Movies that never got games

[The Laird]

As a very regular visitor to the cinema (Cineworld Unlimited Premium card holder) and big watcher of movies in general I was thinking about how we don't really see games based on movies anymore. I am pretty sure that the main reason for this is because these days it takes just as long to make a game as it does to make the actual movie, so they would have the time to get hold of a script then push a game out in time for release.

Obviously, back in the day, movie games were a HUGE part of the industry, especially for companies such as Ocean and Acclaim. But what are those classic films that you are surprised never got turned into video games?

One of the obvious ones for me has always been the Arnie film Commando. Ok, we got 2 different arcade games with that name but I think this is actually the only big Schwarzenegger vehicle that never got a video game. The plot suits one perfectly and no doubt it would have sold really well given how popular the film was.

[Crusty Starfish]

Debbie Does Dallas?

[Sephiroth81]

Saving Private Ryan would have been a good war game! Although I guess they kind of did the first bit with Medal of Honour Frontline on the normandy beaches. Which was very cool.

Lots of modern games like Red Dead Revolver/Redemption pay homage to some of the older movies, like the great westerns....but there SHOULD be more western-themed games.

[The Laird]

Saving Private Ryan would have been a good war game! Although I guess they kind of did the first bit with Medal of Honour Frontline on the normandy beaches. Which was very cool.

Lots of modern games like Red Dead Revolver/Redemption pay homage to some of the older movies, like the great westerns....but there SHOULD be more western-themed games.

Good point actually and when you think about it it's also a big surprise there has never really been any games based on classic Clint Eastwood movies, they seem ideal fodder.

[Antiriad2097]

There was a Dirty Harry game in development:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_Har ... ideo_game)

[ncf1]

Was there ever a Raiders Of The Lost Ark game? How good would a decent game of that be, finding the Ark of the Covenant.

[Sephiroth81]

Was there ever a Raiders Of The Lost Ark game? How good would a decent game of that be, finding the Ark of the Covenant.

Looks like there is Raiders of the Lost Ark game on the Atari 2600. Its probably awful on that though given the hardware (no, I'm not trolling Atari fans here, but that system or much from that era in fact, could really do something like that justice!).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OP-e0-0PpLc

You probably wouldn't expect much from a 1982 game, especially on the hardware of the time.

[jdanddiet]

Saving Private Ryan would have been a good war game! Although I guess they kind of did the first bit with Medal of Honour Frontline on the normandy beaches. Which was very cool.

Lots of modern games like Red Dead Revolver/Redemption pay homage to some of the older movies, like the great westerns....but there SHOULD be more western-themed games.

I played that bit over and over again, but I think it was MoH Allied Assault on the PC

[ncf1]

Was there ever a Raiders Of The Lost Ark game? How good would a decent game of that be, finding the Ark of the Covenant.

Looks like there is Raiders of the Lost Ark game on the Atari 2600. Its probably awful on that though given the hardware (no, I'm not trolling Atari fans here, but that system or much from that era in fact, could really do something like that justice!).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OP-e0-0PpLc

You probably wouldn't expect much from a 1982 game, especially on the hardware of the time.

you know, that doesn't look too bad, for Atari 2600! Nice animation, nice graphics. But yes I agree, I'd love to have seen it on just about any other system.. I had an Apple II at the time and the closest was Aztec, which used virtually every key on the keyboard so as a kid I gave up before I even started, and a type-in program that was a text adventure but was basically a maze in the dark, just horrible. So justice needs to be served and a new Raiders game be made!

[The Laird]

Was there ever a Raiders Of The Lost Ark game? How good would a decent game of that be, finding the Ark of the Covenant.

Looks like there is Raiders of the Lost Ark game on the Atari 2600. Its probably awful on that though given the hardware (no, I'm not trolling Atari fans here, but that system or much from that era in fact, could really do something like that justice!).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OP-e0-0PpLc

You probably wouldn't expect much from a 1982 game, especially on the hardware of the time.

I'm not a fan, it's not really my kind of game, but it was very highly regarded at the time. So much so I'm fact that it landed Howard Scott Warshaw the E.T. gig. Apparently Spielberg was so impressed by Raiders that he insisted Warshaw do E.T.

For the time Raiders was a very advanced game using pretty much all the buttons on the console. The game still has its fans.

[Matt_B]

Yeah, it's basically an adventure game that's mostly about exploration and puzzle solving, with relatively little of the arcade-style action you'd expect from a VCS game.

I'd say it's far more refined than E.T. which isn't surprising given that Warshaw had six months to make it rather than just five weeks. However, it's still got similar issues and comes across as a bit too ambitious for what the hardware can offer. You've got to play it with an eye on the instructions for a while just to figure out what's going on. You can at least go on YouTube these days to watch people play it, but back in the day I'd suspect that many people found it a rather frustrating game to get into.

[The Laird]

Yeah, it's basically an adventure game that's mostly about exploration and puzzle solving, with relatively little of the arcade-style action you'd expect from a VCS game.

I'd say it's far more refined than E.T. which isn't surprising given that Warshaw had six months to make it rather than just five weeks. However, it's still got similar issues and comes across as a bit too ambitious for what the hardware can offer. You've got to play it with an eye on the instructions for a while just to figure out what's going on. You can at least go on YouTube these days to watch people play it, but back in the day I'd suspect that many people found it a rather frustrating game to get into.

Yeah definitely a bit too ambitious, they should have made an Atari 8-bit version of the game to do it justice.

[Starlight]

Pride and Prejudice?
Love Actually
Any Mr.Bean film
Any Video Nasty (I think Evil Dead got one)
American Pie
The Last Dragonslayer

That's all i can think of.

[Matt_B]

I'm not sure about the original, but Pride and Prejudice and Zombies might work as a game.

[paranoid marvin]

Yeah, it's basically an adventure game that's mostly about exploration and puzzle solving, with relatively little of the arcade-style action you'd expect from a VCS game.

I'd say it's far more refined than E.T. which isn't surprising given that Warshaw had six months to make it rather than just five weeks. However, it's still got similar issues and comes across as a bit too ambitious for what the hardware can offer. You've got to play it with an eye on the instructions for a while just to figure out what's going on. You can at least go on YouTube these days to watch people play it, but back in the day I'd suspect that many people found it a rather frustrating game to get into.

Yeah definitely a bit too ambitious, they should have made an Atari 8-bit version of the game to do it justice.

Nowhere near as ambitious as Activision's Space Shuttle game!

Yeah there were definite similarities between Raiders and ET but the former was much more of a complete game. How do you create a game of movie in the guise of an action-adventure, set across various tasks? Raiders attempted to do something quite unlike anything that went before. Impossible without the instructions , and even then took some getting used to. But it was an outstanding achievement for anyone sick of playing arcade clones.