In this book, the title’s movie-based video games are not movies based on games, but the games which were tie-ins to popular movies.
While there are plenty of movies and TV shows based on games these days – the animated Super Mario Bros, Halo, The Last of Us and many, many more – the first adaptation only arrived on screen in 1993 - the live action adaptation of Super Mario Bros.
Before that, games existed only as a marketing tool for movies and while some were great many were simply cashing in on popular titles. Christopher Carton’s book revisits nearly 20 years’ worth of blockbuster-inspired games, with his recommendations, analysis and trivia. Featuring titles from Aliens to Top Gun to Star Wars and more, he examines titles released on the earliest gaming formats to the arrival of the PlayStation.
A good book to have on the shelf and dip into.
Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC.

A good overview of video games based on movies from the early years of the gaming industry. Each section is divided either by the franchise represented (Star Wars, Disney, Marvel, etc.) or by the theme. Each entry gives the release year, the consoles the game was released on, and a short description of the game itself. Good for gaming fans who are also movie buffs.

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher Pen & Sword in exchange for an honest review.
As a video game researcher, I am always on the hunt for books about games. I love to learn and I was very excited when I saw this book available. The title tells you exactly what you are in store for-a guide to movie-based games created in the pre-2000s era.

I will admit, this book wasn't as entertaining as I'd hoped. I think not being alive when these games came out (for the most part) limited any kind of nostalgic enjoyment I could get out of it. I found some sections interesting (such as the Disney and comedy movie ones) but there wasn't a lot of commentary about the games themselves, which meant that if I didn't care about the intellectual property then there wasn't a whole lot to keep my interest.

Having said that, I think this book is very informative and seems pretty thorough. I imagine anyone who has nostalgia for these games would get a lot more out of it than me, and I am very excited for the next instalment which will cover the games I played myself. I recommend it for anyone who is curious what games exist from this time period, or for someone looking for a trip down memory lane

Overall Rating: 3.5/5 stars

One of my earliest video game experiences was playing Fantasia on the Megadrive as well as Aladdin and then elevating to other Disney games on the PS1.

This book explores a whole lot of movie to game adaptations that I didn’t even know existed.

The book is a cool concept and I loved the game images included but it felt like it needed to give more, with each game named it had a brief explanation of the film and how the game version portrayed it.

It has a great nostalgic feel to it, I loved reading about the games I played as a child and games I wish I’d known about back then!

The idea of a book that explores the various video games based on movies sounded great. As a catalog of the numerous video game adaptations of the 20th Century, it does an admirable job of reporting them all. But overall, the book is just that: a catalog of those games. There is little in the way of description beyond the very basics, with just the occasional opinion of the games, for the majority of the entries. And while it promises images, there are way too few screen captures from the games. With so little description more visuals would have been great. As a historical record of the video games in this category, it's adequate, but doesn't serve as much more than that.