Summary
Movie tie-ins don’t exactly have the best reputation in the video game industry. While many have salivated at the idea of enjoying their favorite films in interactive media, the majority of these games crashed and burned, victims of paltry budgets and criminally short development cycles.
Despite this, there have been a handful of developers that surmounted these incredible obstacles and made worthwhile experiences for us to play on thePlayStation 3. They prove that not only can movie tie-ins sell well, they can also garner positive critical attention when given to talented creative teams. If you’re looking for quality licensed games, we think you should check these out.
10The Incredible Hulk
Hulk Smash
During the first phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, every movie was accompanied by a video game focusing on the title character, courtesy of Sega. This included 2008’s The Incredible Hulk, the oft-forgotten second entry in Kevin Feige’s canon starring Edward Norton. While the film received a somewhat mixed reception, Edge of Reality was able to make a game that stayed true to the core tenets of the character.
The developers chose to take inspiration from the previous Hulk game, Ultimate Destruction, which had been received very well by critics. Like that game, The Incredible Hulk features an open world, filled with terrorists to beat up and environments to demolish. Is it high art? Certainly not, and it received markedly worse reviews than Ultimate Destruction due to optimization issues. However, it remains a decent excuse to cause chaos for a few hours.
9James Cameron’s Avatar: The Game
Return To Pandora
Long before we received Frontiers of Pandora on PS5, there was the simply titled Avatar: The Game. Like Frontiers of Pandora, it was also developed by Ubisoft, and launched in 2009 to coincide with the first film’s release. It didn’t feature the open-world design of its sibling, and instead focused on telling a story to immerse the player in the world’s lore.
You play a human who was sent to Pandora to work with the villainous Resources Development Administration. Like Jake Sully, you’re given the opportunity to inhabit the body of the local Na’vi population through an avatar to better understand their ways and customs. At a pivotal moment in the story, you’re given the choice to side with the RDA or Na’vi, creating two campaigns to play through. It fleshes out the series' main conflict, retroactively deepening the events of the films.
8Cars 2
Well, If You Can’t Play Mario Kart…
When it comes to the kart racing genre, Mario Kart is the undisputed champion. With that being said, the series is locked to Nintendo hardware, forcing gamers on PlayStation systems to look elsewhere if they want to scratch their arcade racing itch. Cars 2 looks to fill this niche, mixing high-speed contests with over-the-top weaponry.
The second entry in the Cars series took a dramatic detour from the direction of the original, choosing to focus on international spycraft instead of competitive racing. Developers at Avalanche Software took this to heart, equipping the otherwise family-friendly characters with machine guns and rocket launchers. The result is a game that feels wildly violent for a Disney property, but it’s undeniably fun to blow Tow Mater up with a grenade.
7Captain America: Super Soldier
Batman Who?
During the early 2010s, the Batman: Arkham games' influence could be felt across the action genre as numerous studios tried to tap into Rocksteady’s winning formula. When it came time for Next Level Games to bring Captain America to PS3, it used this design DNA to surprising effect, making it a competent clone of its obvious inspirations.
Super Soldier sees Captain America dropped by enemy lines in an attempt to destroy Hydra’s evil experiments. Similar to the acclaimed Arkham Asylum,Cap primarily explores one location, which is a castle in Bavaria. You use your fists to pummel Nazis, and can use the character’s iconic shield to strike many enemies at a time. Captain America doesn’t have the richest video game history, but fans of the character should check this one out.
6GoldenEye 007: Reloaded
Return Of A Legend
In 1997, GoldenEye for the Nintendo 64 launched, proving the first-person shooter genre could work on console hardware. The game became a mainstay of parties and sleepovers, but as time passed, it was replaced by the likes of Halo and Call of Duty. Activision revived the iconic brand in 2010, opting to remake the classic shooter for Wii, and brought it to PS3 in 2011.
It’s certainly a departure from the original N64 game; Pierce Brosnan is replaced by Daniel Craig as the title character, and the gameplay leans hard into contemporaneous Call of Duty tropes. Yet for many, that wasn’t a dealbreaker; they were just happy to return to the film’s iconic locations and play split-screen with friends. Just don’t pick Oddjob. He’s still cheating.
5Toy Story 3
Enter The Toy Box
Another Avalanche Software product, Toy Story 3 launched just one year before Cars 2. As would be expected for a movie tie-in, the game follows the events of the film, allowing players to re-experience its best moments firsthand. You’ll use different characters and their unique abilities to platform across environments and solve puzzles.
What the game is really known for, though, is its Toy Box mode. The Toy Box gave players a large western-themed sandbox to play in, where they could complete missions and fight enemies. As they progressed, they’d be able to customize the Toy Box to their liking, welcoming in new toys and creating new gameplay possibilities. This mode would later be revisited in the Disney Infinity series, where you could construct your own Disney worlds.
4Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: The Game
A Loving Homage To Beat-‘em-ups
Beat-‘em-ups flourished in the arcade era, devouring players’ quarters as they tried to beat difficult bosses. However, as the market moved away from cabinets and toward home consoles, that style of game largely fell out of favor. When it came time for Scott Pilgrim to be adapted, Ubisoft decided to return to this older game genre, given thatthe source material already takes so much inspiration from gaming iconography.
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game lets four players team up to throw down against hundreds of street toughs on the mean streets of Toronto, Canada. Loosely following the plot of the movie, Scott and friends must defeat all seven of Ramona’s evil exes if the couple wish to remain together. The game was sadly delisted from the PS3 digital storefront due to licensing issues, but made a comeback on PS4 in 2021.
3Ghostbusters: The Video Game
Who You Gonna Call?
Despite only releasing two films in the 1980s, Ghostbusters permeated popular culture well into the 2000s. It was then that Atari teamed up with the movies’ original cast to create a video game authentic to the series. All the Ghostbusters return to voice their characters, and both Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis helped pen the story.
You take on the role of an unnamed new recruit who works with the established team to vanquish another ghostly threat to New York City. The game is played from a third-person perspective, but instead of shooting specters, you use the Proton Pack to wrangle them, slamming them into walls before placing each ghoul into a trap. Given the original cast had creative control over the project, this is still the definitive third entry in the Ghostbusters series for many fans.
2Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga
A Long Time Ago…
In 2005, LucasArts took a bold swing. It teamed up with Lego Group and developer Traveller’s Tales to adapt the Star Wars prequel trilogy into a video game using the Danish company’s popular building toys. The rest is history. Lego Star Wars went on to become a smash hit both critically and commercially, leading to a sequel covering the original trilogy, and then both games were combined to form Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga.
It can’t be understated how charming the game is. Traveller’s Tales took the events of the first six films and mixed in some slapstick comedy,lightening the tone of the series' darker moments. On top of this, it delivers excellent collectathon game design, giving young and old players plenty of content to keep them busy. For an entire generation of fans, there is no Star Wars without Lego games.
1X-Men Origins: Wolverine
The Blueprint For Movie Tie-Ins
Any discussion about tie-in video games has to include X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Throughout the years, it’s been heralded as the pinnacle of the movie game mountain, against which all others should be compared. Given the quality of the source material it was working with, most people consider it better than the film too.
The game succeeds because it delivers on what fans have always wanted: Wolverine, unleashed. Combat is ferocious and bloody as Wolverine slices through hundreds of armed thugs, dismembering many of them in the process. Raven Software was able to take advantage of the gaming medium, pushing the action far beyond what would have been acceptable in the movies. We can only hope the character gets another game as good as this one in the future.
