As anyone who read my previous blog on the hype surrounding the Ghostbusters game being released next year, I have had a bad experience with movie tie-ins. And when I say movie tie-ins, I mean games which claim to replicate all the action and fun of the movie itself.
This will usually include one or two actual scenes from the film, and then be wedged in amongst a load of levels pulled out of a developer or twos arses as filler.
One of the worst examples of filler-levels is Lotr: Return of the King. God that was an annoying game, am I right sisters? I spent a whole level hunting around for ghosts in a manner that wasn't even mentioned in the book, which we all know was written whilst Tolkien was doing a bit too much Opium, hence Tom Bombadil (For anyone unfamiliar with this character, he was an elderly lunatic whose inclusion in the film may as well have led to Disney taking over from New Line and gouging out the insides of the movie, and wearing them like fluffy pink bunny slippers).

But good sirs, I digress. The reason for this blog is to mention that today I played a half decent movie tie-in. The Warriors on Xbox is actually quite a lot of fun, its major downfall being its soundtrack, specifically its lack of one.
Some reasons it actually did well could be as follows:

-It wasn't made by EA, who whilst fairly competent at keeping the Burnout games fun, are not known for their movie tie-ins high quality.
-It was instead made by Rockstar, a company known for its gritty violent yet compelling games, such as Grand Theft Auto, and Manhunt to a lesser extent. The gameplay is quite evidently what was first priority to the developers, but still the license blends nicely.
-Whilst the vast majority of the game is set as a prequel to the movie, with only the final four levels being based on the plot of the film, the "filler-levels" weren't a large steaming pile of... bad. In fact, it actually built on the fictional world of the movie, adding more characters and plotlines, and even showing a darker side to the main characters of the franchise.
-Also, if you liked the movie, you'll be willing to play through the rest f the game to get to the movie tie-in levels.

It is an unusual choice to make a game of a film nearly 30 years old. Then again, there were plans to make a game of Dirty Harry, which was cancelled before it reached the light at the end of the tunnel.
This may be because expectations from the movie creators (all of which are now probably in their fifties and sixties) don't matter as much. Plus there was no deadline which needed to be met for optimum market.
I for one would be up for more companys to look into old movies to find some decent ideas. If they come up to the reasonable quality of The Warriors, then job well done.

Then again, The Godfather game was shite.