by Richard Leigh

Created on: January 30, 2009

When creating video games based on movies there are always going to be both good things and bad about this. Whilst some video game developers produce fantastic video game adaptations of movies for instance; others fail miserably, and turn a good idea into a terrible, terrible game.

Very rarely does a great video game based on a movie get released. As a general rule; video games based on movies tend to be dreadful, and herein lies the biggest problem of all.

A lot of video games based on movies seem very rushed; they're not very well put together, there's no flow about the games, and the sole reason they're released is to cash in on the success of the movie, and make a bit of extra money in movie merchandise. There often seems to be no worry as to whether or not the game is actually any good; video game companies know that if the film is big, then the video game will sell well no matter what its quality.

Movies can often be very difficult to adapt to a video game format, and there lies another huge problem. A lot of movies don't translate at all well into a video game, the magic of the movie is lost, and what you're left with is a lifeless tedious video game that few people are going to enjoy playing. It can be very hard to recreate a movie in a video game, and the basic essence of the movie can therefore be lost in trying to make the movie fit. You play the game, and although it might be pretty good; it's just nothing like the movie that it's based on, and this can be an equally irritating problem as playing a poorly put together game.

When you buy a video game based on a movie, you expect it to in some way relate to the movie. When the two don't match, it can provide for a very frustrating gaming experience. You want to see certain scenes translated into the video game, you're excited to take part for yourself in the movie that you loved; you play the game though, and it just doesn't happen. Everything has been changed trying to make a successful video game, and the video game therefore fails in its aim of achieving success as it's just too different to the movie.

I've given a very bleak view of movie based video games so far, but as I said at the very beginning; there are some companies that manage to put together truly exceptional video game adaptations of movies.

Who can forget Goldeneye on the Nintendo 64? Based on the James Bond film of the same name, Goldeneye was a video game that hooked the masses, and never since has a James Bond video game been anywhere

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