Hitman was meant to be ok, not great but ok.

Advent Children
/thread

There's quite a few that deserve to win this poll, but I nominate MK:A simply because it also ruined whatever coolness factor the 1st one had garnered. Movie games - bad. Movie game sequels - atrocious.

Advent Children was lame, sorry. It was just a difficult to follow as the source material and didn't really expand on the mythos so much as just do a row of cameos of all your favorite characters. The best VG movies aren't afraid of camp or innovation. Why wasn't Tomb Raider: Cradle of Life on your list? That movie was god-awful. Not the worst, but pretty damned bad.

It was a close call between Double Dragon and Mario but the two old plumbers took the win becase I remembered that it practically destroyed Dennis Hopper's career.

Advent Children sucked balls as well, The Spirits Within was worse though; talk about a bait and switch.

I had to go with Resident Evil. What's the best way to make sure your game-based movie sucks? Have the main character be someone who has never been in the game it's based on. I certainly can't empathize with Alice at all. I have no frickin' clue who the hell she is.

Mortal Kombat: Annihilation wasn't that bad IMO. Yeah, they messed up by not getting Christopher Lambert to return as Raiden, but it was still a decent movie.

And finally, why is DooM not on this list?! That movie sucked even worse than Resident Evil.

Well i can actually think of one good game film, Street Fighter the animated movie.
Every other game film does suck really badly tho.

irishdelinquent:
I had to go with Resident Evil. What's the best way to make sure your game-based movie sucks? Have the main character be someone who has never been in the game it's based on. I certainly can't empathize with Alice at all. I have no frickin' clue who the hell she is.

wasn't the producers fault - I heard they weren't allowed to use the in game characters

I went with Bloodrayne. I know they're all bloody awful, but Bloodrayne was the only one I didn't watch all the way through (although I never saw Double Dragon...). Uwe Boll has made some god-awful films; Alone in the Dark was terrible as well.

What I fail to understand is why they keep giving him these big game franchises just so he can ruin them.

That being said, I will give him mad props for having the balls to back up his work; the whole boxing match thing was quite amusing.

Next up is FarCry, and you KNOW it's gonna be terrible...

lordcabal:
Well i can actually think of one good game film, Street Fighter the animated movie.
Every other game film does suck really badly tho.

True the animated movie is damn good.

People just don't get the idea, you Can Not successfully transfer a book or game to film format because it just doesn't work. Look at Eragon, brilliant book yet abismal film and game transformation.

I actually liked the Resident Evil movie, the first one at least, if only because it didn't strictly adhere to the plot of the game world it was based on.

Advent Children was cool only for the fight scenes, which were pretty damned epic. Other than that though, yeah, it was a pretty bad movie.

Other than those two, I haven't actually seen any video game based movies, since I tend to avoid them like the plague unless I hear a good review about it.

Dont know about books mate. there are others out there other than Eragon you know.

Yeah, great films like Shawshank Repemption, Green Mile, The Shining, Clockwork Orange, Lord of the Rings, the Godfather, Fight Club etc were based on books. Sorry Flytch but you are definitely wrong.

I think games have the potential to be converted into other decent media but I don't think directors have gotten the knack of converting games themes and methods into films.

Flytch:
People just don't get the idea, you Can Not successfully transfer a book or game to film format because it just doesn't work. Look at Eragon, brilliant book yet abismal film and game transformation.

1) Eragon wasn't a book. It was a compilation of other authors' writings, composed by a 15-year old. If you've read any other fantasy novels, or even some science-fiction for that matter, it's obvious he stole everything. How else do you come up with the "Hadarac Desert"?

2) Lord of the Rings. The Godfather. Fight Club. Barry Lyndon. Gone with the Wind. No Country for Old Men. See, there are good movies based off of books.

Award Winning Movies based off books. You know what game would make a great movie? Heavenly Sword.

If done right.

From what I've seen, it's impossible to make a successful game-based movie. I mean, it's easy to make a good movie, but we're such arseholes that if Quentin Tarantino made a faithful adaptation of HL2 with only slight tweaks to the plot to make it work from a movie point of view there would still be those who berated for some reason or other. We're a tough crowd to please.

REDPill357:

Flytch:
People just don't get the idea, you Can Not successfully transfer a book or game to film format because it just doesn't work. Look at Eragon, brilliant book yet abismal film and game transformation.

1) Eragon wasn't a book. It was a compilation of other authors' writings, composed by a 15-year old. If you've read any other fantasy novels, or even some science-fiction for that matter, it's obvious he stole everything. How else do you come up with the "Hadarac Desert"?

2) Lord of the Rings. The Godfather. Fight Club. Barry Lyndon. Gone with the Wind. No Country for Old Men. See, there are good movies based off of books.

Don't forget Jaws.

Advent Children rocked. Anyways...

Books to film work because they're such different mediums.

Games and films, however, are remarkably similar. You watch them both on your tellybox, they both rely on visual and aural methods of entertainment. Videogames just happen to be more interactive than films. The reason most VG films don't work is because it's like watching over someone's shoulder as they play a game. The interactivity, the only thing that differentiates games and films, has disappeared.

If film-studios must insist on making VG films, I'd suggest a different approach. Games like Half-Life and Halo are already so wildly popular that any attempt at a movie based on them is doomed to fail. No matter how good the Halo film is, it won't be as good as the final level of CE.

So, I'd suggest studios look at other games for inspiration. The ones that aren't as popular. The ones that had potential, but blew it and got critically panned on release. Take their stinking carcasses, and from them sculpt something good. Take Big Rigs, and turn it into a gritty, Tarantino-esque tale about the perils of being an 18 wheel-driver. Take Turning Point: Fall Of Liberty and from it craft a poignant tale about the perils of war, fascism and the like. After all, Chronicles Of Riddick was a godawful film, but a damn impressive game. Why can't this work in reverse?

Wishful thinking, I know, but ah well...

I was annoyed by Advent Children as well.... Just a long fight scene that wasn't even that interesting to me... Okay, Cloud can ride his motorcycle in reverse at 90 MPH, while swordfighting... I'll pass.

It's odd that 'House of the Dead' (Boll at it again...) is not on that list

Doom comes to mind.
You just cannot take that movie nor story in the game serious.
While the movie was no where near as good as Doom III the game, it is pretty good for game-to-movie-standards.

If you think movies based on videogames are bad, try out GAMES based on MOVIES based on a GAME.

i.e Street Fighter The Movie - The Game based on Street Fighter: The Movie, based on Street Fighter II - the game...

Lost in Translation?

Resident Evil : Extinction wasn't on that list, so I really couldn't pick one and get away with a clean conscience.

After having re-watched D.O.A, I think it needs to be taken off the list. As bad as the "acting" was (and believe me, it was bad) it's probably the best parallel to the game. Girls fighting in skimpy outfits is what D.O.A is all about. Plus they worked in D.O.A volleyball. Finally, the movie was saved solely by the humour of Kevin Nash.

How did House of the Dead not make the list?

In fact, no Uwe Boll movies made that list.

For the record, though, In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale was a noble effort.

Edit: My bad, Bloodrayne was Uwe Boll. And it WAS fucking atrocious.

Super Mario Bros. takes the cake here. Bad adaptation, complete departure from the actual characterization, unnecessary cinematic, it's all here.

j-e-f-f-e-r-s:
Games and films, however, are remarkably similar. You watch them both on your tellybox, they both rely on visual and aural methods of entertainment. Videogames just happen to be more interactive than films. The reason most VG films don't work is because it's like watching over someone's shoulder as they play a game. The interactivity, the only thing that differentiates games and films, has disappeared.

That isn't the reason most of them suck, they suck because they take the source material and crap all over it. Then they usually throw in bad acting and horrible effects and anything else they can do to change as much as they can from the original source material.

What does it say about me that I enjoyed Wing Commander, Dead or Alive and Resident Evil Apocalypse?
To be fair all of them sucked, but I found ways to enjoy them. With Wing Commander it was a combination of youth and special effect ridden fight scenes. For DoA, it was my entire group of friends convincing me it was silly fun and enough viewings to bash me into submission. With RE it was drunkeness, zombies and Milla Jovovich, and still only barely.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say SpyHunter, the game that was made into a movie, that then went into development 'limbo', AKA Development Hell.

The game based on the movie still hit shelves, which is rather funny.

The fact that list isn't a tribute to Uwe Boll surprises me.

I remember when IGN did the April Fools article on the Metroid live-action film to be directed by him... that was balls-to-the-wall scary.

see, there are a few decent game movies out there. Super Mario Bros is at the very least entertaining and at the most one of the best 90's pop culture snapshots we could hope for. I didn't mind the first Resident Evil or the first Mortal Kombat, but the big problem here is the blurring of genres. Games are becoming more like films anyway. A lot of the reason early game movies sucked is because there WAS no story to be had, so they had to build it from scratch.

that said, nothing ever translates so well from one medium to another. I mean LOTR was a fine achievement, but it's not as good as the books. (sin city, which was essentially shot frame by frame from the books is an exception) People are going to continue to make crappy game movies as long as people like you and me keep giving them the impression its a good idea. If you've been burned before, stay away now. its as simple as that

Moe The Bus Driver:

REDPill357:

Flytch:
People just don't get the idea, you Can Not successfully transfer a book or game to film format because it just doesn't work. Look at Eragon, brilliant book yet abismal film and game transformation.

1) Eragon wasn't a book. It was a compilation of other authors' writings, composed by a 15-year old. If you've read any other fantasy novels, or even some science-fiction for that matter, it's obvious he stole everything. How else do you come up with the "Hadarac Desert"?

2) Lord of the Rings. The Godfather. Fight Club. Barry Lyndon. Gone with the Wind. No Country for Old Men. See, there are good movies based off of books.

Don't forget Jaws.

I wasn't aware that Paolini had stolen others ideas but now I think about it you have a valid point. Do not mistake me for someone with little knowledge of books. I have read and own the lord of the rings books and just today bought a Pratchett (Thud) and the His Dark Materials Trilogy. I accept that I was rash in my comment and should have been more specific in my answer but certainly in recent years there has been a fad for taking popular teen books and savaging them in film format.