It's not easy to take a story from a linear medium and put it in an interactive one. The attributes of a quality film are not the same as those of a solid game. It's not uncommon for companies to simply slap a name on a substandard product to cash in on unsuspecting fans of the property. E.T. for the Atari 2600 is just one notorious example.
However, sometimes filmmakers with a genuine respect for the gaming industry can collaborate with developers who have an equal respect for the material they're making interactive. These games are well worth a look regardless of any prior knowledge or love of the source material.
Updated on January 5th, 2023, by Michael Colwander: There once was a time when any and every movie received a video game adaptation. Most of those games are often considered some of the worst video games ever made. However, there is no shortage of great video games based on movies, directly or otherwise.
20 Batman On The NES Did The Dark Knight Justice
Based on the 1989 Tim Burton film of the same name, Sunsoft's Batman for the NES was arguably the first quality title to star the Dark Knight. Sunsoft's Batman tapped into the martial arts prowess and gadgets of the caped crusader as players could wall jump, punch, and toss batarangs with precision and ease.
The mix of platforming and action was easily on par with other titles on the system, such as the Mega-Man or Ninja Gaiden titles. The presentation was also on point with dark 8-bit noir visuals and high-energy music.
19 Players Took Control of Creatures In Little Nemo the Dream Master
Capcom took players through the whimsical world of Winsor McCay in Little Nemo the Dream Master for the NES. A tie-in with the 1989 animated film Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland, the game was a 2D platformer where players could take control of many different creatures and utilize their unique abilities. Nemo would need all the help he could get to collect the six keys hidden in each of the game's brutally difficult levels.
In addition to hostile creatures, even the friendly ones could dish out damage before Nemo placated them by feeding them candy. Juxtaposing the difficulty was a fantastic presentation bolstered by the game's colorful visuals and great soundtrack.
18 Wherever You Decide To Play It, Disney's Aladdin Is A Diamond In The Rough
Disney's Aladdin is one of the pillars of Disney's Rennaissance. Whether it's the catchy tunes or Robin Williams' iconic performance as Genie, Aladdin has withstood the test of time and maintained its status as one of the best animated Disney films ever made.
Aladdin also has two stellar 2D platformers, which were developed concurrently for Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis. Capcom developed the SNES version while Virgin Games USA developed the Genesis version. Both are fantastic in their own right, leaving the debate for which version is the better to rage on decades later. Luckily, players can form their own opinions as both versions are available in the Disney Classic Games Collection.
17 Mad Max Brought The Apocalyptic Wasteland To Life
Despite being released around the same time as Mad Max: Fury Road, the Mad Max video game isn't a direct adaptation. Instead, the game draws on the worldbuilding of all four movies, creating an original story that touches on similar themes and messages as the movies.
Mad Max is an open-world action-adventure game, focusing on vehicular travel and battling enemies while conserving as much ammo as possible. Telling a story on par with several of the films, it manages to be a worthwhile love letter to the entire franchise rather than being too reliant on one single movie.
16 Scarface: The World Is Yours Follows Up A Beloved Classic
Many video games based on films retell the film's story as their own, and run the risk of boring audiences or trying to tell a story ill-fitted for the medium. Scarface: The World Is Yours avoids this fate by instead setting itself up as a quasi-sequel, exploring an alternate series of events where Tony Montana survives the final assault on his mansion.
Putting the player in Montana's shows as he attempts to rebuild his empire, the game is an open-world crime simulator that undoubtedly owes a debt to Grand Theft Auto. However, it keeps itself distinct through its faithfulness to the film's tone, its accurate portrayal of Tony Montana, and several unique mechanics surrounding Montana rebuilding his gang.
15 The Thing Manages To Keep Distrust And Paranoia In A Third-Person Shooter
One of the most beloved horror movies ever made, The Thing has a video game adaptation, released in 2002. Rather than a first-person survival horror experience, the game is instead a third-person shooter with both social and horror elements, taking the key parts of the movie while adding action to make for a more entertaining game.
Despite its more action-packed focus, The Thing manages to be a tense and nervous affair, carrying over much of the feel of its parent film. NPCs have different levels of trust for the player depending on how clear they are that the player character isn't the Thing, recreating the omnipresent paranoia of the film. The game is faithful enough to have John Carpenter's personal approval and a cameo appearance.
14 Escape, Fight, Or Kill In Friday The 13th
Another video game that nailed the atmosphere of a horror classic was Friday the 13th: The Game. Unlike most video games based on movies, Friday the 13th is a multiplayer game and a very fun and thrilling one at that.
Players either take on the role of camp counselor or Jason himself. Counselors must work together to find a means to escape the map or fight back at Jason. The player playing as Jason can utilize supernatural powers to hunt down each counselor. While the servers for Friday the 13th shut down in 2020, it is still playable on peer-to-peer servers.
13 Peter Jackson's King Kong Was A Fantastical Journey Through Skull Island
A massive fan of the 2003 title Beyond Good and Evil, filmmaker Peter Jackson personally sought out designer Michel Ancel to develop the game adaption of his King Kong remake. The end result is a dangerous and fantastic adventure through Skull Island.
King Kong featured vocal talent from the film, such as Jack Black, Naomi Watts, and Adrian Brody. The final part of the game even allowed players to take control of the big ape himself in a section that recreates the iconic showdown with the planes on the Empire State Building.
12 Toy Story Consistently Had Great Games With Toy Story 2 Being A Bright Spot
It makes all the sense in the world for a film series centered around toys to have entertaining video games. Luckily, Toy Story consistently put out great games from the original SNES and Genesis game to the imaginative sandbox of Toy Story 3.
One Toy Story game tugs on nostalgic heartstrings more than any other: Toy Story 2: Buzz Lightyear to the Rescue. Toy Story 2 is a 3D platformer in the vein of the contemporaries of its era. Players are immediately thrust into Andy's house, which is almost fully explorable, leaving an amazing first impression. Toy Story 2 was also one of the first PS1 games added to Sony's revamped PlayStation Plus service in 2022, a testament to how beloved it is.
11 Ratchet & Clank Was A Culmination Of Everything Great About The Series
Based on the movie which was itself based on the PlayStation 2 title of the same name, Ratchet & Clank for the PS4 was pretty much a culmination of all the best aspects of the series. The already great gunplay was refined even further with improved controls and new mechanics.
Players could arm themselves with fan favorites such as the sheepinator and the groovitron and even use new tools of destruction such as the pixelizor. Ratchet & Clank was the most visually stunning entry in the series before Rift Apart with its colorful locales and cinema-worthy animations.
10 Kingdom Hearts II Combines Disney Fun With Final Fantasy Storytelling
The Kingdom Hearts franchise is based on Disney animated canon, even as it tells its wholly original story set in its own world. As strong as the Final Fantasy elements are in the games, they fundamentally have Disney at their heart and center, stringing together the worlds of several Disney films in each entry.
Many of the games in the franchise have their fans, but one of the most popular is Kingdom Hearts II. Between its excellent combat gameplay, its own emotionally-impacting story, and the inclusion of beloved Disney movies like Beauty and the Beast, Pirates of the Caribbean, and The Lion King.
9 Middle Earth Shadow of Mordor's Nemesis System Breathed New Life Into Open-World Games
Shadow of Mordor breathed new life into the open-world genre with its unique Nemesis system. All the enemy orcs had distinct appearances, personalities, and weaknesses. Whenever an orc killed Talion, they'd get promoted and gloat about the player's ignoble defeat when encountered again. Talion could also use this system to his advantage.
If players recruited an orc and helped them rise up the ranks of the army, they could gather Intel on more powerful war chiefs or even join Talion in fights. The game also mixed in the best elements of other great sandbox titles like Assassin's Creed while making excellent use of the setting of The Lord of the Rings.
8 Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis Was An Adventure On Par With The Films
Refining the aspects of the graphic adventure adaption of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Fate of Atlantis tells an original tale that's free from the restrictions of another medium. Unlike other graphic adventure games, Fate of Atlantis had more than one solution to the game's many puzzles. Players could choose to use their wits, their fists, or their partner Sophia to get through the adventure.
This made it so that one Fate of Atlantis playthrough was not enough to see everything that the game had to offer. In addition, the plot, characters, and dialogue maintain the same level of quality of the original trilogy.
7 The Chronicles of Riddick Escape from Butcher Bay Is What It Says On The Tin And More
On some rare occasions, a video game is actually better than the movie it was created to promote. In one of the best examples of this phenomenon, Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay mixed elements of stealth, melee combat, and first-person shooting to great effect in an atmospheric trek through a deadly intergalactic prison.
The lack of any heads-up display or objective pointers allowed players to fully immerse themselves in Butcher Bay's dark and gritty corridors. The game also was visually light-years ahead of other console titles with detailed models, solid texture work, and ambient lighting.
6 Alien: Isolation Captures The Terror Of Its Source Material
The Alien franchise has had several underwhelming or outright bad video game adaptations, most notably Aliens: Colonial Marines. However, one game manages to capture the feel of the original Alien perfectly, as well as being an excellent game and story in its own right: Alien: Isolation.
While it tells an original story, Isolation still leans heavily on the first Alien film for its tone and gameplay. The player controls a survivor of a Xenomorph outbreak and has to rely on stealth, wits, and luck to stay out of its grasp. Both terrifying and compelling, the game manages to not only be an excellent Alien game, but also one of the best horror video games of recent years.
5 The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King Lives Up To Its Source
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King was a historic achievement for both Peter Jackson and the movie industry as a whole. It stands alongside 1959's Ben-Hur and Titanic for most Academy Awards of all time, winning all 11 of its nominations including "Best Picture."
Return of the King is also one of the best video game adaptations ever made. Return of the King built upon the foundation set by the also great The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and was developed in collaboration with Return of the Kings' filmmakers who provided feedback throughout the process. This hack-and-slash game, which allows players to play as members of the Fellowship in single-player or co-op, is a must-play for fans of Middle-earth.
4 Come Out And Play The Warriors
Much like Scarface, the 1979 film The Warriors has built a large cult following. The street gang thriller based is based on a 1965 book by Sol Yurick has made a large enough cultural impact that Rockstar took it upon themselves to recreate the film for a new generation in 2005.
The Warriors game is a beat 'em up action game that covers the plot of the film. Not only that, but it expands on the film to create a more fleshed-out story that is sure to appease passionate fans. The Warriors is also available upscaled in HD for PS4 and includes its own trophy list.
3 GoldenEye 007 Revolutionized Shooters
Originally intended to be a simple 3D rails shooter like Virtua Cop, GoldenEye 007 eventually morphed into the first-person shooter that would revolutionize the genre. Unlike Quake, levels weren't just a simple trek from the beginning of the stage to the end.
Every GoldenEye level has specific missions that Bond must complete, determined by the difficulty. Of course, one cannot talk about GoldenEye without mentioning its multiplayer. The game featured characters from the franchise's history and a multitude of weapons, and the split-screen four-player matches made GoldenEye the premiere multiplayer game of the N64.
2 Players Forged Their Destiny In Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic
Knights of the Old Republic gave players a selection of three different classes and allowed them to forge their destinies through the choices they made in dialogue. The world of Star Wars was pretty much the player's oyster as they could roleplay an honorable Jedi who defends the weak, a scoundrel who takes on jobs from bounty hunters, or even a cold and calculating Sith Lord.
As players progressed and leveled up, they could harness the power of the force, which essentially was the game's version of spells. Bioware's talents for crafting engaging stories, characters, and dialogue are put on full display as they more than outshine the efforts of Lucas' Prequel trilogy.
1 Players Could Do Whatever A Spider Can In Spider-Man 2
Realizing the potential of its protagonist with the wide-open sandbox environment of New York City, Spider-Man 2 is a perfect demonstration of what every video game based on a pre-existing property should aspire to be. It takes the elements of the source material that would make for engaging gameplay and executes them brilliantly.
Spider-Man 2 was the first game starring the wall-crawler to feature the now-standard web-swinging mechanic and open-world setting. Where prior Spidey entries treated the web-swinging like a double jump or flying, the swinging in this entry was a cathartic game all by itself.