Austin Powers Pinball
The Movie: Mike Myers' catchphrase-filled comedy trilogy about an innuendo-𝓀lovin🌳g 1960s spy defrosted - along with brother/nemesis Dr Evil - in the 1990s.
The Game Version: Two pinball games based on International Man Of Mystery and The Spy Who Shagged Me . Supꦅposedly, there's a plot but really it’s a case of whacking the ball around for as long as possible.
Worst Element: No number of Austin's catchphrases can atone for the fact that these 🍷films have very little (ie nothing) to do with pinball.
Last Action Hero
The Movie: A bold attempt to d🌌rag Arnie's meathead action into the postmodern 1990🌱s that managed to frustrate fans of both.
The Game Version: Reasonably faithful - but do meta-jok꧟es translate to a game? This is anꦡ action game that doesn't offer enough variety of action to excite.
Worst Element: The developers forgot to𝕴 add a 'continue' function, meaning that the only way to finish the thing is to complete it in a single run without losing all of your lives.
Tomorrow Never Dies
The Movie: Pierce Brosnan's sophomore outing as 007, battling Jonathan Pryce's Rupert Murdoch-a-𝓰lꦍike media mogul from his remote controlled BMW.
The Game Version: The same plot, chiefly reꦇtold by shooting things.
Worst Element: The decision to replace the acclaimed first-person shooter of the Goldeneye game with a less exciting third-person style.
Plan 9 From Outer Space
The Movie: Ed Wood's notorious no-budget sci-fi thriller, infamous for replacing late star Bela Lugosi with the director🥃's wife's chiropractor.
The Game Version: In a typically 1990s piece of postmodernism, the pla🔴yer has to find missing footage of Lug﷽osi "stolen" by Lugosi's double. As the packaging explained, "Using actual digitized film footage, you'll sweat each scene, examining Plan 9 with slow motion, freeze frame, fast forward and rewind. It's up to you to preserve its original awfulness."
Worst Element: The concept, based entirely on th🧸e film's reputation as a trash ma♔sterpiece, is meant to be affectionate but comes across as mean.
Space Jam
The Movie: Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and pals enlist the help of Michael Jordan to save ♊the Looney Tunes from alien capture by winning a game of basketball.
The Game Version: A typical side-to-side basketball game𝐆 with toon characters, interspersed with kid-friendly games such as collecting water bottles for Jordan.
Worst Element: The Loo🎉ney Tunes squad is twelve deep (including a real-life NBA All-Star). The alien Monstars have only five players. Bit unfair in a two-player game, really.
Saw
The Movie: The Noughties' defining horror fraꦰ꧙nchise, in which terminally ill killer Jigsaw (and, later, his disciples) set violent puzzles to teach victims the value of life.
The Game Version: You're a cop dr🌌opped into a booby-trapped asylum on Jigsaw's tail, while avoiding inmates who have been instructed to kill you. Traps designed by series creators Leigh Whannell and James Wan💙; combat by Generic Video Game Developers.
Worst Element: Given that the storylin🔴e received much praise, it's a shame it frequently descends into dull action.
The Hunt For Red October
The Movie: Russian-Scottish sub commander Sean Connery goes AWOL, nearly kickst𝐆arting World War Three despite the film coming out the year after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The Game Version: With no room for the nuances of political diplomacy in a tie-in game, this opts for the path of least resistance by putting you in charge of ꦺthe sub to hunt down enemy ships.
Worst Element: With respect, submarines are the most exciting things to steer. Just point towards a slow-m🧸oving boat, load a torpedo and fire.
Evil Dead: Hail To The King
The Movies: Sam Raimi's energetic horror-comedy trilogy in which unlikely hero Ash (Bruce Campbell) suf♓fers after releasing dark forces from the Necronomicon.
The Game Version: This Resident Evil clone drops the humour in favour of chainsaw-cutting action but throws so many Deadites at Ash it becomes a slog to get to the fini🍸sh༺ing line.
Worst Element: Fixed 'camera' per༺spectives give an appropriately cinematic vision but make it difficul⛄t to work out how to attack undead opponents.
Blues Brothers 2000
The Movie: Belated, Belushi-less seque⛦l to the ultimate Mission from God movie that doesn't come close to the original's car-crashing, soul-singing, shades🍃-wearing majesty.
The Game Version: Released two years after a film that barely dented the box office, but it's hard to seeꦕ what caused the delays given tꦗhe overly simplistic 'reunite the band to play a gig' gameplay.
Worst Element: Brevity. Seasoned gamers can compl�𒐪�ete the entire thing in under two hours.
The Smurfs Dance Party
The Movie: CGI modernisation of the classic Belgian cartoon, in which the three-apple-high blueskins are 🅺marooned in Manhattan.
The Game Version: Nothing to do with the film beyond character designs, really. Instead, it's a smurfing smurf-ful adaptation of the existing game, Just Dance .
Worst Element: The track listing includes such atrocities as I Like To Smurf It , a Smurfed-up version of I Like To Move It .
