Aladdin
Sega | Genesis

The release of Disney's adventure-packed Arabian tale in 1992 proved that animated musicals weren't just for wannabe princesses anymore. And the accompanying videogame proved that tie-ins weren't just for greedy marketing executives anymore.

Aladdin gave fans exactly what they wanted - a chance to play the movie. Seriously... with its catchy, bouncy music ported perfectly song-for-song and its clean, colorful graphics produced by the actual studio animators, the game looked and sounded like it had been ripped straight off the big screen. To those who were still kids at the time, it seemed like bottled magic.

The action of the film was captured as well. Although your attacks were limited to sword-swinging and apple-throwing (only appropriate for a simple street urchin), the creative level design had you climbing sentient ropes, leaping from giant Genie hands to giant Genie tongues and hitting palace guards square in the stomach to make their trousers drop. Yeah, even the humor's here.

Perhaps the only cinematic aspect missing from the game was the romance. After all, the inferior SNES version - which was a cute-sprited Capcom game first and an Aladdin game second - did manage to squeeze in a starry-skied, jewel-collecting carpet ride with Princess Jasmine that the Sega version lacked. But who wants to admit they liked Aladdin for the love story?