There’s no shortage of television and movie studios trying to strike gold with adaptions of popular video games, but what seems to be a quieter approach is the opposite.

You don’t have to look far to find video games based on movies, TV shows, or books, many of which have become massively successful. Despite the successes, a long train of mediocrity lines the path to the winners.

Still, developers frequently latch onto these established materials and provide gamers a chance to interact further with their favorite worlds and characters from the screen and page.

From Established Material to Video Games

I look to one of my favorite adaptations. The Simpsons: Hit & Run was a popular title in my home growing up.

This is a fun game, standing firmly on the shoulders of its predecessor The Simpsons: Road Rage. It provided all the zaniness The Simpsons are known for and allowed me to explore Springfield. I loved this game.

Others that were a lot of fun were the games based on The Lord of the Rings, each of which released simultaneously with the trilogy of now-classic films from the 2000s. Yet another good example was Spider-Man, which was based on the 2002 movie of the same name. In hindsight a lot of fans say Spider-Man games struggled to get back to that games quality until the two most recent entries.

You could come up with a list a mile long of fun games based on movies, TV shows, or books. I mean, check out the various anime titles that also have video games.

The Witcher series garners a lot of popularity. It has origins in a fantasy book series that started in 1986. 

Star Wars and DC have both found successes producing video games, but also have encountered some flops. South Park, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, James Bond, and many others all show that this method can work. 

The problem, however, is that there are many video games that try to emulate the success of their counterparts and end up feeling gimmicky or lazy retreads that simply walk you through the plot of an established story. 

There was a time when I would roll my eyes at any game based on a franchise because of how they had saturated the market.

There was a Home Improvement video game for goodness sakes!

What do you Think?

I do believe the quality of these other-medium games has improved over the years. I also think developers have grown to do a good job of making franchise games that stand on their own as original works, while still being faithful to their source material.

But what do you think? Do you enjoy video games based on other mediums such as movies, TV shows, or books? What makes them good or bad? What are some of your favorite video game adaptations of movies, TV shows, or books? 

Let us know in the comments or by joining the discussion on our Discord channel. We’d love to hear from you.

Featured Image: The Simpsons Hit and Run Wiki