003, 12:02 PM	#15 (permalink)
Gabby Crazy	I don't care what you say, games to movies are great. I mean it! I do! Need I say more than WING COMMANDER?!?!?! Did anyone actually see that cinematic abortion?

08-05-2003, 12:17 PM	#16 (permalink)
Cynthetiq Tilted Cat Head Administrator Location: Manhattan, NY	i didn't buy Matrix... I got it as swag... thank god. __________________ I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not. What's the best nation in the world? DO-NATION!

08-05-2003, 12:27 PM	#17 (permalink)
World's King Here Location: Denver City Denver	Damn Nerds. __________________ heavy is the head that wears the crown