The Atari VCS version of E.T. - oh dear
Add in the limited time available to get the game out to coincide with the movie and you’ve a recipe for gaming disaster.
In the end, the only way developers have ever really managed to make decent movie games is by basing them on an expansion of the film’s wider universe, rather than trying to stretch a two hour script into a ten hour game.
That’s why games like Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith still turn out dreadful but more open-ended games like Star Wars: Battlefront II work a lot better.
Movie games
It has always been the same. After all, the Atari VCS version of E.T. was the catalyst for a worldwide market crash that essentially destroyed the entire games industry - which then had to be kickstarted almost from scratch.
There are exceptions, the seminal GoldenEye 007 being one of the most obvious, but as a rule of thumb, it’d best to avoid movie licensed games as you would a Police Academy sequel.
Now check out our gallery of the the best and worst of movie spin-off games
15th May 2007
