There's an unwritten rule among gamers: If a game based off an outside license is coming out, TREAD CAUTIOUSLY! I think we can all admit that they usually suck enormous balls. Whether based on movies, television shows, comics, books, etc. they are universally bad or mediocre at best.
However, there are also some licensed games that overcome that barrier. These are the ones where the developers sat down and said, "We are going to make a kick-ass game no matter what." So every now and then we get a few games that are surprisingly good and some that are phenomenal. I want to pay respect to the licensed games that did much better than they should have based on their reputation.
The games that make this list both pay good respect to their source material and also are just damn fun to play. Only one game per license will be on this list. So let's get into it. Also we'll be seeing a lot of Capcom and Konami on here during the 8 and 16 bit era.
#10. Spider-Man 2
What do you get when you take the open-world Grand Theft Auto formula and place it into a superhero game based on a movie? Okay, well you could get crap like Superman Returns. But you could also get gold like Spider-Man 2. For the most part Spider-Man has had a pretty successful career in video games but this is probably his best.
Of course you can play through the story and experience everything from the movie. But you also get a lot of additional plotlines such as a particularly well-done relationship between Spider-Man and Black Cat, and extra enemies such as the Shocker, Rhino and Mysterio (which ends with a hilarious "boss" fight).
But of course, the main attraction for this game is the ability to have New York City as your playground. This is the game that will really make you feel like Spider-Man. Swinging through well-known landmarks and helping civilians (even saving that girl's f*^kin balloon) can make you feel pretty awesome. There aren't many superhero games that make you truly feel like the hero you're playing as but Spider-Man 2 did justifying its place on my list.
#9. Little Nemo: The Dream Master
Yeah, this is a licensed game. It's based off a comic strip and an animated film so therefore, it counts. This means another Capcom game is on the list. In Little Nemo, you play as Nemo (obviously) as he goes through levels in his dream world looking for keys to unlock doors at the end of each of the stages.
These stages were large and very open, much larger than just about other level driven 2D sidescrollers that I can think of from that time. The controls were tight and the difficulty was high but fair. It wasn't as difficult as Mega Man but difficult enough to keep you going.
What really set this game apart was it's power-up system. You feed animals candy which puts them to sleep, then walk into them and get their powers. You needed to use these powers to obtain most of the keys in each of the stages and this was a really cool element to the game. These elements made Little Nemo one of the best games on the NES.
#8. The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay
A perfect example of a game that is actually BETTER than the source material, Escape from Butcher Bay was developed by Tigon Studios, a company founded by Vin Diesel himself. Vin Diesel is a gamer himself (citing Baldur's Gate II as his favorite) and created the company partly to avert having a crappy licensed game.
What we got was an awesome combination of FPS gameplay and stealth that expanded on the source material, primarily in showing the relationship between Riddick and Johns. The voice acting was great and helped pushed the story along, as did the excellent scenery that we saw throughout Butcher Bay. The game looked great.
Now it did have an update on current-gen consoles with Assault on Dark Athena which has both Escape from Butcher Bay and Assault on Dark Athena but it didn't quite work as well for some reason. It's still worth it, if you never played it originally and the game Assault on Dark Athena itself is also great, but the original is still the king. Well done Tigon and well done Diesel.
#7. Aliens vs. Predator 2
What an awesome game. This is where the formula for AVP games was perfected. And they never even came close to hitting the same mark ever again. You had an average expansion, an RTS game that I enjoy but admittedly is not that great, and the recent one that's good but feels like a game that should have been made in the early 2000s.
This one though is outstanding. The game is naturally split into three campaigns for the marines, the predator, and the aliens and they are all fantastic. Part of what makes them so excellent is the surprisingly well-done storyline which factors all the races in together and perfectly conveys how much chaos is set upon the humans. It's mixed with quite a few creepy moments such as the venturing into the alien nests, your escape from a science facility as a predator, and you biting your way out of a chest.
It also had a great multiplayer component which had some balance issues but was still great fun. The sound effects were outstanding taking all of the sound effects from both franchises and throwing them in perfectly. If you can find a copy of this and get it to run on your PC, do it because you're in for one badass time.
#6. Duck Tales
And yet ANOTHER game from Capcom. Duck Tales about rich bastard Scrooge McDuck and his nephews looking for more wealth is another one of the best games on the NES, showing just how awesome of a company Capcom was.
The game had a Mega Man design with a level select rather than just linear stages. Scrooge McDuck went everywhere in his search for treasure and there were five stages in this game: Africa, the Amazon, the Himalayas, Transylvania, and the moon. Scrooge McDuck used his cane to get through some creative platforming areas and as a weapon, and they all ended with a nice spot of treasure.
One thing this game is really remembered for is its music. It was excellent and how could it not be coming from the cartoon with one of the most annoyingly catchy themes ever? The moon stage theme is often the most fondly remembered by NES players and is often treated as one of the great pieces on the NES. There was also a bonus ending if you found two hidden treasures and had at least 10 million dollars. So it's also a nice game to go back to.
#5. The Simpsons Arcade Game
I popped so many quarters into this Konami classic when I was younger and I was still able to find them in arcades. It is definitely one of the all-time great beat-em-ups. Sure the story makes no sense as Smithers kidnaps Maggie in the middle of stealing a jewel for Mr. Burns and then EVERYONE tries to kill our favorite dysfunctional family. My question though is this: did it really need to? NO!
Each of the four family members have different attacks: Homer punches, Marge uses a vacuum, Lisa uses her jumprope, and Bart uses his skateboard. You go through many stages encountering many characters from the show. It's just a ridiculously fun time, even more if you were able to find three friends to play it with.
The Simpsons have had almost universally crappy games but this is one of the few exceptions and even out of those few probably the only that I would call a classic. This one also gets bonus points for being released the day that I was born: March 4, 1991 (if Wikipedia is correct). Recently the X-Men arcade game got released on Xbox Live so Konami, can you please release this on Xbox Live? That would be awesome.
#4. Goldeneye
Yeah I know you guys ALL saw this coming. Rare's legendary FPS is considered one of the best and most influential in the genre. This was actually more profitable than the movie and probably more enjoyable than the movie (though the movie does kick ass). There was one other Bond game that I was thinking: Everything or Nothing but that didn't push the boundaries of a genre the way Goldeneye did.
So why was this game good? The answer to this is something all companies should think about. This game came out two years after the movie. The problem with many licensed games (primarily movie games) is that they're rushed out to meet the release of the film. This game shows that you don't have to do that. Goldeneye had awesome action sequences and it's multiplayer (with the exception of the cheap bastard Oddjob) is still loved to this day.
I played a little bit of Goldeneye on the Wii and it's also good but like I said, this game left an impact on the industry that few other licensed games can claim to even come close to matching. That's why it's on here. It's one of the most important games released in the 90s and is one of the main reasons we have such a huge amount of FPS games now. It's influence and legendary status secured it a place on this list.
#3. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time
There's a damn good reason ScrewAttack has consistently labeled this as the greatest beat-em-up of all time. It's because Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time is plain awesome. Konami's stellar title is great on both arcades and on home consoles with excellent controls and memorable stages for both.
There are so many options for beating the crap out of enemies in this game all the way up to throwing enemies into the screen. In fact that's actually REQUIRED for one of the stages in the game. You have to throw Foot Soldiers at Shredder who's standing right in front of the screen. Yeah there were quite a few great boss fights in this game and going back in time definitely made this game stand out.
There were a lot of TMNT games and most of them were pretty good but this is definitely the best. It had great graphics, great music, great sound effects, and most importantly great gameplay. Do not pick up Reshelled. It's nowhere near as fun as the original. If you can find the SNES cartridge for this game, do so because it is awesome.
#2. Batman: Arkham Asylum
With the delay of Mass Effect 3 and Portal 2's release last month, Batman: Arkham City jumped to the top of my list of most anticipated games of 2011. This made me reflect on how excellent Batman: Arkham Asylum really was and that actually inspired me to make this list. If you consider yourself a Batman fan, you OWE it to yourself to play this game.
With a story written by Paul Dini and the voice acting cast including Kevin Conroy, Mark Hamill, and Arleen Sorkin as Batman, The Joker, and Harley Quinn, this game had a lot going for it. Yet I still didn't expect much. I at most expected it to be mediocre. When I played it, I was shocked at how good it really was. It was dark, had a compelling story, looked great, and was both fun and exciting. It also paid a lot of respect to the source material.
The game covered every aspect of Batman. You beat people up, you hunted them from the shadows, you platformed your way through Arkham, and you found items hidden by the Riddler which added quite a bit of time to a single playthrough. This was everything a Batman fan and a gamer could want and it was one of the best games of 2009 and truly one of the best licensed imaginable. We'll see later this year if Arkham City improves on it.
#1. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
Star Wars has had so many games that it's actually not to hard to find good Star Wars games. There were many to choose from: Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, Tie Fighter, any of the games in the Super Star Wars trilogy, Battlefront, etc. But for this, I had to go with my golden company, BioWare.
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic had a great storyline that took place 4,000 years before the movies with a memorable cast of characters. After the death of Darth Revan, Darth Malak takes his master's place and continues the conquest of the galaxy, utterly obliterating the Republic. Standard set-up but it works great because of BioWare's excellent writing. Lucas could learn a thing or two from BioWare.
The story also contains arguably the single greatest twist in video game history. The twist is concealed well but also foreshadowed brilliantly throughout the story. It is so well done that it's one that when I look back I think, "it's so obvious" yet I never saw it coming. It totally changes how you look at the story on repeat playthroughs.
The game also had great RPG gameplay with stat buildups and a focus on light and dark side morality. Both are fun in their own ways and make repeat playthroughs a must as well as being able to choose different classes and genders. I also recommend the sequel, Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, though it's not as good. At the end of the day this is simply the best licensed game in history.
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