The internet will tell you, across a thousand forum posts, blog entries and reviews, that games based on movies suck. Well screw you internet, you're not my father! Confidante perhaps, lover sometimes, but certainly not my father. I'd know, he makes fun of my hair.

When this myth is hastily typed in somewhere it's usually in the early preview of a game or even at the initial announcement that blockbuster X is being made into a game. This enrages me no end, it seems a large swath of the gamer population is incapable of giving a game a chance before they’ve even played it with their own crusty hands. Instead talkbackers respond to previews and hands on articles with a bunch of 'taken as fact' myths that are nothing more than general assumptions. The precious belief that games based on movies can’t be good is a prime example of one of the most tightly held and plainly untrue laws of gaming.

This year we have no less than five movie tie in games that all look stellar: Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena, Wolverine Origins, Wanted: Weapons of Fate, Transformers Revenge of the Fallen and Aliens: Colonial Marines. But this isn’t some exciting renaissance of movie to game adaptations achieving a level of quality; there have always been a fair percentage of good among the bad. If you looked at the number of crap first person shooters that flood the market weighed against the small number of good ones I think you might find the ratio is about the same as it is for movie games.

I’m not saying there aren’t bad movie games I once reviewed Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, a misshapen travesty of a game, and I watched someone play Fight Club the game which was bad enough. But the genre deserves no more stick than any other game types thats had its share of dogs over best sellers.

To prove it here’s ten games based on movies that don’t suck. When a rule has ten exceptions it’s not much of a rule is it? Now the comments may run hot with claims that not all ten of these items are based on actual films, some are extensions of a film franchise, the game as sequel for instance, but for the sake of arguement I maintain that none of these games would exist without their associated movies and by definition are movie games. Read on and be enlightened.

Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis

An oldy but a goody, if you were disappointed by The Crystal Skull the plot of Fate of Atlantis might just provide that Indiana Jones fix you were looking for. In the game Indy and ex colleague stroke flame Sophia Hopgood are on the trail of a Nazi general who has stolen artefacts from both of them that will guide him to the fabled city of Atlantis and some ancient power source.

The game was one of Lucasarts rather excellent series of adventure games like the Secret of Monkey Island, what are usually referred to as ‘point and click’ adventures. It might be a bit dated now but it’s an early example of a game based on a movie (or in this case movie series) that was actually very good. It even had a branching story line, almost unheard of in the day, that gave you several different paths to take and clues to follow to track those dastardly nazi's, will they never learn? One big mark against the game though, it didn’t have Harrison Ford as the voice, this was back in the day when game developers were paid with cheese so you couldn't really expect them to court movie stars, but the stand in guy did a pretty good job.

Van Helsing

Chances are good you saw this game sitting on a shelf in your local game merchants or video store and walked right past it. Even if you enjoyed the Hugh Jackman vehicle film it was based on (all right I did I admit, I have a man crush on Hugh) you probably weren’t jumping at the chance to play what was probably a rubbish, mess of a game. Well you made an assumption right there my friend and when you assume you make an ass of you and me (get it, ass u me, clever right?).

Van Helsing wasn’t award winning material to be sure, but it garnered mostly positive reviews. The game was a heck of a lot of fun, shamelessly aping the game style of Devil May Cry and providing some genuinely challenging boss battles. Unfortunately it had some Devil May Cry's annoying features like a crap save system and fixed camera for locations. But you had a wide assortment of melee and ranged weapons to use on the various ghouls and monsters you fought and many reviews of the time actually remarked that it was an unconventionally good movie game. You even got a ‘hat bonus’ if you made it to the end of the level with your hat still on your head that I thought was a nice touch. It meant that even during a hectic boss battle you’d pause to roll towards your dropped fedora, just like in the movie.

Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay

Probably one of the most cited exemptions to the sucky movie game rule (curse it!) Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay was the prequel story to the Chronicles of Riddick film and sequel to Pitch Black, one of the first examples of a game bridging the story between two movies. Ironically while the movie didn’t meet expectations the game is still widely considered one of the best games of its generation and after Halo 2 the best game on the Xbox.

The plots pretty much in the title but it was the gameplay that drew the applause. Developer Starbreeze took the FPS genre and turned it into a sneaking game with Riddick darting between shadows and stabbing enemies in the back before hiding their corpses. It did a pretty amazing job of making you really feel like you were Vin Diesel’s iconic purple eyed anti hero. In case you live under several large rocks you’re probably aware that developer Starbreeze has a sequel of sorts coming out soon, Riddick: Escape From Dark Athena which you can download the demo for right now. If you're wise enough to get hold of Dark Athena when it goes on sale you'll find a copy of Escape From Butcher Bay all ready on the disc for you to play through first. How lucky are you!

Lord of the Rings Battle for Middle Earth 2

There has actually been a whole host of games based on Peter Jackson’s multi award winning adaptation of the classic novels, including a massive online RPG that boasts millions of subscribers. But Battle for Middle Earth 2 was particularly good with the added bonus over the first game that there was no building cap. Hugo Weaving provided the voice of Elrond again as he has for several games and does a pretty great job of narrating the games events.

While using all the designs and models of the Peter Jackson films the game focused on the little mentioned War of the North where a dwarven and elven alliance pushed back the goblin army who tried to take advantage of the invasion by Mordor. Lots of new characters and even a dragon appearance make this one of the most interesting and exciting games for fans of the Rings universe. It even has an expansion featuring the Witch King and his Nazgul bodies kicking up a ruckus. If you were any sort of Rings devotee you are doing yourself a disservice not checking this game out. Balance issues plagued the online version but the single player campaign was a cracking good time. Plus it's nice to see a few other characters get the spotlight outside of the over exposed Fellowship gang.

Star Wars Battlefront 2

Okay, just so we’re clear, there are tons upon tons of quality Star Wars games Tie Fighter, Knights of the Old Republic, Republic Commando, Force Unleashed not to mention the brilliant and addictive Star Wars Lego games. All note worthy. Heck it wouldn’t be too hard at all to trot out a top ten Star Wars games list (mental file away for future writing dry patch).

But I picked this game for two reasons, first its tons of fun; second it’s directly tied to the movies and involves all the iconic characters and conflicts from the full pantheon of films. I loved me some Star Wars Battlefront, Stormtroopers swarming the field, racking up enough kills to use Darth Vader to rip apart the enemy lines. The game might not have a lot of depth, but for delivering a pure dose of Star Wars experience, living the battles and riding the vehicles you know so well, it’s definitely a movie game done right.

Spiderman 2

Spiderman 2 really hit two birds with one stone it was a movie game done right and one of the first comic character games down right as well. The developers chucked out the standard level by level design of the first movie game and created a big open world version of New York complete with scaleable land marks like the Empire State Building. There was even a bunch of classic Spiderman rogues like Black Cat and Mysterio to defeat before your eventual final battle with Doc Ock.

Much like that other open world game, GTA 3 that Spidey 2 obviously owes a lot of its design to, Spiderman 2 was really brought to life by its side missions, taking injured people to hospital, breaking up gang wars and retrieving little girls balloons. There was a lot to do, but for me personally, when I unlocked the power up that let you web up bad guys and then hang them from street lights, I was in some kind of nerd heaven. It also very wisely used as little of Kirsten Dunst as possible. The times when you had to swing her some where were as annoying as watching her act but thankfully far shorter and you didn't have to watch that lazy eye twitch as she tried to emote. She even made Tobey Macquire look like a great actor.

James Bond 007 Goldeneye

As Nintendo fans give up on gaming all together and join Franciscan monasteries, as I can only imagine they’re doing given that Nintendo don’t seem to make actual games any more, I can see them plodding the halls in their itchy brown robes muttering, ‘Hey, remember Goldeneye, at least we had that’. Then someone sneezes and it sounds like he said ‘Wiifit’ and they cry.

Yes Goldeneye, the great hope of N64 that kept the console relevant in the face of the juggernaut popularity of the PS1. It was a new day for first person shooters with the leaning and that adorable pirouette the bad guys did when you shot them. Four player split screen dominated many a household, remember the Golden Gun matches or the secret Moonraker level? While the game hasn’t aged particularly well it was the game to have on the Nintendo 64 for most of the consoles life span until the twilight release of Perfect Dark and for a filthy horrible ‘movie game’ that’s worth remembering.

Aliens Versus Predator

Aliens Versus Predator originally started as a joke at a meeting of Dark Horse comics writers when they were trying to come up with interesting combinations of their books for a summer special. As jokes go, not so funny, as ideas go, never has there been a sweeter one. After hundreds of comics, novels, toys and yes plenty of games, Hollywood finally hired director Paul Anderson to destroy the franchise with a single craptastic film. Stab the mans eyes, he didn’t even use the original script by Peter Briggs (which you lucky people can read here) instead writing his own ‘take’ on the character monsters. Yeah, Predators in the snow, doesn’t that COMPLETELY GO AGAINST CANON YOU ASS

Okay, deep breaths.

Now there was an Aliens versus Predator game on the Atari Jaguar and an even earlier game on the SNES, not to mention games based on the individual franchises going back until 1982! But Aliens Versus Predator from Rebellion in 1999 and its sequel in 2002 were by far the best translations of the characters and their universe to a game. You had the human character complete with Pulse Rifle, Flamer, Smart Gun and all the other Colonial Marine goodies, the Predator with all his brutal weapons plus, invisibility and all his vision modes and then the Alien and yes you got to start life as a face hugger before bursting out of some poor saps chest, then surviving long enough to grow to your full deadly, wall crawling, size. An expansion to the sequel gave you the option of playing as the ultra deadly hulking predalien hybrid as well. Even better news, Rebellion is working on a new Aliens Versus Predator game to appear next year. Should be one to watch out for

King Kong

When Peter Jackson wanted his game adaptation of King Kong to stand out from the crowd he contacted French game designer Michel Ancel, creator of Rayman and Beyond Good and Evil. Naturally being French Ancel was quick to surrender to all Jackson’s demands and went about creating one of the best direct adaptations of a film ever made. You play as both King Kong and Jack Driscoll as you and the rest of the crew try and rescue Ann and get back to the boat and later save Ann in New York, again, what is her problem, seriously? The game was innovative in having no display or information on screen and despite the action elements most of the killer dinosaurs had to be avoided or defeated with some clever thinking, setting fires to force them back or using other animals as distractions.

When playing as King Kong the game moved to a third person view and you had to use Kong to defend Ann from vicious tyrannosaurs. In case you’re wondering, yes you can snap the dinos jaws with your massive monkey strength just like Kong did. Admittedly King Kong became quite popular as an early Xbox release because a single play through netted you the full one thousand gamerscore. But many a grubbing achievement whore were no doubt startled to find the movie license to be a compelling game in its own right and well worth the time they put into it.

Wanted: Weapons of Fate

Besides Angelina Jolie’s taut buttocks the film version of comic book Wanted had a lot going for it, blistering action, cool effects and Fight Club style revenge fantasies for the disenfranchised middle class. A game adaptation seemed like a no brainer, but could bullet curving carry a whole game? Turns out Bullet curving is just one of the tools you use to lay waste to entire districts of bad guys. The game actually straddles the movies plot with events leading up to and following on from the film available for you to play through.

Wanted: Weapons of Fate is almost like an evolved version of Gears of War. You use a lot of cover and you build up speed the faster you move from cover to cover. You can even stab enemies over cover, grab enemies to use as cover before slitting their throats and basically blow away as many enemies as you can as stylishly as you possibly can. The game has been criticised for its length and can be knocked of in around five hours, about half the time of the average game. But it’s really the perfect complement to the film. In fact a good boys night in would be watching the film and then playing through the game all at once. If you invite me I’ll bring beer.

So there you have it and that's just the tip of the iceberg. There are plenty of games based on movies that have delighted gamers over the centuries, okay decades at least

Got an example of your own or want to argue the point?

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