GoldenEye 007
If you ever owned a Nintendo 64 or Super Nintendo, you probably played at least one game developed by Rare. The company was a household name thanks to titles such as Donkey Kong Country and Killer Instinct. However, neither of those were first-person shooters nor licensed games, and GoldenEye 007 based on the movie of the same name was both.
For all of Rare’s eclectic and varied library, GoldenEye was unexplored territory, and its small team of nine developers were unsure of the game’s future.
According to a GamesRadar interview, development began before the Nintendo 64’s specs were finalized. Moreover, the analog stick was an unproven piece of technology back then, especially for first-person shooters.
Basically, nobody —including the game’s developers— expected GoldenEye 007 to be anything short of average, but instead, the game has left a huge impact on the FPS genre thanks to its (at the time) innovative controls and almost perfect multiplayer.
Batman: Arkham Asylum
While many gamers love Rocksteady Studios’ Batman: Arkham series, I still have some trouble understanding how the company convinced Warner Bros. and DC Entertainment to give them permission to work on a Batman game.
Prior to Batman: Arkham Asylum, Rocksteady had only developed Urban Chaos: Riot Response, a lackluster FPS that puts players in the boots of a riot response cop.
Sure, Rocksteady employed plenty of staff from Argonaut Games (makers of the Super FX chip and the original Star Fox game), but otherwise, Rocksteady was a largely an unknown. Plus, I honestly don’t think anyone reading this article can list a single good Batman game that was released before Arkham Asylum.
Regardless, Batman: Arkham Asylum has proven to be the perfect blend of licensed video game awesomeness. The combat and stealth systems are top-notch, and the title reunites the holy Bat-trinity of Paul Dini, Mark Hamill, and Kevin Conroy.
Today, gamers the world over eagerly anticipate the next Rocksteady Studios game, but before Arkham Asylum’s release, we didn’t associate the studio with quality. If anything, we probably thought anyone who mentioned it was misremembering Grand Theft Auto’s developers, Rockstar Games.
Spider-Man 2
Long before the Marvel Cinematic Universe, even longer before the absolutely spectacular Marvel’s Spider-Man by Insomniac Games, the bar by which all Spider-Man media was measured was Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man movies (well, the first two movies).
These films were released when movie-tie in games were all the rage —and usually mediocre at best. The tie-in to the first Spider-Man movie was ok despite its source material’s quality, but who could have guessed that Spider-Man 2 would be a whole different level of awesome?
Spider-Man 2 set the standard for all future Spider-Man games, and some gamers would even claim that standard has yet to be matched.
The Spider-Man 2 game flung Spidey into the open-world genre that has since become standard, introduced side-missions for the wall-crawler to complete, and refined the combat system. The quality of the game far surpassed previous Spider-Man and movie tie-in games.
Had Spider-Man 2 not laid the groundwork back in 2004, Marvel’s Spider-Man might not be as lauded as it is today.
The Simpsons: Hit and Run
The Simpsons games have a bit of a troubled history. For every stellar The Simpsons beat-em-up arcade cabinet, we got two lackluster The Simpsons skateboarding games. While the development studio plays a major role in the quality of a Simpsons game (as is the case with all video games), sometimes a studio can produce two games of radically varying calibers. Case in point, Radical Entertainment’s The Simpsons: Road Rage and The Simpsons: Hit and Run.
For those of you who don’t remember, Road Rage was poorly received, and Sega sued Fox and EA because it played identically to Crazy Taxi. It would only be natural to assume Radical Entertainment’s next Simpsons outing wouldn’t fare much better.
However, the developers at Radical Entertainment learned their lessons. Instead of playing like Crazy Taxi but with a Matt Groening paint job, The Simpsons: Hit and Run is essentially an arcadey, open-world, mission-based game with hints of Grand Theft Auto.
More importantly, Hit and Run’s story was produced by The Simpsons’ writers, which is a boon many licensed games lack and gave the game that authentic Simpsons comedy feel.
South Park: The Stick of Truth
South Park might be a titan of a cartoon franchise, but it has even worse luck than The Simpsons when it comes to video games. Its first video game, simply called South Park, was a poorly received FPS, and subsequent titles never fared much better.
Many South Park fans had given up hope of a video game that replicated South Park’s brilliance, but then Ubisoft stepped in along with Obsidian Entertainment (the studio behind Fallout: New Vegas and The Outer Worlds) to create South Park: The Stick of Truth.
At a cursory glance, South Park: The Stick of Truth was designed from the ground up to make up for the prior South Park games’ lack of quality. It is smartly written, an absolute laugh riot, and uncensored out the wazoo (in the US, anyway).
Better yet, it’s a turn-based RPG, which is genre The Simpsons has yet to tackle, so everyone can stop making “Simpsons did it” jokes.
The Witcher
The Witcher might be a multi-media franchise now, but before 2001, it was little more than series of Polish stories that were virtually unknown outside of Poland. Heck, it wasn’t even called The Witcher. Early English translations went under the title The Hexer.
When CD Projekt approached Andrzej Sapkowski for the rights to develop a game based on his stories, he had no faith in the project, but then again his disgust for video games is well-documented.
Not helping matters was CD Projekt’s general lack of experience. The company had translated plenty of Western games into Polish, but that was about it. The closest the company came to producing a game before The Witcher was a canceled PC version of Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance.
Anyone who had heard of The Witcher and CD Projekt at the time probably asked if the company had the chops to produce their own proprietary video game, but the thirty-three million sold copies of Witcher games and the upcoming Netflix series (which is based on the books but wouldn’t exist without the game franchise’s popularity) demonstrate the team was amply qualified
Granted, the first The Witcher game features clunky combat and a cluttered menu interface, but its story, quests, and difficult decisions continue to immerse gamers to this day. CD Projekt (later, CD Projekt RED) only improved as time went on, and The Witcher 2 and 3 are widely regarded as some of the best RPGs ever made.
Alien: Isolation
Despite the reputation of the Alien franchise, Gearbox almost single-handedly destroyed our enthusiasm with Aliens: Colonial Marines. The game was a train wreck, from downgraded graphics to the infamously bad AI that was caused by one tiny typo.
Rumors of Gearbox funneling funds meant for Aliens: Colonial Marines into games like Borderlands 2 only furthered tarnished the game’s already sordid development story.
However, for as much damage as Colonial Marines did to the Alien legacy, Alien: Isolation repaired it and more. Instead of a mindless FPS where players fight brain-dead enemies, Isolation is a survival horror game that oozes a terrifying, claustrophobic atmosphere and love for the series.
Better yet, the titular Alien features an advanced AI that makes it truly unpredictable as it searches for players much like any real apex predator would.
One would assume a well-known survival horror developer was behind this masterpiece of a monster, but actually it’s Creative Assembly we have to thank, a studio best known for the Total War line of real-time strategy games.
Mad Max
On May 15th, 2015, Mad Max: Fury Road released in theaters to critical praise. Even though 20 years had passed since the last Mad Max movie hit theaters, it was clear the director and creator of the franchise, George Miller, had lost none of his mojo.
However, prior to Fury Road’s release, a tie-in game was announced. And, since good movie tie-in games are few and far between, it would have only been natural for audiences to assume this game would be the opposite of “a lovely day.”
That said, many gamers were excited for Mad Max, and for good reason. With Avalanche Studios behind the wheel, odds were good the game would deliver a solid experience where players could drive around an open world, meet tribes of car-worshiping bandits, and cause all sorts of chaos. And, wouldn’t you know it, that’s exactly what the studio delivered.
Plus, as it turns out, Mad Max isn’t actually a movie tie-in but instead a “standalone” title, so gamers who expected anything short of quality were basically fooling themselves, myself included.
50 Cent: Blood on the Sand
Usually, when gamers hear the term “licensed video game,” they think of a game based on movies, shows, anime, and comics. But rappers? That’s quite the stretch, but it didn’t stop 50 Cent and his crew from starring in their own line of video games.
The first title, 50 Cent: Bulletproof, was so poorly received that it’s basically worth fifty cents, but its sequel, 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand, shows a surprising amount of competence.
50 Cent: Blood on the Sand is essentially Gears of War: Gangsta Edition. Instead of fighting Locusts in a semi-futuristic world, players shoot Middle Eastern terrorists in an unnamed Middle Eastern country torn apart by war.
Just what are 50 Cent and his crew doing in that country, though? Performing a rap concert. Blood on the Sand doesn’t try to tell a gripping story; it’s just a popcorn flick of a video game set to 50 Cent’s music. The premise is stupid, and the game knows it.
Blood on the Sand isn’t exactly tongue-in-cheek, but it knows how to have fun, and that’s all we should ask from a game.
SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom
SpongeBob SquarePants’ creator Stephen Hillenburg might not be with us anymore, but his yellow magnum opus persists. SpongeBob SquarePants is arguably Nickelodeon’s most popular (and profitable) franchise, especially since it has been running since 1999.
As with other popular TV shows of the time, SpongeBob received its own series of video games, but virtually any gamer will tell you tie-in games for children’s TV shows tend to suck. Sadly, SpongeBob SquarePants was not immune to that particular curse, as it featured its own set of stinkers.
However, for all the bad SpongeBob SquarePants licensed games, SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom stands head and square shoulders above the rest. Battle for Bikini Bottom isn’t regarded as just a great SpongeBob game, though; many claim it’s great video game period that is on par with classics like Banjo-Kazooie and Super Mario.
Battle for Bikini Bottom features solid controls, a surprisingly decent story, and all the comedy the SpongeBob show is known for. I mean, if it wasn’t good, THQ Nordic wouldn’t bother to remake the game, right?
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