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Live-Action TV
Adam Sessler: Morgan and I sometimes get a bad rap from anime fans. They think we don't like anime games.
Morgan Webb: Which isn't true. We just don't like games that suck. And coincidentally, most anime games suck.
Morgan Webb: Which isn't true. We just don't like games that suck. And coincidentally, most anime games suck.
— X-Play review of Super Dragon Ball Z
Magazines
...and why bother when the dumb saps will buy a box of dismembered dog's organs as long as it's got the film poster on the box?
— Stuart Campbell, Amiga Power, "Ready For Your Close-Up"
Game publishers seem to think that having a recognizable brand name will hypnotize players into ignoring bad graphics or nonexistent gameplay. History has repeatedly proven them wrong... Part of the problem is that every dollar spent on acquiring the license is money not put into making a fun game.
— "Richard Del Medio" (pseudonym of Blues Brothers 2000 developer Jared Baierschmidt), Electronic Gaming Monthly, "How Bad Games Get Made"
), Electronic Gaming Monthly, "How Bad Games Get Made"Let's be honest, you'd be disappointed if you flicked through an issue of ONM and didn't find your monthly 'rubbish movie-licensed game review' fix. We wouldn't be surprised if there were actually more movie tie-ins than there are actual films themselves, yet we can count on one hand the number of licensed games that are actually any good. Most of them are soulless, money-spinning, generic pap.
— Chris Scullion, Official Nintendo Magazine Issue 07 (September 2006), leading a review for a Game Boy Advance game based on The Ant Bully
, leading a review for a Game Boy Advance game based on The Ant Bully Video Games
Strong Bad: Say it with me, The Cheat: Licensed video games are never good.
Rick: The game developers have put a whole bunch of portals all over the house and we gotta get rid of em all!
Morty: What are you talking about, Rick? I mean, that doesn't even make sense about how...the-the-there'd be a bunch of portals all around the house, you know?
Rick: Listen, Morty. This is just a licensed game, Morty! It's a licensed game...It had to...be made quick!
— Rick and Morty's Rushed Licensed Adventure
Web Original
The studios want them to be commercials, the game designers haven't seen the movie yet and the only people who buy them are confused grandparents late for a birthday party.
Everything in Dick Tracy seems deliberately crafted to be as agonizing and unfun as possible...the NES game is best fitted with concrete galoshes and sunk to the bottom of the lake nearest to you.
—Sotenga on Dick Tracy (1990)
Dick Tracy (1990)While bad movies often make bad games, it's when a great movie spawns an interactive atrocity when things hit rock bottom.
—Gametrailers, Top Ten Worst Movie Games
Presumably Sega took a look at the Famicom catalog and note that games based on cartoons were supposed to be slapdash, generic affairs.
—Doctor Sparkle, Chrontendo, on Zillion II: The Tri Formation
, Chrontendo, on Zillion II: The Tri FormationThey don't make games like this very often anymore, but there's a good reason for that. Because people wised up about buying licensed games when they were full retail titles. Let's hope they're still smart enough to do it when they're $10.
—Ben Jones of PSNStores.com, on R.I.P.D.: The Video Game
Making games was an experimental process in 1989, even more so than today, when so many established formulas have proven successful. Couple that creative spirit with antiquated tech like the then 6-year-old Famicom, and developers had to be imaginative in how they brought movies to life as games. "Imaginative" is putting it gently, in fact. They had to get weird.
Wrestling and video games have been married together for nearly 35 years. With that being the case, how is it that wrestling games have never seemed to improve since the heyday of the Nintendo 64? Never has that been more true than with WWE 2K20, a game that was so amazingly broken that it boggles ones mind that it was ever released. The GIFs alone have made it the stuff of legend. And just when we thought it couldn't get worse we learn that on January 1, 2020, the game simply STOPPED WORKING! I'd note that was incredibly slopping programming, but maybe it was just the company's way of trying to save everyone from such an atrocious game.
Web Video
"What's he catching hearts for? I suppose it's like in the movie where Lorraine has a crush on Marty. Why isn't he avoiding the hearts then? Oh, I see. I guess he's catching them in a book or something. It's the most literal interpretation of a movie. 'It's about time, so let's have clocks! It's about romance, let's have hearts!' Was this game designed by a human being?"
—The Angry Video Game Nerd on Back to the Future for the NES
Stallone footage: C'mon, is this the best you can do?
Noah: It's clearly not the best you can do! What would you say if I told you I would rather watch Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot and Cobra in a double-feature than watch a single one of your half-hearted, improvised attempts to rack your stupid caveman brain for a witty insult?
Noah: It's clearly not the best you can do! What would you say if I told you I would rather watch Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot and Cobra in a double-feature than watch a single one of your half-hearted, improvised attempts to rack your stupid caveman brain for a witty insult?
—The Spoony Experiment plays Demolition Man (the game)
"Ocean truly realized how lucrative these licenses could be, and started buying up everything they could get their grubby little mitts on... The games weren't bad, but people quickly grew tired of them because they were damn near identical... Basically, Ocean's games started to feel as if they were coming off an assembly line, and they also ended up making games that were just flat-out total shit... Although they still produced some cracking arcade conversions and original titles around this time, the licensed games are largely what most people remember about them anyhow, because they continued to pump them out to the bitter end of the 8-bit machines and beyond, by which time their once pristine reputation had taken a hell of a beating."
— Kimble Justice on Ocean Software, "The A-Z of Licensed Games: Navy Seals"
""The NES Simpsons games were such a steaming ass pile squirted out the diseased dickhole of my arch nemesis LJN in disguise! Acclaim was able to pass off their putrid piss poison as presents, ruining Christmas for lots of kids!"
—The Angry Video Game Nerd on The Simpsons games for the NES
"I'm not referring to any title in particular when I say this, but purely as a generalization... Licensed games, with some exceptions, have a bit of reputation for not being as fun as "regular" games. People have been saying that since the NES and even before—since the 1980s, in other words. But if we're judging them solely on fun, I think it's only natural that licensed titles might not be able to measure up to the rest."
