A Guide to Movie Based Video Games 2001 onwards by Christopher Carton - Book Review

It's been just over a year since I looked at the first volume of this movie based video games duo, and it's still a go to reference when I'm looking for gaming inspiration. A few weeks back, part two was released, picking up the subject of movie tie-ins from 2001 onwards. And times they were a changing. 

This is evident as soon as you look at the page count: just shy of 270 compared to the first volume's 200. A sure sign that a) corporate bods realised that there was money in them there reels and b) you were no longer restricted to a console or computer in order to shell out. That's right, kids, mobile phone gaming had arrived. 

Before we get to that though, check out the contents page:

As you can see, there's a good array of groupings, and although some of the titles featured in each group are linked only tenuously (I'd argue including Alexander in "Is this the Real Life?" section pushes the boundary of what could be called fantasy, ignoring the casting choices, anyway), nothing quite severs the connection completely.  

A cynic (moi, darling?) could think that this book should have been called "The complete guide to 21st Century Disney gaming", replete as it is with literally every franchise the Hoose of Moose had/has going, and you can't argue that the C-Suite MBA's don't know their stuff when it came to revenue generation. I mean, I'm not saying Star Wars as a franchise (and I hate that word) is dead, but sometimes less is definitely more. In this book, however, you get 37 titles over 23 pages! Thirty Seven! And that's not including Star Wars Jedi: Survivor due to publishing deadlines nor the five LEGO games. All told, that's equivalent to over two per year during the period covered by this book. 

It doesn't end there though, as a couple of chapters on you have "Disney Domination", featuring nine Pirates of the Caribbean games. But wait! There's more! "To Infinity" puts the spotlight on Pixar-related games, and guess who distributed Pixar movies before buying the company up? Yep, the Moose! Ok, I get it that Disney might not have owned Pixar for the first quarter of this 20 plus year focus, but if you look at the aforementioned series as well as the 20th Century Fox IP that also fills many of the pages, there is no escaping the juggernaut of the rodent-headlined behemoth. 

Still, there's plenty of room for the likes of Bond (9 titles), Harry Potter (15), Top Gun (9!) and... Days of Thunder? Yeah, I didn't know about that last one, a 2011 release coinciding with the "classic" film's 20th anniversary. The author's words, not mine, and grounds to request an intervention me thinks. Seriously, Mr Carton, a "classic"? Sheesh!

If anyone asks, here's how you milk dinosaurs...

Sarcasm aside, there is a lot to get your teeth into here and although some entries get quite the write up and a screen shot, others warrant just a quick note. That doesn't happen often, and I am sure the fans of The Fast and The Furious: Drift arcade game will be peeved at it receiving such short shrift, but space definitely feels at a premium here, so appreciate even this small gift (OK, I'll stop now). Where such brevity does occur, however, it never feels disrespectful. 

I usually say that tomes such as this are informative, and it is no less true here. Not only have I discovered the author's questionable definition of classic movies (that would make a fun discussion over a pint or two...), but I am now also aware of "gems" such as Beverly Hills Cop on the PS2. The write up is so good that I jumped onto YouTube to check it out and, yeah, it's, ermmm, a game. Definitely one of them. And if I can ever find a copy in passing, I might just convince myself into playing it, much like the concept behind the excellent French horror film, Martyrs, when pain and suffering could show you heaven. And just like that, we're (tortuously!) back to Days of Thunder...

... before screeching into the topic of video games as art. I believe they are, so reading this book, even more so than volume one, got me into a thinking mood (and that is always a good thing when you've read a book). Regardless of the approach by the actual developers and companies who created the titles featured within the pages of AGTMBVG 2001 onwards, the game's initial conception was more than likely the result of realising the quarterly revenue generation possibilities from both home console and mobile phone users - it's all about bringing in the Benjamins! Why else would you develop Beverly Hills Cop more than twenty years after its cinematic cousin's release? Unless it's a "classic", of course... True, there were some gems (looking at you, The Warriors), but also plenty of clunkers too. As an aside, given the current state of AAA games development and the huge number of job losses over the last couple of years, I am of the opinion that Indies and smaller scale publishers are the way forward. However, that is a topic that could be discussed ad infinitum. 

In that sense, this book has a greater value than just an enchiridion (ohhh, fancy!) to the movie game genre. It also charts how the games industry changed in the first two decades of this century, and how adapting a film licence was no longer an afterthought (or just a quick side hustle) but a planned exploitation of another art form, strip mining the consumer in the search for ever higher revenues. Not a great thought to finish a book review with, but a surely evidence that the author has written not only a quality guide, but also a thought-provoking one. 

You can pick up a copy of A Guide to Movie Based Video Games 2001 onwards direct from the publisher here, but also from the usual physical and online bookstores. You can also follow the author on X @chriscarton89