What franchises have the best and worst licensed games?

[Prowler]

I guess The Simpsons is the first example of bad licensed games in general? What even is the ratio of good:bad Simpsons games? It seems to me that nearly every single Simpsons game is either mediocre or flat out trash. I grew up with Bart vs. The Space Mutants and Bart vs. the World on the NES. Those are not good video games, even if I had some fun with them. Bart's Nightmare (SNES) is a little better but still rather mediocre.

As a big One Piece fan, it saddens me a little how the amount of good One Piece games isn't very big compared to the amount of good DBZ video games. Pirate Warriors 3 and 4 are fun and all, especially 3, but they're not masterpieces by any means. Hell, they're not better games than the Hyrule Warriors games or even Fire Emblem Warriors, imo.

Surprisingly, Tiny Toon Adventures had a really good track record of video game tie-ins. NES Tiny Toons, Buster Busts Loose (SNES), ACME All-Stars (Mega Drive) and Wacky Sports Challenge (SNES), Buster's Hidden Treasure (Mega Drive) and Babs' Big Break (Game Boy) are all very fun and solid games.

TMNT? Eh... hit and miss? The best TMNT games were made during the Turtlemania days, really. Shredder's Revenge is pretty good as far as modern TMNT games go.

[Andrew NDB]

Electronic Arts.

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

Electronic Arts.

I'm ALL FOR sh*tting on EA at any given chance, but that's not what I'm asking in this thread

[sdp]

Simpsons had some pretty good games in the 2000s. People constantly ask for Hit & Run remaster. Road Rage was a more entertaining Crazy Taxi because of the characters. The Simpsons game was no Mario but it was a decent enough platformer.

People forget that with licensed games half the fun was playing the characters you loved in a game, so it didn't need to be the best game ever to love it. Turtles in Time is a great beat em up because we love the turtles, that automatically makes it better than some random Streets of Ragers even if that one could be the better game. Sadly licensed games are dead now for the most part as development is too expensive for shovelware, so we don't get those gems anymore. Sure a lot of them were mediocre or bad but some could be a lot of fun or some could take the essence of the show/movie.

Are any of the Scooby Doo games fun?

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Prowler

I'm ALL FOR sh*tting on EA at any given chance, but that's not what I'm asking in this thread

Sorry, that's my answer for anything a bit sh** in video games.

But I don't know. Terminator has had some crap games.

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by sdp

Simpsons had some pretty good games in the 2000s. People constantly ask for Hit & Run remaster. Road Rage was a more entertaining Crazy Taxi because of the characters. The Simpsons game was no Mario but it was a decent enough platformer.

People forget that with licensed games half the fun was playing the characters you loved in a game, so it didn't need to be the best game ever to love it. Turtles in Time is a great beat em up because we love the turtles, that automatically makes it better than some random Streets of Ragers even if that one could be the better game. Sadly licensed games are dead now for the most part as development is too expensive for shovelware, so we don't get those gems anymore. Sure a lot of them were mediocre or bad but some could be a lot of fun or some could take the essence of the show/movie.

Are any of the Scooby Doo games fun?

Maybe, but there's a ton of Simpsons games. You gave 2 examples of good Simpsons games that came out in the 2000s already. They've been making Simpsons games since the NES days. a few good games in an ocean of mediocre and crappy games is not a good track record.

Well, yeah, of course. I know the console versions of TMNT 2 Battle Nexus are not good at all, but I did have fun with that game on the GameCube as a teen just because it was Ninja Turtles. Also, the characters and the license can only carry a game to a certain degree. Turtles in Time in itself is a good game. Even if it's not better than the best Streets of Rage or Final Fight games. Had Turtles in Time been a game for a new video game series of the beat 'em genre, it would have been considered a good game too, even if it might have ended up being rather obscure.

Never played any of the Scooby-Doo games, so I can't say.

What about Looney Tunes games? Sunsoft made a couple of good ones for the SNES like Duck Dodgers and Rabbit Rampage. Those were fun games.

[neatoman]

The Atari 2600 version of ET is considered one of the absolute worst games ever made and the other game based on the movie... Uh... Has its own weird controversy. So I guess ET is a contender for the worst?

[sdp]

Well to be fair the last 3 simpsons games basically were the good ones, EA which already mentioned in this thread just milked Springfield Tapped Out on mobile for the last 15 years before finally shutting it down. If the franchise wasn't already dead perhaps we'd see more games. But then again it's a sitcom it's not like they lend themselves to a video game well.

I think WB characters had some decent games in the 90s right? Bugs Bunny had a bunch of those crazy castle games which people liked, and people always play that road runner PS1 game on twitch. People also seemed to love the Mickey Mouse platformer games on Genesis and the ones on SNES too which were different. Never played any Bugs/Mickey so I really can't say.

Personally I love some of the Jurassic Park games that they've made. the VR game that came out was good. The Park Builders are fun as well. The ones from the 90s? Hit or miss, ironically usually the Game Boy Game Gear ones were the best ones. I do think the music of the Ocean one is top tier though.

For fans of Teen Titans I love the Gamecube game, it's just an ok beat em up but it tells an original story, has the characters act like they do in the show, the voices, overall it feels like the show. Didn't need to be the best game ever.

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by neatoman

The Atari 2600 version of ET is considered one of the absolute worst games ever made and the other game based on the movie... Uh... Has its own weird controversy. So I guess ET is a contender for the worst?

I have never played that game. And honestly, I'm not sure if it truly is as bad as people say it is or if its bad reputation mostly comes from being blamed for the video game crash in the early 80s.

Even when AVGN reviewed it in the movie, he wasn't that harsh on it, despite ceremoniously being so scared to even utter the game's name while leading to it. And AVGN is known for exaggerating the flaws of many of the games he reviews. The fact he's rather mild on E.T. for the Atari 2600 tells me it might actually not be nearly as bad as people say it is...

[IMJ]

The Attack On Titan games on the PS4 are terrific.
Any Marvel game is a crapshoot - you could get an amazing game like the Marvel Ultimate Alliance stuff or not....
Batman: Arkham Asylum and Arkham City were amazing
Battlechasers was really good actually...
Batman Returns on the SNES was awesome.

[Barkworm]

"South Park: The stick of truth" was the last game I ever played. I loved it.

[oldmanwinters]

Good Licensed Games Overall:
TMNT
Batman
McDonald's (yes, the fast-food place)
Walt Disney animated movies/shows
Nickelodeon characters and shows
Spider-man
Star Wars
Alien/Aliens
Marvel's Avengers
Die Hard (I'm counting Sega's Dynamite Cop which couldn't quite secure the license)
Garfield
The Flintstones
The NBA (but probably in a slump since 2K doesn't have enough competition)
Daytona International Speedway

Bad Licensed Games Overall:
He-Man & the Masters of the Universe
Superman
Looney Tunes (maybe more "meh-to-mid" than out-right terrible)
Tom & Jerry
Cartoon Network original-content shows
The Incredible Hulk ( probably more "meh-to-mid")
Star Trek
Indiana Jones
Robocop/Terminator
DC's Justice League
Rocky (and probably every Sly Stallone movie)
The Karate Kid/Cobra Kai
Home Alone
Peanuts
Scooby-Doo
The NFL (since the EA exclusivity buy-out)
Indianapolis Motor Speedway

Weird Mixed Bag:
X-Men (Capcom fighters almost single-handedly save the series with some respect for effort by Sega in the 1990s)
Popeye
Ghostbusters (started out rough but seems to have gotten respectable)
Jurassic Park (started out well, has gotten lamer just like the movie series)
The NHL

We Made a Game Once-or-Twice:
The Three Stooges
Felix the Cat
The Jetsons
Yogi Bear
Dominos Pizza
Burger King

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by sdp

Well to be fair the last 3 simpsons games basically were the good ones, EA which already mentioned in this thread just milked Springfield Tapped Out on mobile for the last 15 years before finally shutting it down. If the franchise wasn't already dead perhaps we'd see more games. But then again it's a sitcom it's not like they lend themselves to a video game well.

I think WB characters had some decent games in the 90s right? Bugs Bunny had a bunch of those crazy castle games which people liked, and people always play that road runner PS1 game on twitch. People also seemed to love the Mickey Mouse platformer games on Genesis and the ones on SNES too which were different. Never played any Bugs/Mickey so I really can't say.

Personally I love some of the Jurassic Park games that they've made. the VR game that came out was good. The Park Builders are fun as well. The ones from the 90s? Hit or miss, ironically usually the Game Boy Game Gear ones were the best ones. I do think the music of the Ocean one is top tier though.

For fans of Teen Titans I love the Gamecube game, it's just an ok beat em up but it tells an original story, has the characters act like they do in the show, the voices, overall it feels like the show. Didn't need to be the best game ever.

Well, most cartoons/games/movies/comics don't have a lot of material to work with when it comes to video games except if they're action series.

Garfield has had many different games. Including a Mario Kart ripoff. Caught in thr Act for the Mega Drive is fine but rather rough and difficult. And it's not like Garfield would ever have the drive and energy to do what he does in that game.

Crazy Castle? I reviewed the first one on the NES. It's actually not a bad game. Don't care about the others. No need for them to have made what, 5 of them?

Originally Posted by IMJ

The Attack On Titan games on the PS4 are terrific.
Any Marvel game is a crapshoot - you could get an amazing game like the Marvel Ultimate Alliance stuff or not....
Batman: Arkham Asylum and Arkham City were amazing
Battlechasers was really good actually...
Batman Returns on the SNES was awesome.

Batman games? NES Batman by Sunsoft is pretty good too.

Batman Returns? Is that the beat 'em up one? It's alright.

Originally Posted by Barkworm

"South Park: The stick of truth" was the last game I ever played. I loved it.

There's a South park game for the N64. People seemed to like it back in the day. I haven't played it myself, though.

[FredWolfLeonardo]

I dunno if this counts, but Pepsi of all companies has a banger of a game on the PS1, appropriately called Pepsiman.

It was such an obscure game back in the day, released only in Japan (but available in various places like the Middle East via pirating). The game itself is alot of fun, functioning kind of like Templerun with the title superhero traversing through the likes of deserts and cities.

Seeing the game become a popular meme nowadays is so cool, because I was one of the OGs who knew about this super obscure game for a long time.

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by FredWolfLeonardo

I dunno if this counts, but Pepsi of all companies has a banger of a game on the PS1, appropriately called Pepsiman.

It was such an obscure game back in the day, released only in Japan (but available in various places like the Middle East via pirating). The game itself is alot of fun, functioning kind of like Templerun with the title superhero traversing through the likes of deserts and cities.

Seeing the game become a popular meme nowadays is so cool, because I was one of the OGs who knew about this super obscure game for a long time.

How much did AVGN exaggerate about its negative aspects in his review of it?

[Andrew NDB]

I think you kind of have to go back to the 90s or early 2000s to find real stinkers of licensed games. The first thing to pop into my head was "Bram Stoker's Dracula" for SNES. Or any of the various movie-to-games rushed out at the time.

[oldmanwinters]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

I think you kind of have to go back to the 90s or early 2000s to find real stinkers of licensed games. The first thing to pop into my head was "Bram Stoker's Dracula" for SNES. Or any of the various movie-to-games rushed out at the time.

I haven't played through them but the Genesis and Sega CD version of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein seem interesting.

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

I think you kind of have to go back to the 90s or early 2000s to find real stinkers of licensed games. The first thing to pop into my head was "Bram Stoker's Dracula" for SNES. Or any of the various movie-to-games rushed out at the time.

No wonder GoldenEye on the Nintendo 64 was so groundbreaking. Not only it was an amazing game for its time, it was also a very rare case of a game based on a movie that was not only good, but outstanding.

How many poor kids grew up with games like Jaws, Roger Rabbit and Ghostbusters on the NES?

[CyberCubed]

Konami. We're on a TMNT forum of all things. They also made the Simpsons arcade game, Batman and Robin on SNES and the classic Tiny Tunes games as said above.

[Wildcat]

I have The Simpsons Game, Road Rage and Hit and Run. All 3 good. I have Bart’s Nightmare. Fine but pretty hard imo.

I have Jurassic Park on Genesis. It’s good. The NES game was fine too I guess but I could never get passed the first level. I was too young. Traded it away.

The Disney Genesis games are good. The ones I’ve played/have anyway. Castle and World of Illusion, Great Circus Mystery, Quackshot, Mickey Mania, Aladdin. Epic Mickey too. Haven’t tried Rebrushed.

(I love that both Mickey and Sonic have a game named Mania where they travel through past locations)

Surprisingly I have no TMNT games. I’ve tried some but I wasn’t really into beat’em ups. I wanna get Cowabunga Collection and Shredder’s Revenge.

Ghostbusters The Video Game (Switch), it’s good. I have the Genesis game too. It’s decent. Kinda hard.

I have Tiny Toons: Buster’s Hidden Treasure. I agree it’s good.

I personally really like The Grinch game based on the live action movie. Seriously it’s pretty fun and there’s a lot of challenges. Regardless of your opinion of the movie.

I guess I haven’t played that many licensed games. Not 3D ones. There’s some I’d like to get though.