411 Top 5 Games Edition 10.12.06: Week 11

Posted by Steve McHugh on 10.13.2006

The Top 5 Worst Movies based on Games Ever.

Welcome to another edition of Top 5. This week we're taking a lot at what happens when you mix Films and Games and it all goes wrong.

For those of you who are wondering what happened to last weeks Top 5 best RPG characters I'll be adding it to next weeks column.

But first we have The Top 5 Worst Movies based on Games Ever.


Steve Mchugh


5. Alone in the dark
Okay the film doesn't make sense and the plot is mostly crap but it does get worse. The acting is wooden and boring and you can tell who the bad guy is within a second of him appearing on screen. None of this really matters, as there is only one thing you need to know to sum this film up… Tara Reid plays a genius. Yeah just let that sink in and then realise how bad this is.

4. Resident Evil: Apocalypse
The first one was rubbish but this is just a mess. No one seems to be playing a character as everyone just seems to be the same and it's all an attempt at flash over substance, but when the flash is this awful all you're left with is 90 minutes of crap. This film has almost no redeeming features.

3. Mortal Kombat: Annihilation
I'll tell you a secret I liked the first film. I thought it was mindless popcorn action and that Christopher Lambert was pretty cool. This isn't a good film in anyway as they try to get as many in jokes and bizarre plot points in 90 minutes as possible. Even the fights were boring and that's not a good sign for a movie based on fighting.

2. Super Mario bros
Oh where do I start? In theory this should have been great. The cast is top notch and in any other film probably would have been good but somewhere down the line they screwed everything up. It was probably when someone (who I'm sure was stoned) said. ‘Hey we like Mario, lets make a movie about him.'

1. Street Fighter 2
Not just a bad movie based on a game but a bad movie full stop. It's a shame that this was Raul Julia's last film as it's not fitting for a great actor like that. There is no redeeming feature in this film the plot makes no sense, characters appear with little or no point and the fighting is awful. If you're going to make a movie about fighting it might be an idea to make the fights…I don't know…interesting. If you want to see Street Fighter go watch the anime (for the Chun-Li Vega fight alone), which pisses all over this from a great height.


Will Scott


5. Double Dragon
This film was a steaming turd, and there's no other way to put it. It was only loosely related to the game, using the same names of the main characters. Instead, it was filled with B-level actors, terrible fight sequences, and some of the worst dialog I've ever heard in a film.

4. Street Fighter
Let's be honest...Street Fighter didn't need a movie. There's barely a plot. People get together and fight over...something. I know there's more, but that wasn't ever the point. Instead, we get a Van Damme crapfest that actually made me hate Street Fighter for a while. Does anyone remember the super-awful Blanka in the movie? Or the fact that no one had cool powers?

3. Mortal Kombat: Annihilation
Mortal Kombat was actually pretty alright in my book - a good, mindless martial arts flick with some moments that remained true to the game. Its sequel, though? Awful. Most of the cast didn't return, and the new characters were awful. The special effects sucked, the plot sucked, and the fights somehow were worse than the first. Should've been straight-to-video. On a random note, this was the first movie I ever snuck in to. Sitting through it was punishment enough.

2. Resident Evil 2
Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. Worse than the first, which was mediocre. It's got every hallmark of an MTV film, and it spits on the remains of a good game series and a great genre (zombie films). I'm actually getting angry writing about it.

1. Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
That's right. This movie sucked more than any of those listed above. It's simply fan service to folks who can't give over "OMG, BIG SWORDS!" Don't get me wrong - I love Final Fantasy VII. I cherish it as one of my favourite games. But this movie was so bad that it took me three tries to get through it. Square should've left us with the memories.


Vincent Chiucchi


5. Mortal Kombat 2
It's a movie that completely doesn't follow the movie it's supposed to be a sequel to. That's basically instant death for any movie, video game or not.

4. Tomb Raider 2
At this point in time Tomb Raider was basically dead and buried after Angel of Darkness finally came out after much delay and it STILL sucked. So of course this movie winds up not being anywhere near as close to the success of the first movie, making it seem pointless.

3. The House of the Dead
Ok Mr.Boll, I'll admit. I never saw this movie. But looking at the trailer alone, seriously, what the hell is this movie supposed to be? I can't tell if it's one of those typical zombie movies or some typical action movie. In the end it turned into typical crap.

2. Stay Alive
I think most horror movies are already terrible as it is. So when this one attempted to cross two terrible genres, I knew it was going to be bad. A video game that kills people who play it? Well here's an idea that might work: DON'T PLAY THE F-ING GAME! I remember seeing someone in college watching this, and it showed some guy standing in the middle of the road before he got ran over. I'm standing there thinking, "If only he could've walked several feet OFF THE F-ING ROAD!" Besides, we already have a video game in real life that kills people: World of Warcraft.

1. Super Mario Bros.
This is basically the template for how to make a very bad video game movie. Plot of the movie looking little to nothing like the game? Check. Adding characters that you've completely made up? Check. Changing what EVERY character looks and acts like? Double Check. And seriously, whose bright idea was it to make Mario look 30 years older then Luigi?! The only reason I've seen this movie multiple times was because I was almost 10. Nothing seems terrible when you're 10.


Andrew Mellick


5. Tomb Raider
Sure the Second one didn't make hardly any money, but that's because this movie turned people off to the second one. This movie was not true to the game, it was excruciatingly boring, and the acting was horrible.

4. Doom
I remember seeing the Rock on The Daily Show, going off about how true gamers would love this movie. This was the first time the Rock lied to me. The creatures of Doom were not nearly as cool as they should have been. Plus, the BFG fires like 2 shots and that's it! Come on!

3. Resident Evil: Apocalypse
The Resident Evil series of video games has always been able to capture that feeling of tenseness and ‘fear around every corner'. As much as the first movie tried to capture this RE: A completely forgot it and just made a movie about a chick that kills zombies. This is a fine premise for a movie but call it ‘Alice: Zombie ass kicker' not Resident Evil.

2. Street Fighter
I always thought this movie was conceived from a conversation like this. Writer one "Hey, Bloodsport is on." Writer two "Jean-Claude Van Damme is so cool" Writer one "He kind of looks like Guile from Street Fighter" Writer two "Buddy, I think you just struck gold!"
But they didn't strike gold they struck crap. Just a bad movie all the way around.

1. Super Mario Bros.
As much as this game has been inspiration for many a programmer, this movie should be shown to anyone making a movie based on a video game as inspiration for what not to do. They took the fun magical world of Mario and they turned it into a dark movie chalked full of overacting.


Jordan Williams


5. Final Fantasy: Spirits Within
I only say this because if this movie DIDN'T have Final Fantasy tacked onto it, it would've been a BRILLIANT movie. Throwing the license of FF on to attract more viewers really hurt the movie itself, it took what could've been a good Sci-Fi movie and turned into a bad video game movie.

4. Alone in the Dark
Insert Uwe Boll joke here. Outside of the painful that is watching a Uwe Boll film, this movie was just all around bad. It's not like it had really strong source material, but the movie itself just wasn't good. Poor acting. Poor directing. Poor movie.

3. Double Dragon
Now, this is coming from someone who LIKED The Super Mario Bros. Movie. (Face it; a direct adaptation of that movie would've sucked). So how did they manage to mess up DOUBLE DRAGON? It's a game about people who punch each other in the face!? This film looked more like an Indy film gone wrong. It was sad to watch, and even sadder to purchase.

2. Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
Again, I don't hate FF7, but I do hate this movie. This movie was built up for YEARS to be the next thing since sliced bread to FF Fans. All it turned out to be was an hour and a half of fan service for the Sephiroth and Cloud fanboys and fangirls. What really bugs me is that all of the time and effort they put into this movie. They could've used all of that money and just adapted to the story into Final Fantasy 7-2 or something and made a lot of people happy

1. Resident Evil 2: Apocalypse
RE1 was decent, albeit average. It had a nice story and left on a nice cliffhanger and had pretty good special effects. How the hell did you go so wrong in the sequel!? It was like they just decided to see how much BAD they could cram into this movie at one time. Jill Valentine? Check. Omar Epps? Check. A person who was downright useless in the last film becoming some sort of badass in this film? Check. And let's not forget, they turned quite possibly one of the BEST Resident Evil villains into a guy in a rubber suit. For shame.



Well there you have it, a list to show what happens when games and movies go bad together. If you agree of disagree then let us know and if you have a top 5 of your own sent it to me and I'll put it in next weeks column.

Next week we'll be continuing our look at what happens when games and films mix when we look at: The Top 5 Worst Tv/Film Licensed Games.