Movie tie-ins are a wildly hit or miss proposition. For every video game like Spider-Man 2 that knocks it out of the park, there’s a Street Fighter The Movie The Game that feels like a soulless cash grab. However, despite the low quality of some tie-in games, the story surrounding them often proves a fascinating yarn.
The Atari 2600 had a particularly impressive lineup of bad movie tie-ins, most notably with movie adaptations like E.T. in 1983. While many are familiar with the landfill of unsold E.T. cartridges found in 2014, many would be forgiven for not having heard of the releases of games like Halloween and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. According to an article by VHS Collector these games were released in 1983 in an attempt to make a quick buck off of the Atari’s popularity at the time. To call the games loosely associated with the films they’re based on would be a wild understatement. Due to concerns over their content, both were mostly hidden behind store counters resulting in low sales and a legacy that helped contribute to the subsequent game crash of 1983.
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But what if they didn’t fail? What if instead the games were released early enough that they were able to avoid the oversaturation of the market and inspired a line of beloved, “bad” movie tie-in games? Let’s take a glimpse into an alternate timeline wherein Halloween and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre were wildly, disgustingly popular. This success led to every popular horror film receiving a hilariously tone-deaf tie-in game. Here are just a few of them:
A Quiet Place (2018)
Audiences were stunned when they found out Emily Blunt and that guy who plays Jim on The Office (kidding, it’s John Krasinsky but let’s just admit that he’s Jim forever) were married. They were even more shocked when the two starred in one of the most popular horror films of 2018 together. It was only a matter of time before they received their own Atari-style video game.
While the film focuses on the family of Blunt and Krasinsky trying to keep as quiet as possible to survive, the game serves as a prequel to the film and follows a financial group on Wall Street trying to still make money while the monsters begin ransacking the planet. The game itself is actually quite simple, the player must deliver bids between the two groups while making as little noise to no noise if possible. To be fair to the developers there was a bit of complexity involved in this game in order to try and add some spice. If more than one bid is offered at a time, The player earns more points if they deliver the bid numbers that match the stock exchange screen.
Beware the many noise making traps sure to try and foil the player’s journey toward victory, like those pesky nails that seem to just pop out of the floor (management should really do something about those). Or those siblings that keep trying to steal your bid cards, a cameo in the prequel that defies the plot of the movie it’s based upon. It’s ironic looking back that A Quiet Place should receive such an uproarious game.
Us (2019)
The Atari horror knock-off genre would see many imitators try their hand at adapting classic arcade games, often with mixed results. Make no mistake though, the tie-in game for Us that rips off Frogger stands out from the pack.
Hot off the heels of the dating sim game based off of Jordan Peele’s Get Out, developers knew they had their work cut out for them when translating Us from movie form. The game tasks players with guiding rabbits from one side of the screen to the other, granting a greater amount of points the faster players are able to complete the trek. Beware obstacles like escaped doppelgangers or the average American family driving on vacation. The doppelgangers will link hands to try and halt your progress, so you’ll want to get hopping quickly.
If players really wanted the top score here they’d need to keep an eye out for the golden scissors. Every so often a pair of golden scissors will appear within the level, granting the player a temporary speed boost and a sweet injection of points. Untethering has never been so fun.
It (2017)
Nobody saw the runaway success of the reboot of Stephen King’s It coming, but everyone could bet their bottom dollar that someone would try to cash in on that box-office boom. In an attempt to increase sales following the fervor around the film’s release the developers decided to tone down the more violent aspects of the plot in order to obtain an “E10+” rating from the ESRB.
The basic plot elements are still present and accounted for here. You’ll play as every child’s favorite nightmare clown, Pennywise, as he makes sure all of the neighborhood children float over to little Georgie’s birthday party on time. Each wave of children brings about a new set of problems to contend with for the clowned crusader, such as bikes that increase movement speed and the added complexity of sorting kids to multiple properties based on the color of invitation they’ve received.
There are also some curveballs here to help keep things on brand, like the occasional paper boats that will rush by, attempting to steal kids off the screen before you can send them off. Player reception to the game was quite positive, with initial sales levels leading to the greenlighting of additional DLC to play as the Tim Curry version of Pennywise.
The Purge (2013)
Many people will recall their first encounter with educational games like The Oregon Trail. When imagining the video game knock off of The Purge, simply picture The Oregon Trail. Instead of trying to make it to the west coast in pioneer times, however, players are tasked with making it through the titular purge day. Just like with The Oregon Trail, there’s actually a surprising level of depth on offer here.
Switching between a day and night cycle, the game tasks players with utilizing a small pool of resources and time to prepare yourself for the night of murder and mayhem ahead. Pick up odd jobs to earn last minute cash and maximize your potential for survival or max out your stats and harvest materials from your back yard to craft additional defense structures. At night, the hordes of sadistic murder people will try to get in and kill your family, at which point the game becomes more of a tower defense style game with 20 waves to challenge players.
Loved The Purge? Make sure to line up for a second heaping helping of low-resolution survival horror with the Communal Fallout DLC. Players can now string together multiple runs through purge night, now with the added ability of seeing the effects your actions and the actions of others have upon your town. Murdered the town butcher on the first run? Now there’s nobody to sell meat before the next purge. Killed off a teacher? There are now higher levels of uneducated people within the masses, leading to an increase in the number of enemies per wave. This movie tie-in will forever be remembered for its replay value.
Super Slash Bros. (2010)
Every once in a while there comes a crossover event so epic that audiences are left to wonder if anything can ever top it. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and the Marvel Cinematic Universe come to mind as recent examples of such crossovers, and 2010’s Super Slash Bros. was one such event for the Atari horror genre.
In a real Sony move the game originally came about as a way for the developers to keep the rights to adapt horror properties like Scream and Friday the 13th, but the decision to save on budget and combine all of the characters at risk into a single game gave players something unforgettable. The world is all the better for it, creating a gleefully violent take on the classic Nintendo franchise. Instead of Mario and friends, players would take on the roles of genre heavyweights like Ghostface or Michael Myers and engage in skirmishes with other titans of terror like Jason.
Similar to the “Smash Ball” mechanic in Smash Bros., this game introduces random elements like teens that will appear at a moment’s notice. The first to murder the teens will receive a speed and strength boost temporarily. It’s delightfully fun to play at parties and has since proven to be the genre’s crowning achievement.