20 Games That Made The Movies BETTER

Video game adaptations of movies have a terrible reputation - and rightly so. For decades, we suffered the efforts of developers who were commissioned to churn out a cookie-cutter version of films that could shift a few hundred thousand units, with no thoughts of quality or player experience.

But sometimes, just sometimes, they do it properly.

These are games that are not just cut-n-paste efforts designed to market the release of a big film or make a few bucks, but are games which use the film IP to their advantage, creating impressive and enjoyable experiences that stand on their own two feet and often excel in unexpected ways, improving upon the original movie. This includes creative approaches to gameplay, story and character that don't get bogged down by the limitations of the media they are based on, often adding new story beats and unseen segments that expand on the original source.

Whether they build out a film’s lore, provide new context and background, mine a unique perspective or just give us a bit more to chew on, these 20 games manage to take movies of every sort - from all-time greats to box office disasters - and make them better.  

A surprisingly late addition to the canon, arriving 34 years after the release of the iconic film, EA’s The Godfather offers everything you could want from a crime game, never mind a crime movie adaptation.

The game follows the events of the film, but from the perspective of Aldo Trapani, ironically enough something of a Scarface character, who is recruited into the Corleone family and uses every tool at his disposal to gradually work his way up the ranks.

By the inclusion of this non-canon character in a game that otherwise adapts the look, feel and events of the film, we are given a whole new dimension. With the ability to free roam in an open-world version of 1940s NYC, we are granted the kind of wider perspective the film can’t offer, and get to get stuck in with the small potatoes street-level crime that the Corleones control but don’t typically personally handle.

Taking NYC for the family is an experience in itself, and it makes the film world so much bigger and more authentic. Plus the game introduced a whole new, younger generation of fans to Francis Ford Coppola’s epic film.