For the longest time there weren’t many truly great videogames based off of existing film properties. GoldenEye for the N64 is, of course, a classic, but that was a diamond in the rough. Recently, though, there’s been a winning streak when it comes to videogames based off of established IPs, such as Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Friday the 13th: The Game, Spider-Man, the Batman: Arkham games, and RoboCop: Rogue City. It seems developers have finally found the sweet spot between adhering to what worked in the films and taking a narrative from one medium and adapting it for another.
It also seems as though Hollywood has figured out how to adapt videogames for the big screen, given the success of The Minecraft Movie and The Super Mario Bros. Movie. But that’s a different list for a different day.
Starship Troopers
Thus far there have been four Starship Troopers videogames. A real-time tactics PC game Starship Troopers: Terran Ascendancy, which did okay with critics. Then there was the panned 2005 first-person shooter Starship Troopers, also for the PC, the real-time strategy game Starship Troopers: Terran Command (also PC), which scored mixed reviews, and most recently the first-person shooter Starship Troopers: Extermination.
Hopes were high for Extermination, and while the multiplayer (which was the developer’s primary focus) has some defenders, the single player campaign does not. There needs to be a Starship Troopers game with a great single player campaign, one that has you play as a grunt going up against thousands of the bugs. If it incorporates Extermination‘s base building element, that would be a plus.
Superman
Superman has popped up in quite a few videogames over the years, which could certainly be expected, from Justice League titles to the two Lego Batman sequels. He was even in Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe. Some of those games scored decent reviews. When it comes to Superman’s solo games, however, they’ve mostly been flops. The 1979 Atari game did well with reviewers, but 2006’s Superman Returns game, the 2002 Xbox game Superman: The Man of Steel, 2002’s Superman: Shadow of Apokolips for PlayStation 2 and GameCube, and 2003’s Superman: Countdown to Apokolips for Game Boy Advance all received mixed reviews at best.
They all did better than Superman: The New Superman Adventures (commonly called Superman 64), though. Almost universally considered one of the worst videogames ever made, it was enough to make developers skeptical about pouring money into a Superman game for a long time. Now that technology has advanced for 26 years since the Nintendo 64 game’s release, perhaps it’s time for another try.
The Terminator
Multiple games were released to cash in on the success of James Cameron’s The Terminator (including one for the Sega Genesis and another for the NES) and Terminator 2: Judgment Day (such as one for the Game Boy and another for arcades). That trend continued with Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, which received a PS2, Xbox, and Game Boy Advance game by the same name around the time the movie hit theaters, a PC game titled Terminator 3: War of the Machines, and a pinball game.
Terminator Salvation received a game for PS3, Xbox 360, and Windows but Terminator Genisys only got a pair of mobile games. It seemed interest in crafting Terminator console videogames was dwindling even when a new movie was released (which didn’t change when Terminator: Dark Fate hit theaters). The closest the franchise has come to producing a great game was 2019’s Terminator: Resistance, which even with an enhanced version (2023) could only net average reviews. Perhaps the forthcoming survival game Terminator: Survivors will right the ship.
Predator
The 1987 Predator game did fairly well (save for the NES version), but it was all downhill from there. 1990’s similarly retro Predator 2 received overall fine reviews but, when it comes to modern games based on the IP, it’s been missed opportunity after missed opportunity.
Predator: Concrete Jungle put players in the shoes of the Yautja, which had a lot of potential, but was ultimately trounced for poor execution. The other way to go about making a Predator game is to put the player in the shoes of the soldiers going up against the Yautja, and that’s what Predator: Hunting Grounds did. This is the closest a Predator game has come to being worthy of the films that preceded it, even going so far as to bring back Arnold Schwarzenegger from the first film, Alice Braga from the third, and Jake Busey from the fourth. Unfortunately, it’s a repetitive multiplayer game at best, and really only serves to make the player yearn for a more polished and diverse title (one that also includes single player).
Die Hard
The first time the Die Hard franchise received a videogame adaptation was just two years after the release of the first movie. It was a top view perspective game for the Commodore 64 and the TurboGrafx-16 before ultimately receiving a NES port the next year (1991). Then there was the 1996 arcade fighting game Die Hard Arcade, which was then ported to the Sega Saturn. The closest the series has come to receiving a great videogame is the other 1996 Die Hard game: Die Hard Trilogy for the Playstation, Sega Saturn, and Microsoft Windows.
The most recent John McClane game was the one-two first-person shooter punch of Die Hard: Vendetta (GameCube) and Die Hard: Nakatomi Plaza (Windows) all the way back in 2002. The first-person shooter angle is likely the way to go with a more modern Die Hard game. That said, a third-person survival game like The Last of Us would also work well.
[RELATED: Die Hard 2 Is a Better Christmas Movie Than Die Hard]
Rambo
There have been Rambo games ever since the debut of 1985’s Rambo: First Blood Part II. And, as could be expected, that action-packed sequel was more of an inspiration for games than First Blood (action-packed in its own right). There was one that same year (Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum), one in 1986 (Master System), and one in 1987 (NES). After the Rambo III game in 1989 (for many systems, including the Sega Genesis), it was put on ice for quite some time.
It wasn’t until 2008 that Rambo came back, this time in an arcade game. Then, in 2014, there was the cheap rail shooter Rambo: The Video Game. That entry was panned, with many feeling that it appeared to be outright unfinished. For such an iconic action franchise, it’s astonishing money hasn’t been put into crafting a genuine full-fledged John Rambo game. Whether it was based on all five movies or an entirely new story, it would undoubtedly work as a Far Cry-type open world stalk-and-shoot game.
Men in Black
There have been six Men in Black games, and none of them capitalized on the IP’s potential. One of them was a Game Boy Color exclusive, one was a cheap cash-in on Men in Black II‘s relatively recent release, and, like the remainder, the reviews were far from outstanding.
What’s interesting is that they’ve tried several game genres to properly adapt the franchise. There have been side-scrollers, survival games, and third-person shooters, yet none of them have really captured the spirit of the franchise. It’s a film series ripe with potential villain types, so why couldn’t there be a game where each different level or overall segment is Agents J and K pursuing a different alien fugitive on Earth?
Godzilla
Godzilla has stomped his way through many videogames for just as many systems. But many of them never even made their way to the States and, when they did, they were bland fighting games more often than not, e.g. Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee (GameCube, Xbox, Game Boy Advance), Godzilla: Save the Earth (PS2, Xbox), and Godzilla: Unleashed (PS2, Nintendo DS, Wii).
Admittedly, Godzilla: Monster of Monsters! for the NES was fun, but that was a long time ago. The last time there was a Big-G game that wasn’t a simple button-smasher was 2014’s Godzilla for the PS3 and PS4, and the reviews for that were atrocious. We need a game where we play both as Godzilla stomping his way through Tokyo and as the Japanese military as they attempt to stop him. For instance, in the Super X, as seen in The Return of Godzilla.
The Matrix
Not counting the 2021 tech demo The Matrix Awakens, there have been three games based on the Wachowski’s brainchild. The first was 2003’s Enter the Matrix, which was a financial success on the GameCube, PS2, Windows, and Xbox, but netted mixed reviews.
Then there was a one-two punch in 2005 with The Matrix: Path of Neo (PS2, Xbox, Windows) and the MMORPG The Matrix Online. Both scored similar reviews to Enter the Matrix and, by this point, are quite dated. The Matrix‘s world is one that just begs to be visually recreated by a powerful machine like the PS5.
Transformers
Like with Godzilla, there have been videogames based on the Transformers IP ever since the ’80s. Then, when Michael Bay’s movies started hitting theaters in the aughts, Transformers games started getting released with even greater frequency.
And, like most games based on summer blockbusters of that decade, they felt like quick cash grabs because, well, that’s what they were. There’s merit in controlling the Autobots in Decepticons, perhaps as they battle one another on Cybertron.
