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Games vs Movies: 20 cutscenes compared

We match up classic games to their film counterparts

Words: Shane Patterson, GamesRadar US

If you’ve played a movie-based game in your lifetime, we’re sorry. We’re sure you know that most games strive to stick as close to the film as possible. Even when taking “creative license” with the source material - in cases like Superman Returns, Hulk or any other boring action film - you’re bound to see some semblance of the movie’s story acted out in glorious 3D.

But back before 3D cutscenes were the new hotness, classic games from the 8- and 16-bit era had only so much technology. These games couldn’t replicate full cutscenes from the movies. What they did instead was focus on a few iconic incidents from the films they replicated. These games gave us screenshots complete with text to guide the plot and - BAM - we thought we were playing the movie!

Here we present to you 20 movie-to-game comparisons for your viewing pleasure. Note: we added some newer games in there for fun.

 


We don’t remember exactly when this image of Schwarzenegger took place considering the whole freakin’ movie is a bunch of guys walking slowly through the jungle against exciting music. The light blue glow of Ah-nuld against a starry sky just might coincide with the fact that the Predator alien came from space. Or it could’ve been simpler to use one color.

We know - this is just the poster. Stallone on one side, Snipes on the other. They even kept in the tagline on the Start screen. In the poster, Stallone looks pumped and ready to fight. Yet in the game version, he appears vaguely bored. Maybe Snipes just beefed.

Ellen Ripley having survived two movies of aliens finds she’s been made preggers by a facehugger during hyper-cryo-spacesleep. What a twist! At the very end she leaps backwards into smoldering steel to kill not only herself but the just emerging-alien. In the SNES version, the steel is portrayed by futuristic Mode 7 effects. Fancy!


Not much to say here. Pretty much a dead ringer. Fun fact: Bat Dance was not featured in this sequel.

 
21 Comments
Necron - 1 month 15 days ago
Nice article, but theirs one mistake. Luke is riding a TaunTaun not a Wampa.
MacGyver1138 - 1 month 15 days ago
I was going to say the same thing! Fun article, though. I'm actually amazed at how close some of the old-school screenshots are to their film counterparts. If only the games had been as close. (Or maybe not, in Spider-Man 3's case!)
GamesRadarShanePatterson - 1 month 15 days ago
Noted and fixed! Thanks.
Juriasu - 1 month 15 days ago
Yeah, you tell 'em Necron!
lava_lamp - 1 month 15 days ago
screw getting a blu-ray player ill get a snes instead, a completely new movie experience
LilBompie17 - 1 month 15 days ago
cool
Mrinsane117 - 1 month 15 days ago
the indianna one is the best
Gazlitt - 1 month 15 days ago
Yea amazing how games and films are crossing over - just did an item and nice compilation video containing quite a few of these on personalizemedia dot com. Item is entitled "Cinematic Game Renaissance - Game Now Leading Film?" - nice uTube vid embedded about the convergence of games and films...
XAkira96 - 1 month 14 days ago
The Star Wars game text crawl picture looks like "A Meh Hope" at the top.
MultiGamer - 1 month 14 days ago
I cant even read that Star Wars text.
TheGreatHobbe - 1 month 14 days ago
the t-rex has this "wtf you lookin at" face
GoldenMe - 1 month 14 days ago
Ha!!!

I have that Mickey Mouse game for Genesis.
Ah, what good times.....kinda.
TheSuburbiaRuins - 1 month 14 days ago
Good job Shatterson,
The Aliens 3 thing reminds me so much of Advent Rising
Masy - 1 month 14 days ago
Check out the Godfathers scenes,
they are pretty exact, even the voices come pretty close too.

Great Article all and all.
dweller - 1 month 14 days ago
Heh, Sandman’s dead-eyed gaze. That phrase encompasses my feelings on Spider-Man 3 game. I'm still afraid of having nightmares from those caricatures renderings of the characters.
cricket0 - 1 month 13 days ago
The Super Star Wars movies look like crap in the title crawl.
KHfan - 1 month 12 days ago
is there a home alone game? lol
FlamingPeasant - 1 month 12 days ago
You seriously confused a Taun-Taun with a Wampa? You have failed. Go burn your geek card and start being cool.
Seabread - 1 month 12 days ago
Predator image is from the scene where they set a trap in a clearing; near the "start of the end" if you will. right before Poncho gets a tree in the gut. Ouch!
ELpork - 1 month 12 days ago
starwars suck.....to quote a troll.
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