The 15 Best Video Game Adaptations Of Movies, Ranked

You'd think it would be hard to do justice to a $100m blockbuster on a screen only 160 pixels wide and 144 pixels tall, but this Schwarzenegger vehicle was one of the better licensed games released for the diminutive handheld device.

Following the events of the superlative sequel, the player takes control of John Connor fighting his way across a future battlefield to reprogram a Terminator, before playing said android assassin in the present day to try and defeat the mechanical machinations of the T-1000. Concept-wise, it's nothing original –- a series of right-to-left side-scrolling missions bookending a hacking mini-game involving shifting circuits to hack a Terminator –- but it passes the essential test, in that it's fun.

The missions are brief, and the difficulty level is perfectly pitched. There's enough variety in the package that there's no time to get bored, and it's a blast. To pack this much fun into such a small cartridge is a technological feat worthy of anything achieved by Skynet.

"Lord of the Rings" games are nothing new — in fact, this particular writer can remember the original text adventure on the ZX Spectrum — but had never been anything to write home to the Shire about. Peter Jackson's take on "Lord of the Rings" would change all of that. Both of Electronic Arts' "Lord of the Rings" games (covering the last two-thirds of the trilogy) were excellent slash-em-ups, but it's the final installment, "Return of the King," that really shone. The game let you play as a variety of heroes from the trilogy, and took you through key moments from the film.

The cut-scenes were mostly clips from the movie, and the use of the Howard Shore score and character likenesses made this game feel special, like you were directly playing scenes previously viewed on the big screen. Co-operative two-player play was the icing on the honey-cake, and this game was a worthy conclusion to an excellent series.

The "Super Star Wars" games were all variations on a theme, being side-scrolling platform games in which you control a variety of heroes from the classic trilogy, interspersed with Mode 7 shenanigans in which you get to pilot land speeders and the Millennium Falcon through a variety of "Star Wars" environments.

It's a fascinating curio to see the liberties that the developers take with the source material, contending with extending movie set-pieces into full videogame levels. In this game, you're moving through the plot of the familiar episode 6 of the Skywalker Saga ... albeit in a way you've never quite seen it before.

Luke Skywalker having to fight against a teleporting Bib Fortuna? Princess Leia having to confront a Klatooine-paddy-frog-spewing Jabba on a floating hover platform? Forget the "Star Wars" extended universe –- this is where the real variety is. It's like viewing "Return of the Jedi" through a fever dream, as though the developers had never actually seen "Star Wars", just heard about it, and seen some still photographs. For this alone, they're well worth playing.

The unwieldy full-titled "Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie" was one of the first games released for the Xbox 360 back in 2005, and still stands out now as a bold and innovative use of a film license –- and visually, has barely dated.

Taking the dual roles of both Jack (Adrien Brody) and super-sized simian Kong in their own respective quests across Skull Island, the game's far from perfect. It's bugged, is short enough to be completed in a single day, and it's never quite sure what type of game it's attempting to be – but as a short-lived experience, it's amazing.

Playing as Jack, Skull Island feels like a real living place, with mixed environments and food chain mechanics making for interesting, varied encounters and puzzle-solving possibilities. Kong is the Apex predator that the game demands, parkouring with ease across mountainous landscapes and treacherous terrain, and portraying an unstoppable force of nature in the frequent dinosaur combats. Unlike the source movie, which achieved little other than reminding viewers how good the original was, the game is infinitely more memorable.

"Warriors, come out and play..."

The release dates of games based on movies are usually timed so their releases coincide, but that's certainly not the case for the videogame of "The Warriors," released more than a quarter of a century after its inspiration. However, it helps if the source material is well regarded and a classic, and Walter Hill's legendary film of warring gangs on the streets of New York is certainly that.

Reuniting many of the original cast characters for dialogue duties, the game sees the titular Warriors gang travelling across New York from their Coney Island headquarters. The events of the film –- which sees our heroes framed for killing a rival gangs' leader and trying to get back through hostile streets to the safety of their home turf –- takes up only a fraction of the gameplay. The rest of the game does what any decent games license should do and expands on the source material –- looking into the particular recruitment details of key gang members, for instance. For what is effectively a beat 'em up, it's got a surprising amount of depth and has the mark of quality you'd expect from a game from any of the Rockstar studios.

Following the events of the final fateful assault on the Death Star in "A New Hope", this legendary arcade game was the first of a myriad of licensed "Star Wars" games, and among the best of them all.

With primitive vector graphics, the player would take on the role of Red 5 – better known as Luke Skywalker, back from when he still had both his hands. Piloting his X-wing fighter with only one life but a full bank of Chempat Deflector shields, Luke would hurtle through swarms of TIE fighters before skimming the surface of the Empire's technological terror, taking out gun towers to clear his approach for that notorious circumferential trench.

Choosing the fancy sit-down cabinet rather than the stand-up one for maximum immersion, many an arcade-goer would zone out on that final trench run, with glazed unblinking eyes and deft movements of the double-handled flight-stick avoiding the barrage of oncoming fireballs. To not return fire was the key, anything to earn that "Use the Force" bonus. If they were lucky, their proton torpedoes would bullseye that exhaust port and they'd be treated with a vector explosion, all ready for the Empire to rapidly build another Death Star so they could do it all over again. You were Luke Skywalker in those fleeting moments, and it's a memory that'll rekindle wistful memories for gamers of a certain age.

There has been no shortage of Batman games –- and indeed, games just based on the Tim Burton 1989 film –- but the Amiga version stood out amongst the crowd, at a time when the Commodore personal computer was in its heyday. Splitting the plot of the Michael Keaton starring movie across five levels, this excellent game featured platform sections, driving games featuring the Batmobile and Batwing, and a mid-game puzzler in which Batman attempts to crack the combination of products that comprise the Joker's deadly Smilex gas.

The platform and driving sections would be excellent games in their own right and still impress today, and it's another example of Ocean Software effectively milking the very best out of a licensed property. It's sadly missing the iconic Danny Elfman theme, but it's a small gripe about one of the best Batman games we'd get until Rocksteady released "Batman: Arkham Asylum" two decades later.

The one title guaranteed to make gamers of a certain age nostalgic and misty-eyed, this first-person shooter still stands up today as one of the greatest games ever made. The single-player campaign was solid and varied, taking the player (as Bond) through the events of Pierce Brosnan's debut as the martini-swilling superspy, but it was the split-screen multiplayer that set the gaming world alight.

Huddled around a single N64 console and a single television set, four players could play as Bond, or choice iconic villains from his lengthy cinematic history. Let loose in an arena loosely based around one of the campaign levels, a frenzied shootout would unfold –- until only one player stood victorious. Friendships would be broken, N64 controllers would be thrown at the walls in frustration –- and one innocuous grey tiny cartridge would also be responsible for months of entertainment, and in this particular writer's case, inadequate revision for exams.

Anything would go in these battle royales, and there were no rules. Other than the fact that the Klobb submachine gun was useless, and anybody choosing to play as razor-edged bowler-hatted Oddjob was effectively cheating.