Licenced Games - A Celebration

[JamesC]

I recently picked up a copy of WayForward's Batman: The Brave and the Bold tie-in game on the Wii and I'm having a blast with it.
It got me thinking about this perceived wisdom that says licenced games are generally rubbish and I've realised I don't actually agree with that at all. In fact I'd go so far as to say that the ratio of good to bad licenced games is probably equal to that of games in general.
Does anyone else think that licenced games get an unfairly bad rap?

I could spend all day talking about the licenced games I've loved but suffice to say I've picked up plenty on all the systems I've owned since the Speccy days and, while there were undoubtedly some duds, there have also been a fair share of greats (and I'll play any Spider-Man or James Bond game, which are almost always good fun 7/10 fare).
 

I suspect the 'licened games are crap' thing comes from the likes of ET on the 2600 and those notorious LJN games on the NES. But even back in those early days there were cool licenced games being made for other systems.

If you like licenced games, what are some of your favourites? Particualarly ones you think got an unfairly negative reception.

[Thor]

Well, there's the infamous Robocop game on C64 that had a level that was impossible to get past, because getting any further would cause the game to crash, or something. Someone else tells that better in another thread.

[JamesC]

35 minutes ago, Thor said:

Well, there's the infamous Robocop game on C64 that had a level that was impossible to get past, because getting any further would cause the game to crash, or something. Someone else tells that better in another thread.

Yeah, but for every Robocop on the C64, which may have been rubbish, there's a Cobra on the Speccy which was amazing.

 

Actually, I have very fond memories of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Batman on C64, so there definitely were some decent licenced games on there.

[phillv85]

I always got the impression that 'Licensed games are crap' comes from (in the more modern era at least) all of the cartoons and kids movies that get turned into games. They're not necessarily bad but there definitely is an element of cashing in still. 

 

On the flip side, if someone makes a game in the 4-7/10 range with the Fist of the North Star license you bet I'm buying it, so it's not like people are always disappointed with the games, just that the license doesn't appeal to everyone. 

 

Some of my personal favourites that are probably not universally liked:
 

Fist of the North Star on Famicom

Fist of the North Star on the Mega Drive (Last Battle over here, although without the license it's properly shit)

Attack on Titan on PS4

Jurassic Park and Rampage Edition on Mega Drive 

Terminator on Mega Drive

Space Hulk on Saturn

Necromunda Hired Gun

 

Then the more well regarded ones that aren't Goldeneye level of popularity:

 

Marvel and Capcom crossovers (X-Men vs. Street Fighter being my personal fave)

Warhammer 40k Dawn of War 

Tatsunoko vs Capcom

Fist of the North Star arcade

South Park: Stick of Truth

Cadillacs and Dinosaurs arcade

 

There's loads more in both categories, but it's safe to say I'm not averse to a licensed game where I like the license, even if I have to accept that I'll probably be getting a middling experience.

[routeburn]

 

I loved Cobra on ZX Spectrum for some reason. Reviews were all over the place, from poor to the Crash Smash (93%): https://www.crashonline.org.uk/35/cobra.htm

I agree that it was similar to Green Beret, which I also loved.

 

Cover art:

 

Spoiler

 

[Made of Ghosts]

I had a great time with the Peter Jackson King Kong game. And Treasure’s Astro Boy. I actually think the days of “licensed games are shit” are basically over. Of course lots of them are still shit but there’s enough good ones that you can’t really draw a correlation any more. 

[moosegrinder]

Batman The Movie on Spectrum. God, that's probably top ten ever that. I loved it. And the soundtrack was fantastic.

 

 

 

I mean, you might not think so if you hate the spectrums sound chip.

[b00dles]

I played loads of the alien 3 games on both game boy and game gear back in the day. Both totally different games but actually pretty good. 

 

And as we're all old, I'm sure a lot of us played loads and loads of terrible U.S. Gold licensed games and the many, many platform games that had a tie in.  Some of those did turn out to be good though, pugsleys adventure, the aladdin and lion King games for instance.

 

Also all of those weird ones like cool spot (which in hindsight is still the most amazing brand character. The red dot on the logo... ).

[LowCostMonkey]

Robocop 1, 2 & 3 on the Amiga were great (with 3 being particularly underrated) and Batman was the main reason I got an Amiga. Ghostbusters 2 was was also great. I think what I really liked about those games is that they weren't just platformers all the way through, they had different game modes to represent different parts of the film. They actually put thought into it.

 

I remember really liking Howard The Duck on the Amstrad which was apparently actually rubbish. I loved it but I was 6 years old and probably thought the Real Ghostbusters were better than the actual Ghostbusters (I didn't).

[b00dles]

1 minute ago, LowCostMonkey said:

Robocop 1, 2 & 3 on the Amiga were great (with 3 being particularly underrated) and Batman was the main reason I got an Amiga. Ghostbusters 2 was was also great. I think what I really liked about those games is that they weren't just platformers all the way through, they had different game modes to represent different parts of the film. They actually put thought into it.

 

I remember really liking Howard The Duck on the Amstrad which apparently actually rubbish. I loved it but I was 6 years old and probably thought the Real Ghostbusters were better than the actual Ghostbusters (I didn't).

The puzzle bits on that batman game were annoying in my memory but maybe I was too young to get it but yeah you're right, the fact it mixed it up was great. 

 

Using your bat grapple on the lamp posts in the driving bit was awesome though. 

[Girth Certificate]

The real golden age of the abysmal licensed game was in the early days of mobile gaming. it seemed like every movie got a completely broken piece of shit to download via WAP to your W800 phone.

[Triple A]

Arkham Asylum, obvs.

[Down by Law]

Terminator on the Mega CD ! The run and gun action is great fun, and the pixel art, animation and soundtrack kicks major ass!

 

 

other licensed games i've really enjoyed

 

Robocop Vs Terminator (Mega Drive)

Aladdin (Mega Drive)

Die Hard Arcade and Die Hard Trilogy 

The Warriors 

Alien Isolation 

The Batman Arkham Series

Mad Max (PS4)

Spider Man (PS4)

 

Also that new Turtles game looks pretty awesome but I'm waiting on the physical release.

[JamesC]

5 minutes ago, Triple A said:

Arkham Asylum, obvs.

Arkham Asylum was ace but I think there have been a fair few great Batman games - I enjoyed all the 8-bit computer ones (the isometric one, the Caped Crusader one and the movie one), the NES one, the Gameboy one, Batman Returns on SNES, Batman and Robin on the Megadrive.

[matt0]

The Amiga / DOS era Indiana Jones games where they'd put out an adventure game and an action game for each title represent both ends of the spectrum. The action games are proper shite. The Last Crusade adventure game was great at the time and Fate Of Atlantis is a classic.

[Sprite Machine]

Circa 20 years ago, it was movie tie-in games that were the ones to avoid, with the odd exception (Spider-Man 2). You don't really get them nowadays, probably because games take four times longer to make than they did on the PS2.

 

[Qazimod]

On 06/07/2022 at 10:21, JamesC said:

If you like licenced games, what are some of your favourites? Particualarly ones you think got an unfairly negative reception

 

Not sure if it counts but 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand was more fun than it had any right to be - although building itself around The Club's template obviously helped.

 

 

[b00dles]

Oh another alien related one for me actually; the amiga game of aliens that had a dungeon master first person flick screen scrolling and you could switch to the other mounted cameras of the crew on the ship.

 

It was fucking terrifying to me as a kid watching either face huggers or actual xeno's walk along a bit and then turn to camera and that's it. 

 

I'm sure it was terrible but had great atmosphere for the time. 

 

 

Oh and the skips tie in action biker was somehow a licensed game. I guess? But I played that loads. 

[SF-02]

There were a couple of great 007 games in the early 2000s. Nightfire was one I think. Agent under fire the other?

 

Wasn't Goldeneye so reviewed poorly.

[Keyboard Koala]

There's definitely been some great licensed games over the years. Of the top of my head there's been The Terminator on the MD, Terminator 2 arcade, Alien Trilogy on the PSOne, Die Hard Arcade, GoldenEye on the N64, Astro Boy on the GBA, The TMNT arcade games, and on PS3 and PS4 we've had Transformers Devastation, Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise, Berserk and the Band of the Hawk, AoT: Wings of Freedom, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle.

[Captain Kelsten]

I enjoyed a lot of licensed games as a kid, mostly in the Gameboy and Snes days

Gameboy

Robocop

Bill and Ted’s Excellent Gameboy Adventure

Hook

Gremlins 2

Terminator 2

Jurassic Park

Batman

 

SNES

Indiana Jones trilogy

Super Star Wars/Empire/Jedi

Jurassic Park

Alien 3

 

N64

GoldenEye

 

Gamecube

Spider-Man 2

Rogue Squadron 

 

Probably a few more across the various formats but those are the ones which immediately sprang to mind! 

 

 

[b00dles]

Hook on the amiga was the most brazen monkey Island clone that's ever existed. I can't remember the GB version of it though...

 

Good list though, that T2 game boy game was great and bloody nails in memory but still remember that I finished it because it was that hard to do!

[moosegrinder]

Robocop Vs Terminator on megadrive was far better than it had any right to be.

[Stoppy2000]

Aliens on the C64 was proper scary. A real brown trousers game. 

[b00dles]

6 minutes ago, Stoppy2000 said:

Aliens on the C64 was proper scary. A real brown trousers game. 

Oh it was c64 not even amiga

 

 

[Stoppy2000]

Just now, b00dles said:

Oh it was c64 not even amiga

 

 

Yeah I remember it was free on the Commodore Format coverage. I was still too young to have seen the film but there were playground tales about it. I think having not seen the film actually made it more scary. I think it's actually not a bad game - but like most games in that era it is rock solid. 

[b00dles]

40 minutes ago, Stoppy2000 said:

Yeah I remember it was free on the Commodore Format coverage. I was still too young to have seen the film but there were playground tales about it. I think having not seen the film actually made it more scary. I think it's actually not a bad game - but like most games in that era it is rock solid. 

I think we had it yarr'd tbh and yeah I was too young to have seen the film when I first played it but I knew the names of the crew when I finally did.

The film had a lot less "getting rid of alien goop on the wall to reveal doors" than the game did too 

[Ry]

Loved these games

 

I remember stealing jotters from school just so I could map out the levels in Rambo 3 on graph paper. That game was a pain but loved it. 

 

 

[Azrael]

There was definitely a time (PS2/GameCube era) when it seemed every movie got a lazy tie in game which I think caused a lot the "Licensed game = shit" opinions, likewise all the shovelware that the Wii saw didn't help but there's been some great Licensed games in every generation. Have a lot of fond memories playing licenced games as a kid.

 

NES

Ducktales

Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers

Turtles

Krusty's Fun House

Darkwing Duck

Gremlins 2

 

SNES

Batman Returns

Super Star Wars series

Aladdin 

Jungle Book 

Lion King

Alien 3

Animaniacs 

Tiny Toon Adventures

The Spiderman games

 

MegaDrive 

Castle of Illusion 

World of Illusion 

Quackshot 

Taz-Mania

Robocop 3

 

N64

Goldeneye 

South Park

Mission Impossible 

Star Wars: Rogue Squadron

Turok: Dinosaur Hunter

[Down by Law]

43 minutes ago, Ry said:

 

 

I really liked this, and the Ghostbusters game from the same era too.

 

I present the most depressing tune ever commited to 16 bits: