10 Genuinely Awesome Video Games Attached To TERRIBLE Movies

X-Men Origins: Wolverine deserved better.

xmen origins wolverine
Raven

Movies adapted from video games are almost always guaranteed to stink. Sadly, the "Video Game Curse" works both ways.

No matter how well a film turns out, the chances of its video game counterpart generating the same positivity is slim to none. Fight Club may be a masterpiece, but the beat 'em up it spawned was laughable. Aliens Colonial Marines was an unmitigated disaster. Atari's E.T. - The Extra-Terrestrial nearly destroyed the entire gaming industry.

So, if great games based on great films are rare, you'd assume great games based on TERRIBLE films are just unfeasible.

Yet, stranger things have happened. Against all odds and logic, a movie can bomb at the box office, get shredded by critics, tank an entire franchise... and still churn out a terrific game. Because The Phantom Menace, The Mummy, and X-Men Origins: Wolverine sucked, everyone was ready to write off the video game versions, unaware these needless tie-in gave us the EXACT experience that the movies were lacking.

If you deliberately avoided the games on this list because of their association with an underwhelming property, you don't know what you're missing.

10. Alien Resurrection

xmen origins wolverine
Argonaut Software

After Alien 3 made a mess of Ridley Scott's sci-fi franchise, fans hoped the follow-up, Alien Resurrection, would course-correct the beloved series. Instead, we got another trashy sequel, devoid of the nuances that made the previous two entries special.

Because Resurrection is regarded as a blot on the Alien name, Argonaut Games's video game adaptation seemed doomed before it started

Surprisingly, the PS1 title isn't half bad. I mean, it's definitely not great. Compared to other shooters that came out the same year like Deus Ex and Counter-Strike, Alien Resurrection wasn't exactly the cream of the crop.

But in its defence, the game captures the haunting atmosphere, which was flagrantly absent from the movie. Even though you're well-armed, you are always cautious, knowing the Xenomorphs and face-huggers can make mincemeat out of you in no time.

Also, Resurrection deserves more credit than it received, since it pioneered the dual analogue stick control scheme. Although this mechanic was considered confusing at the time, it quickly became the standard among first-person shooters. Alien Resurrection may not be perfect, but there's no question its controls were way ahead of its time.

Contributor
Contributor

James Egan has written 80 books including 1000 Facts about Superheroes Vol. 1-3 1000 Facts about Horror Movies Vol. 1-3 1000 Facts about The Greatest Films Ever Made Vol. 1-3 1000 Facts about Video Games Vol. 1-3 1000 Facts about TV Shows Vol. 1-3 Twitter - @jameswzegan85