Video games these days have become so complex, expensive, and time consuming to develop that it’s obvious to mass-produce them for every major movie release or hit TV show. Not worth it. Full-scale video game adaptations have been commonplace for blockbusters in all major genres, but we’re more likely to see some fancy DLC in existing games like Fortnite. On the other hand, experienced licensors take a very innovative approach of creating games based on their own intellectual property. In other words, quality over quantity. Controversy aside, Hogwarts Legacy is the latest game to transcend the “licensed game” and instead be embraced as a very good video game (… break out Must be based on licensed property. )
That said, your mileage at Hogwarts Legacy may vary if you don’t care about Harry Potter. If so, it doesn’t matter how it plays out.
For the most part, though, it’s what the licensed games are based on that grabbed our attention in the first place, and our appreciation for the source material allows us to avoid the drawbacks that could otherwise be a deal-breaker. Here are some licensed games that hold a special space in the Beyond team’s heart.
Spider-Man 3 – Jada
Let me preface this by saying that I love Spider-Man. Thankfully, Spidey’s game was more good than bad, unlike some other heroes. Spider-Man 3 was a game that many of us were seriously promoting. We just got our hands on Spider-Man 2, his one of the best Spider-Man games ever made, and with the addition of his symbiote suit, our expectations are understandably high. became.
The PS3 launched about six months before Spider-Man 3 was released, and while it had some good games, aside from Resistance: Fall of Man and Genji: Days of the Blade, it really didn’t. . Excellent action and in many ways his FPS games. I knew it was a risk, given that most movie tie-in games are laughably bad, but I and countless others have been skeptical because of our favorite friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. I haven’t stopped paying my hard-earned cash to. It was so good that I got it exactly 3 years ago. How can they screw this up?
I really liked Spider-Man 3, so I tried it in college (it was a good fit since I was in college at the time) and it didn’t really return anything, which was disappointing. It was a step up from its predecessor in some areas, such as exploration that benefited from the extras, but for the most part it was underwhelming at best. Combat seemed to take a step back, and side quests ranged from barely passable to ‘turn this off and go to bed’.
I was finally able to finish it, but it definitely put me on pause before getting my hands on a licensed game in the future.Insomniac’s 2018 Spider-Man game Proving that the studio knows what they’re doing. I believe in sequels. Spidey sense of the edge.
Star Wars Super Bombad Racing – Josh
What are bombs? According to the Star Wars wiki, it’s a Gungan word meaning “excellent.” So essentially this Mario Kart clone of him is titled ‘Super Superior Racing’ and a fitting title for him one of the first video games I’ve ever owned and spent any meaningful time with .
The Phantom Menace came out around the time I first started playing video games.See, I don’t know if either the movie or this game goodbut as a young kid looking to spend my pocket money on a media franchise product, there wasn’t much else.
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Star Wars: Super Superior Racing lets you play as bobblehead versions of all your favorite TPM characters in matching hovercraft carts and throw rockets and lightning bolts at each other with random items. Better than Mario Kart? No, was it as good as Mario Kart? No, was I good at games? But it wasn’t a game that lived in its own universe, so I still immersed myself in it for hours.
The characters were all ones I had seen in the movies (including Sebulba) and the race tracks were all locations from the Star Wars universe. I honestly wouldn’t have known the names of these planets without this game. And while it’s true that Mario Kart was also based on existing Nintendo iconography, they were all from Nintendo games. There was no multimedia crossover.
And that’s the magic of licensed video games. Me and him weren’t playing the game in isolation for SW:SBR, so the experience was richer. My exposure to gaming and Star Wars in this game is probably why I am both Bombad Star Wars and Video. Gaming fans today.
Aqua Teen Hunger Force Zombie Ninja Pro-Am – Akeem
It’s a golf simulator masquerading as an action-adventure game, under the cloak of a kart racer based on the adult swimming show Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Released on the PlayStation 2 in 2007, the game is as quirky and bizarre as the anime series it’s based on, with a wide variety of genres wrapped up in one weirdly entertaining package for him (for fans of the TV series, of course). if).
The voice cast all reprized their roles in the game, making it even more fun to traverse the nine holes of the game’s golfing goodness. It was like playing an episode of the show with a quip of a character.
With mediocre graphics and around 4-8 hours of playtime, it was clearly not the PS2’s crowning achievement, but it took these wacky characters and delivered a pretty unique experience, much like Adult Swim itself. IGN gave it a 5 at the time, but that didn’t stop me from buying it! I was excited to cue this and hit the golf course It was my introduction to both the golf game and ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt, and sadly, I’ve been the only one since then to experience either. Just showing the power of licensing allows you to play things you might otherwise avoid.
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis – Max
There’s no right or wrong way to get involved in pop culture when you’re a kid, and no one is accusing a 6-year-old of being a fake Batman fan. Because my introduction to the character wasn’t a copy of Year One or Christopher His Nolan’s movie, but a Batman pool toy or Batman pajamas.
I can’t remember if I saw an Indiana Jones movie when I first played the now-classic adventure game Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis in 1992. I remember enjoying the movie when my mother rented it at the video store, but I didn’t really understand the Indiana Jones characters until I played the game. If anything, it made me want to rent the movie again.
Fate of Atlantis is from Lucasarts golden age of point-and-click adventure games. With the exception of Indiana Jones, it has the same basic mechanics as Monkey Island and Day of the Tentacle.As the name suggests, Fate of Atlantis explores the mysterious lost continent. centered. Indy and his psychic Sophia Hapgood hop to search for clues, solve puzzles, and outsmart the Nazis. One of the more ambitious things about it is the branching narrative. Depending on the choices made early on, the player will be sent down one of three paths (Wisdom, Fist, or Team), each with completely unique challenges tailored to different playstyles. . It may lack the music of Harrison Ford and John Williams, but it features a very passable Ford impression courtesy of Doug Lee and a charming and faithful MIDI cover of Indy’s score.
To a mid-90s kid, pre-WWII 1980s movies may be the same as those released in the 1930s. CD-ROM games, on the other hand, were decidedly modern.At the time, the Indiana Jones franchise was only a decade old, but Indy was nowhere to be seen in the form of action figure aisles or Saturday morning cartoons, and archaeologists looked completely old-fashioned. Ironically, Bugs Bunny and Batman are actually bottom As far back as FDR’s presidency, they were everywhere. For example, if you turn on MTV, you’ll be in a video with Seal and R. Kelly. The 90’s were wild.
Anyway, with the lack of playground buzz surrounding Indiana Jones, Fate of Atlantis seemed like a forgotten relic I had unearthed. I had no problem having it for my Mac.
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As luck would have it, my fondness for this old game isn’t just for rose-tinted glasses and fanboy nostalgia. It was directed by Hal Burwood, who has worked with both directors. He decided to try his hand at game development, and after successfully converting The Last Crusade into a point-and-click adventure, Lucasarts let him work on something original. The original plan was for the unused Chris Columbus script to be adapted for his fourth Indy film, but Barwood scrapped it and got The Fate of Atlantis instead. I was.
A “licensed game” developed by Lucasarts has always been an advantage, given that the license is essentially in-house, and Lucasfilm believes most major film studios have sold games over separate merchandising divisions. I started investing in game development long before I considered it a thing.
By the time Kingdoms of the Crystal Skull hit theaters as gracefully as an antique refrigerator, we were used to being overwhelmed by new additions to Lucasfilm’s beloved film trilogy, but the final I walked away without any hesitation. After all, I had already gotten my hands on his fourth indie film which was phenomenal. It happened to be a computer game. The judges are out on Indiana Jones and Dial of Destiny, but whatever the outcome, just thinking about it makes me itchy to replay the fate of Atlantis. collect some
