10 Licensed Games Based On Properties Nobody Remembers

You ever notice they aren’t making as many licensed games as they used to? Sure, you will sometimes see games based on the really big properties — Star Wars, Marvel, Bluey. And sometimes you’ll get a fun nostalgia trip or two. But, gone are the days when every blockbuster movie or TV show had its own video game tie-in. The fact of the matter is that games simply cost too much money to make — especially if you’re just going for a blatant cash grab.

While these days, studios are significantly pickier about what licenses they’ll pick up (if they do at all), it wasn’t that long ago that the opposite was true. If there was a movie or a toy line that even smelled like it might be successful (and, no, I don’t know how that would work), you can bet there would be a game based on it in a flash. Sometimes, these were properties that came and went like a fart in the wind. Wanna take a look at some of them? Cool. I’ve got ten of ’em.

10

Yo! Noid

You Have No Idea How Popular This Idiotic Thing Was

Games based on corporate mascots are nothing new. I mean, they’re stupid, but they’re nothing new. Both Cheetos’ Chester Cheetah and the red dot from 7Up each had more than one game based on them. So, why not a pizza mascot? And in 1990, Domino’s Pizza had just the guy — the Noid! What was the Noid, you ask? He was annoying, that’s what he was. More specifically, he was an insufferable little goblin that supposedly made your delivered pizza all… not good, and stuff. Which is why the company encouraged everyone to “Avoid the Noid!” in their commercials.

For some reason, though, this became a massive hit, and for a short time, Noid merchandise was everywhere. People were actively not avoiding the Noid! Seriously, nobody ever listens. Anyway, it seems Domino’s approached Capcom about making a Noid game, and the publisher pulled a Doki Doki Panic and slapped a Noid-colored coat of paint on an existing game called Kamen no Ninja Hanamaru and called it a day. Nowadays, the Noid is a footnote in advertising history and is usually only remembered when dorks like me make lists like this.

9

Cool World

In What World Is Any of This Cool?

Ugh. Cool World. Hands down, the absolute worst movie I’ve ever seen. There were such high hopes for it, too. It was billed as a Who Framed Roger Rabbit? for older audiences, especially with legendary animator Ralph Bakshi behind it. Look him up, you’ll see what I mean. It starred Brad Pitt (back before he was, you know, Brad Pitt). Gabriel Byrne (The Usual Suspects), and Vicki Vale herself, Kim Basinger. It was an absolute trainwreck of a movie, and not the kind that inspires midnight screenings years later.

Because the movie was released in 1992, it managed to hit the trifecta of Nintendo consoles. That’s right, there was a tie-in game for the NES, SNES, and Game Boy. All of which were bad. We’ll point out the SNES version just to have an entry here — with its awful controls and weird mish-mash of platformer and point-and-click adventure, neither of which it does well at all. Like the movie they’re based on, all three of these games are best left forgotten.

8

Hudson Hawk

You Could Be Swinging On a Star (Instead of Playing This Game)

I suppose, somewhat appropriately, we go from a movie I loathe to one of my all-time favorites. Hudson Hawk was a quirky vanity project for Bruce Willis in which he plays a notorious cat burglar who gets caught in a wacky, globe-trotting adventure. It’s dumb as hell and I love every minute of it. It has a pair of mobster brothers named the Mario Brothers. They’re New Jersey’s third-largest crime family and one of them is played by Sylvester Stallone’s brother. And that’s just the tip of the awesomeness iceberg for this flick.

Now, normally I’d be all for more things Hudson Hawk, but even I found the idea of an NES game based on the movie kind of strange. It didn’t help that, much like so many other NES adaptations of movies, it’s loaded with stuff that has nothing to do with the movie. Eddie (oh, that’s Hawk’s real name — he and I are tight like that) dispatches his enemies by throwing baseballs at them. He does not do this in the movie. At one point in the game, he fights a kangaroo. Again, he does not do this in the movie.

Go see the movie. Pretend the game doesn’t exist.

7

The City of Lost Children

Based on an Obscure French Sci-Fi Film Starring Hellboy

Unlike the previous two movies we just mentioned, The City of Lost Children wasn’t hyped to the moon upon its release. For starters, it’s French. Not that we’re holding that against it, but a trippy, steampunk-inspired sci-fi drama entirely in French is a hard sell at any point, much less in the late 1990s. Still, it got a limited release in the U.S. and was generally well-received. It even starred a pre-Hellboy Ron Perlman, where he, once again, portrays a rather large human being.

Here’s where it gets interesting. The City of Lost Children game was a point-and-click type of game, but in 3D. It sort of resembled Resident Evil in that way. It was, appropriately, released on PC, but it also saw a PlayStation release as well. The studio behind it? The Sony-owned Psygnosis, best known for high-octane racers like WipeOut XL. The City of Lost Children was definitely… the opposite of that. It’s a fun game but, a lot like the movie that inspired it, has kind of been lost to time.

6

Instruments of Chaos Starring Young Indiana Jones

You Want to See Indy as a Kid? Well, Too Bad

I am, by no stretch of the imagination, implying that the Indiana Jones franchise is forgotten. I know that, after the last couple of movies, some people would like to forget it (those people are weird), but it still remains a well-loved property overall. The success of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, which featured a teenage version of the character played by River Phoenix, led to George Lucas creating The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles TV series. It was… OK, and only lasted one season.

But, that one season was enough to produce a video game tie-in for the Sega Genesis. Instruments of Chaos Starring Young Indiana Jones was an adventure set during World War I that sent Henry Jones, Jr. across the world to prevent the German Empire from obtaining technology and artifacts that could help them win the war. You know, the usual Indy stuff. While the lack of interest in the source material prevented it from reaching a wider audience, the fact that Instruments of Chaos was a real nothingburger of a game with absurd levels of difficulty didn’t do it any favors, either.

5

Biker Mice From Mars

Vroom

As far as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle-inspired properties go, Biker Mice From Mars was certainly one of the better ones. It told the tale of motorcycle-riding anthropomorphic rodents from the red planet driven from their home to Chicago, of all places. It’s there in the Windy City where these tough-yet-strangely adorable warriors defend Earth against the aliens who take the form of micekind’s natural enemy… fish? Well, whatever they are, the Plutokians want Earth’s natural resources and the Biker Mice ain’t havin’ it.

The animated series the game was based on was perfectly fine — it just got lost in the shuffle of all the other TMNT adjacent attempts. What makes Biker Mice From Mars on the SNES stand out is its quality. Or more to the point, it actually is a quality game. It features isometric vehicular combat, heavily inspired by Rock n’ Roll Racing, with a wide variety of weapons and other ways to customize your bikes. It actually still holds up really well and is, amusingly enough, the one thing most people remember from the franchise.

4

Exosquad

Slavery Is Always Wrong, Even In Space

You know, maybe the Reapers from Mass Effect were on to something. I’m struggling to think of a single instance in fiction where humans create a race of robot slaves with artificial intelligence and those robots don’t rise up and try to kill everyone. Can you? (Seriously, if you can think of one, mention it in the comments, I’d like to know.) Anyway, Exosquad tried something different. Instead of robots, humanity genetically engineered new humans (thus the name Neosapiens) to help us colonize Venus and Mars. Needless to say, it still resulted in an uprising, a war and, worst of all, a pretty awful video game.

In 1995, a year after the final episode of the series had been aired, Novotrade developed and released Exosquad for the Sega Genesis. It was a mish-mash of different genres, none of which it did particularly well. Much like the TV show it was based on, the game came and went with very little fanfare.

3

RollerGames

A Roller Derby Game With No Roller Derby

Every so often, someone comes along and tries to make roller derby a mainstream thing. The intention is good — roller derby is awesome. No attempt has ever really been able to stick the landing. RollerGames made a pretty good go of it, though. Back in 1989, it attempted to add a dash of theatrics, turning the traditional oval track into a figure eight and adding an alligator pit, among other things. Yeah, I said alligator pit. Imagine if Vince McMahon bought a roller derby league.

Because RollerGames was taking cues from the WWF, there was a lot of emphasis on the actual players — or “characters”, as it were — and that carried over to its game tie-in. You see, RollerGames wasn’t a recreation or simulation of the sport. Instead, it was a side-scrolling action game, in which you take control of a member of one of the “good guy” teams. Then think something like Double Dragon, but on roller skates. It’s weird, but it’s also weirdly engaging. It’s made by Konami under their Ultra Games label, and it has the minimum level of quality that you normally expect from that.

The Indignities the Pre-MCU Iron Man Had to Suffer Were Harsh

I know it’s hard to imagine, but there was a time when Tony Stark wasn’t a big deal. That time was pretty much the space between 1962, the year he debuted in Tales of Suspense #9, and 2008. Sure, he was still an Avenger and popular in his own right, but nowhere near the level he would become once he was embodied by Robert Downey, Jr. And there’s no better proof of that than his team up with Valiant Comics’ X-O Manowar. Actually, it probably says more about the state Marvel Comics was in more than anything else, but it wasn’t one of Shellhead’s finer moments.

The game, which saw release on a plethora of platforms — from the PlayStation and the Saturn to the Game Boy and Game Gear – was based on the comic miniseries of the same name. Also, like said miniseries, it was imminently forgettable. This was nothing unusual for Valiant, which managed to stay afloat due to the fact that neither Marvel or DC were putting out much of a better product. But, it wasn’t exactly a great look for Marvel, which was on the brink of going out of business at one point during the decade. A team-up with Captain We Have Iron Man At Home wasn’t exactly the shot in the arm they needed.

1

V.I.P.

A Middling Action Game Based on an Underrated TV Gem

Systems

Released

January 1, 2001

ESRB

teen t

While she’s been in her fair share of both movies and TV shows over her career, Pamela Anderson is probably best known for her starring role on the long-running series Baywatch. However, another show of hers gets ignored — mostly because it’s not Baywatch — which is a shame because it’s actually pretty good. It’s a show called V.I.P., an action-comedy that ran from 1998 until 2002, where she plays a klutzy hot dog vendor from Hollywood who somehow becomes the face of a high-profile celebrity bodyguard agency. It’s genuinely entertaining and gave Anderson a platform where she didn’t have to take herself so seriously.

While mostly forgotten these days, the show was popular enough to warrant a game based on it. Like the previously mentioned Iron Man/X-O Manowar game, V.I.P. found itself represented on a multitude of platforms, all of them published by Ubi Soft (back when their name had a space in it). The type of V.I.P. game you got varied depending on the platform, which is probably a big reason why none of them particularly stood out. While none of the games are really worth spending your valuable time or money on, give the show a chance if the opportunity ever presents itself. You might be pleasantly surprised.