Remember Movie Tie-In Games?

Films based on video games are huge. The Minecraft Movie is going to make one billion dollars (yes, really), the Super Mario Bros Movie was the second highest grossing film of 2023 after Barbie, and the most recent instalment of the Sonic the Hedgehog films, Sonic 3, became Jim Carrey’s highest grossing film. Video games being adapted into films definitely isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, regardless of the quality of said films. But this got me thinking back to my own childhood, when I was the age that these films are targeting, and the norm was actually the reverse; video games based on films!

Everyone that I’ve spoken to who has seen this film said that it’s terrible. And it’s about to make over one billion dollars. Source: Warner Bros Pictures

If you grew up in the 90s or 00s and played video games, you will 100% have come across a video game tie-in for an animated film that was released at the time. They were on every console, and they weren’t even direct ports of each other. I had the Madagascar DS game as a kid, and I think it vaguely followed the plot of the film; all I can really remember is there were big spiders that would make a horrible noise when they approached, and I was scared of them. You were also able to tap the screen to change characters, with each of the cast in a crate like the iconic scene from the film. When I saw a YouTube video discussing the PS2 version of the game, I was shocked to find it’s nothing like what I played! I get there’s no touch screen capability, but I thought it would at least be similar. Why does Melman the giraffe spin around like a helicopter? Why is Gloria the hippo racing ostriches?

Sometimes, the games wouldn’t even represent what would happen in the film. Recently, I revisited Ratatouille on the PlayStation 2; the film was my all-time favourite when I was seven. I don’t remember much from playing it as a kid, but playing it as an adult made me realise that it is extremely loosely based on the plot of the film. It starts out okay, but then its only link with the film is that Remy the rat makes food. There is a lot more sliding on your butt down sewer pipes than there was in the film. How did they get so many of the original cast to reprise their roles for this game?

Except for a few iconic film scenes, the Ratatouille PS2 game has very vague resemblance to its source material. But this screenshot fills me with memories! Source: THQ

You would occasionally get tie-in games that used the film’s characters, but featured an entirely new story to capitalise on a different genre of game. Shrek SuperSlam (yes, that’s its name) released on the DS, GameBoy Advance, PlayStation 2, Xbox GameCube and on Windows PCs and is a fighting game featuring the Shrek cast. It’s now infamous for having an active cult following today, despite releasing in 2005.

I’ve even played video game tie-ins of films I haven’t seen. Me and my brother used to rent out Open Season on the PS2 from our local library; neither of us have seen the film even to this day. I have zero clue if it even vaguely represents the plot of that film. I think most people forgot it existed. But the game was fun! I am tempted to pick it up again to see if I find it as fun as I did back then. A copy is probably only 50p.

Shrek SuperSlam has a very active cult following, with fans putting together tier lists of its playable characters. Source: Gorotheninja on Reddit

These games hold a lot of nostalgia for me and for others who grew up with them; in a lot of cases, a video game tie-in of your favourite film or cartoon was probably the first game your console ever ran. But there’s no denying that nostalgia has blinded us as to their quality. The vast majority of these games were terrible. They were cash grabs from the film studios to make as much money from their new property as possible, so of course they were going to be made with a small budget and not a lot of time or effort poured into them. They were targeting kids with these games; they have no standards! They just like pressing buttons on a controller! There were a couple good eggs, but most of them were not winning Game of the Year. The only thing stopping them from being forgotten is their nostalgia factor in our heads.

Video game tie-ins are not what they used to be. You may get the occasional mascot character mobile game like Minion Rush, but you won’t be seeing many new animated films getting tie-in games on the Nintendo Switch. Maybe partially because a lot of the biggest films of the year are based on video games in the first place!