by Matthew Caverhill

Created on: December 23, 2009

When it comes to movie based games, as of late I’ve generally followed the rule that if it comes out when the film version does, it is most likely going to be mediocre at best. If a game comes out some time after the movie, it is usually a lot better. Following this guideline, I got to enjoy such titles as The Warriors and The Godfather. Unfortunately, those rare great film-to-game translations make it so much easier for gamers to fall for the lure of lower quality tie-in games that fail to deliver. 

Of course, when the topic of bad movie-based games comes up, inevitably, the name E.T. comes into the conversation, and rightfully so, as it was a title which for a time destroyed an industry. And indeed, E.T. the Extra Terrestrial is admittedly a poorly executed game, but it has a few excuses. For one, it was designed in 5 weeks by one person. Secondly, because it had such a truncated development cycle, it didn’t even get even get the kind of playtesting a title of that caliber needed, so in many ways, it is surprising that it is as stable as it is. Thirdly, the designer in question was also trying out a new play dynamic, one which Steven Spielberg hadn’t been very receptive too (he had wanted a more traditional kind of action game), so the designer had set himself up for failure by trying to create a completely new playing experience in a very short amount of time. However, it is nowhere even close to being the worst movie game of all-time, and arguably, I don’t even think it is the worst movie-based game on the Atari.

Instead, I think that honor would be more appropriately given to another game based on the work of Steven Spielberg. I am talking about the adaptation of Raiders of the Lost Ark for the Atari 2600, is a far worse movie game. Trying to figure out what you needed to do to progress through the game was incredibly difficult (I was able to figure out and beat E.T. within a few days, but I was never able to put all the pieces together for Raiders), which meant it was very frustrating. And Indiana Jones is a much cooler and action-oriented character than E.T. and one would expect that you’d have a lot of fun playing as him, but alas, there is very little fun to be had, especially when you look at Pitfall which was released in the same year, which is what Raiders should have been. Incidentally, Raiders of the Lost Ark was designed by the same person that put together E.T, only they spent 7 months designing it, so with

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