-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
-
We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.
Properties that inexplicably got video game adaptations (or: "Who was buying Blues Brothers video games in the 90's?")
- Thread starter Seraphis Cain
- Start date
i had the playstation game, it was a really lazy light gun shooter gameExtreme Ghostbusters for the GBC and Code: Ecto-1 for the GBA.
The show (while really good) was cancelled after a single 40-episode season in 1997. The GBC game came out in 2001 and the GBA game came out in 2002. Then there was the Playstation title, Extreme Ghostbusters: Ultimate Invasion.
It came out in 2004... I guess maybe for the original movie's 20th anniversary...?
Yes it was an official 7up game. Weird, but the game is really good (made by Aladdin devs)Had a soft spot for Michael Jackson's Moonwalker back in the day.
Was this the 7 Up mascot at the time? I thought it was a pretty good game on Megadrive as a kid.
It was the closest to xcom the WiiU had.Best part about this?
It was an XCOM clone.
Absolutely baffling but I respect the devs for making it happen.
Sadly the a.i is bad and the game a walk in the park (enemies don t move if they has not been spotted first, so you just has to walk slowly to kill ennemies one by one)
The game was based on the blues brothers game with a lagaf skin. It was a good game but badly balanced and very hardVincent Lagaf' used to be a corny french comedian.
Mostly right, although there's also a Frogger-esque ingredient collection round:
It probably won't surprise you to hear that the answer to that is "Almost entirely unsuccessfully".
You'll note that's Part 1. Part 2... never materialised.
God I love the film. Its just pure joy, it never fails to make me happy.
I didnt even realise it had a tie in game, you're right though, always best to be cautious. Might go have a look on YT to see how it actually plays.
Y'all forgetting about the two Austin Powers game on freaking Game Boy Color? Made by the freaking ROCKSTAR????
And those were not the remotely the surprising thin about the games. They were good. Kind of pseudo point and click adventure games and had really nice visuals for Game Boy Color. ONE BILLION DOLLARS!
And those were not the remotely the surprising thin about the games. They were good. Kind of pseudo point and click adventure games and had really nice visuals for Game Boy Color. ONE BILLION DOLLARS!
I've never played this game but it used to stare at me from the shelves when I worked part time at Gamestation. It had a big sticker celebrating the fact the main character (a blue smartie) was voiced by Dave Benson-Phillips. That name will mean nothing to anyone not of a certain age and who grew up in the UK.
The regular edition is "Titus the fox" and is slightly less racist due to it.Vincent Lagaf' used to be a corny french comedian.
As for the Blues Brothers games, the Amiga one was good as it stands.
Ocean and Titus were known for getting movie licenses and adapting them before that was a thing
Last edited:
But with Blues Brothers and "make a cover based on some of the game featured in this issue" you get magazine covers like this:
Why are there so many of these? Who was buying these games in the 90's? Why did Titus stick with this license for a decade (aside from the obvious "they were a bad shovelware publisher")? It just seems completely inexplicable to me that The Blues Brothers, a franchise that stopped being relevant long before the first game was released, got multiple video game releases throughout the 90's. I don't get it.
Anyway, feel free to post other examples of properties that by all rights should not have gotten video game adaptations.
Fun fact, I worked at official Nintendo magazine for my work experience at secondary school and was hired during the summer holidays as freelance (all at 15 years old) and I wrote a review for one of them games I believe.Y'all forgetting about the two Austin Powers game on freaking Game Boy Color? Made by the freaking ROCKSTAR????
And those were not the remotely the surprising thin about the games. They were good. Kind of pseudo point and click adventure games and had really nice visuals for Game Boy Color. ONE BILLION DOLLARS!
I thought it was absolutely terrible but someone else disagreed and so they rewrote that review and was more positive.
Oh my god, whats even worse is the music at 30 seconds gets legitimately good. wtf
Thank the merciful Lord Satan for that. What an absolute shower of shite...
There was a Dirty Harry game on NES. It even played the "Go ahead, make my day" voice sample on the title screen.
I don't know what to focus on. Using the old Grundy TV icons, kangaroos and Bouncer in the street together, random Kylie Minogue/Charlene in the top corner at the end, or the fact that the music SLAPS.
Also, there was apparently a second Neighbours game on the Amiga! But this one was a point-and-click detective mystery, using stills from the show.
With possibly the most Aussie screengrab I've ever seen.
OP
OP
It also came to my attention recently that there was a Spitting Image game released in Europe for the C64 (and probably other microcomputers, I don't know I'm American). However I won't be posting the box art for that one as I legitimately cannot look at Spitting Image puppets (thank you for that, Land of Confusion music video that scared the absolute shit out of young me).
(If anyone does post it, please put it behind spoiler tags, thank you.)
(If anyone does post it, please put it behind spoiler tags, thank you.)
Also, there was apparently a second Neighbours game on the Amiga! But this one was a point-and-click detective mystery, using stills from the show.
With possibly the most Aussie screengrab I've ever seen.
Fuckin' strewth cobber
I just need to express how disappointed I am that Fido Dido isn't a canine version of Dido, the singer.
OP
OP
There was no Blues Brothers Saturday morning cartoon. There was almost an "adult" cartoon (closer to The Simpsons, I mean) in 1997 but it was cancelled before it could premiere.
Half this thread missed the point as they were contemporary popular properties. The Spice Girls/Jackass etc games made 200% commerical sense when released.
There was a Dirty Harry movie in 1988.
This mystified me as a child. Why would I want to play the video game version of a boring old TV show? Yet it also intrigued me.. What could the game possibly be like? Well, I've tried it and it's absolutely, undeniably godawful.
Hell yeah. The Dark Souls of licensed games.
A game based on the 11th entry in the Finnish Uuno Turhapuro film series.
In general, Commodore 64 and the other British micros got a lot of weird licenced stuff.
Had a soft spot for Michael Jackson's Moonwalker back in the day.
Moonwalker is a real standout. Credit to whoever it was at Sega that decided to base their Michael Jackson game on Shinobi.
One of the better brand-licensed games, yeah.
Unlike these:
British cheesy potato snack 'Quavers' also had two tie-in games... Pushover, and One Step Beyond... Both featuring mascot 'Colin Curly'
I think Pushover was supposed to be quite good?
I guess the easy answer is that slapping an existing character or series, no matter how obscure, on box art will catch more eyes than box art with an unknown character/series. Most of these publishing houses must've just snatched licenses at rock bottom prices and made that their strategy. Develop shit on a budget and hope the world's last Gilligan's Island fanatics want a new Nintendo game.
Pesterminator for the NES isn't even an officially licensed Nintendo game. It's predictably awful. I think Color Dreams made it.
Pesterminator for the NES isn't even an officially licensed Nintendo game. It's predictably awful. I think Color Dreams made it.
I came here to mention the ¿Qué pasa Neng? videogame but you guys got it covered, haha. Looking forward to some other random picks from TV shows. There were a few of those in Japan, but I'm sure a lot of countries must have a few of their own to show.
+(Promotion+Card)-image.jpg)
There's also food IPs getting games but I find that more normal as they could hand them out as a price:
In the case of Zool, though, I never knew if it WAS a Chupa Chups videogame or if they simply gave funding to have their logo there.
I completed it some years ago finally (even if the last level was a nightmare) and I loved how they structured the game.
First the Basement, then up the Pipes, the Kitchen Sink, the Kitchen itself, a Tree besides the kitchen window, the top of the tree, the Rooftop, the Chimney, the Fireplace, the Living Room, a random area where they had electric cables, the Bathroom and finally the Attic.
I wouldn't mind a remake with better boss battles since the idea was pretty neat.
There's also food IPs getting games but I find that more normal as they could hand them out as a price:
In the case of Zool, though, I never knew if it WAS a Chupa Chups videogame or if they simply gave funding to have their logo there.
I completed it some years ago finally (even if the last level was a nightmare) and I loved how they structured the game.
First the Basement, then up the Pipes, the Kitchen Sink, the Kitchen itself, a Tree besides the kitchen window, the top of the tree, the Rooftop, the Chimney, the Fireplace, the Living Room, a random area where they had electric cables, the Bathroom and finally the Attic.
I wouldn't mind a remake with better boss battles since the idea was pretty neat.
Honestly, the only thing I remember about the show was how hilarious it was seeing Major Paul Davis from Stargate SG-1 as a scumbag and that it was a Steven Spielberg involved project, which meant there was a hammered in your face with FAMILY IS IMPORTANT messaging to an eye rolling degree.
An adaptation of a sci-fi TV show I've never heard of, releasing on the Xbox 360, in 2014. It feels so dated and behind the times as a game based on a licensed property. The rules of this kind of thing were rewritten at least 5 or 6 years before this came out, and just a glance at the boxart makes it look like an absolute relic.
Honestly, it's nice to see someone doing a licensed game picking a genre that actually fit the property, even if it's clearly low budget jank.Best part about this?
It was an XCOM clone.
Absolutely baffling but I respect the devs for making it happen.
The craziest thing about this is that while it still has the Skittles marketing deeply embedded in the game, both the game company and Skittles got a little disenchanted with the deal before it came out, so the box and all the advertising barely mentioned that it was a Skittles tie-in.
I am a British game designer and my childhood was filled with weird licensed video games on C64 and ZX Spectrum.
Mr. Wimpy, Neighbours, Spitting Image, The Untouchables and Action Biker (a licensed game about the Skips snack mascot).
Games were sold in supermarkets and Boots so branded stuff sold well here.
Mr. Wimpy, Neighbours, Spitting Image, The Untouchables and Action Biker (a licensed game about the Skips snack mascot).
Games were sold in supermarkets and Boots so branded stuff sold well here.
Surprised it took this long to post.
This mystified me as a child. Why would I want to play the video game version of a boring old TV show? Yet it also intrigued me.. What could the game possibly be like? Well, I've tried it and it's absolutely, undeniably godawful.
This is what I came to post, I played this when I was a kid for some reason.
This exists
In the 90s everything was adapted to video games, I mean:
I kinda miss that wackyness, sometimes it would result in some good games or at least some interesting ones.
I recently found out about this SNES Jetsons game which has no right being this good or inventive:
The Jetson game was reskinned and expanded in Japan as YĹŤkai Buster: Ruka no DaibĹŤken
Feel like this either never came out or was Blockbuster only.Someone somewhere had to utter the words "we should make a game about the President's cat"
The Jetson game was reskinned and expanded in Japan as YĹŤkai Buster: Ruka no DaibĹŤken
Yep, which is amazing cause usually it's the other way around!
Oh man, so many bad games based on licensing movies got made in the 80s and 90s. They were just shit out from the same studios time and time again.
I was a teen when these crappy blues Brothers games came out and I don't know anyone who played them. You'd go to the video rental store, see something like the wizard of Oz game, laugh to yourself, and wonder who in the hell was renting these games.
It's like studios were making games solely on the fact that they could trick grandparents into buying them for their grandkids. "Thank you for the amazing gift. I love (ET, blues bros, wizard of Oz)".
I was a teen when these crappy blues Brothers games came out and I don't know anyone who played them. You'd go to the video rental store, see something like the wizard of Oz game, laugh to yourself, and wonder who in the hell was renting these games.
It's like studios were making games solely on the fact that they could trick grandparents into buying them for their grandkids. "Thank you for the amazing gift. I love (ET, blues bros, wizard of Oz)".
The Kill Bill game got canned, but somehow a Reservoir Dogs game came out in 2006???
en.wikipedia.org
And a couple of years before that there was the Fight Club video game:
...which featured Fred Durst as an unlockable character:
en.wikipedia.org
Reservoir Dogs (video game) - Wikipedia
And a couple of years before that there was the Fight Club video game:
...which featured Fred Durst as an unlockable character:
Fight Club (video game) - Wikipedia
There were a bunch of these in Europe around that time period, for some reason.
And as you can see, they were all published by Blast! Entertainment, who I can only assume got the licenses for incredibly cheap. I've actually been really curious about Blast! and how these games came about for years now.
my favorite thing about this is that none of the games have the official actor, clearly a legal hurdle, except for Lucy Lawless and Xena.
You have fine tastes my friend. This was one of the first games I've owned on the NES and I loved it lol. Hard AF, but awesome.
Low-quality games produced in large numbers. I always assumed it was so called because there were so many of them and they were so bad that it was as if you could shovel them up like shit.
Pretty much any reasonably big film or cartoon got a (mostly shitty) tie-in videogame version in the 8-bit/16-bit eras.
All the kids IP was understandable, and the family films too. But what always surprised me is how many of them were aimed at adults but the games were on a Nintendo console. Aliens, Robocop, Terminator (and pretty much anything else with Arnie in it), Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street. All these films at the time kids were unlikely to be getting into the cinema to see, but I remember it being a kinda rite of passage at school in the early 90s that you had to have seen all of those.
Some of them were pretty good amidst the sea of shit though, I remember Alien 3 on Megadrive not being too bad.
All the kids IP was understandable, and the family films too. But what always surprised me is how many of them were aimed at adults but the games were on a Nintendo console. Aliens, Robocop, Terminator (and pretty much anything else with Arnie in it), Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street. All these films at the time kids were unlikely to be getting into the cinema to see, but I remember it being a kinda rite of passage at school in the early 90s that you had to have seen all of those.
Some of them were pretty good amidst the sea of shit though, I remember Alien 3 on Megadrive not being too bad.
And though it was limited by today's standards, I remember getting a good month and a half out of this game as a kid.