Licensed games that don't suck.

[necromaniac]

More often than not, the only reason for a licensed game is to preform a quick cash-in on the current hottest movie/cartoon/comic book.
And most of the time these are nothing but a rushed string of poorly written code put together in a hurry to meet some holiday deadline.
But trough history there have been some exceptions; some eras even, where the licensed game rose above it's existence as a cash cow and said: "I've had enough of this... I deserve better! And fuck you Acclaim!"
But to the common untrained eye, it can often be hard to separate the gems from the epic mountain-pile of junk that has been dumped on our sorry fan-boy asses throughout the ages.
Let me start us off by going trough the Batman games I've played.

The earliest Batman game is without a doubt the 1986 self-titled debut of the caped crusader released by Ocean Software on the ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC and MSX.
Avoid, unless you played it at the time and are really that nostalgic.
It's a boring item hunt maze-fest which has almost noting to do with the license but in name.


Second came Batman: The Caped Crusader (1988 - Special FX Software) on ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 Amiga.
Things do get a little better, but the gameplay is almost just as dated as the first, even though being an action/adventure platformer helps.
It's playable though, but barely and I can only recommend it if nostalgia again tickles your bones.


Next up are the Batman movie games (1989-90) and this is where it gets interesting.
Instead of just licensing it to one company and call it a day they gave it to practically everyone, making it the most out-pimped movie-based video game ever at the time.
On the 8-bit (ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC) and 16-bit (Amiga, Atari ST, IBM PC) home computers side was Ocean Software.
It's a decent action platformer that was worthy in the day but has not aged well.
Despite the various platforms, the game played the same the only real difference being minor gameplay tweaks here and there and of course better graphics on the 16-bit machines.
Really, the only thing impressive was the Batmobile missions in-between levels, which would become a feature of every other Batman game ever since.

Then there are the three console versions, all handled by Sunsoft.
The Nes one, has the honor of being one of the first really great movie licensed game, even though it feels like it was originally developed as a Ninja Gaiden knockoff without the movie in mind.
But hey, it works and is a recommended play-trough even though it's hard as nails and will make you cry.

The Japanese only PC-Engine Batman is a Pac-Man clone. Yeah, I know. Cute. But it's kind of fun, worth it if you find it cheap I guess.

Then comes the disappointing Genesis release.
Sure, It's the best looker of the bunch and it's the first of the series to realize that Bat's and Beat-em-ups go together hand-in-hand, but maybe this speedrun will show you why it always failed to impress me: www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP57WBuKYIw

The Batman on the Gameboy is a fun little platform gunner; Why he's using a gun is beyond me but it would certainly not be the last time.

And last but not least, Atari made a bad but entertaining beat-em-up for the arcades.


In between the 1989 movie and it's 1992 follow up, Sunsoft, still holding the bat-license, made a game called Batman: Return of the Joker for the Genesis, Nes and GameBoy.
Loosely based on the comic of the same name, the Nes and Genesis versions were near-identical to a fault.
While it looks great on the nes, one of the most technically impressive games on the system for that matter, it was horrible on the Genesis.
The gameplay suffered there too, while the controls feel reasonably tight on the ol' grey, the black stallion makes it feel like your Ice-skating while drunk.
The team that made those two must have been wanting to do another superhero, since Batman seems to rely on a futuristic laser-gun in this one.
Get it for the nes and pass on the genesis version.

The Gameboy version is a completely different game.
An action platformer that plays kind of like the 1989 movie nes game, it's graphics are impressive for it's time.
It's hard, but fun and a must buy for GameBoy enthusiasts.


Batman Returns came to the theaters in 1992, and Warner Brothers made damn' sure that gamers everywhere didn't go without their bat-dosage.
Malibu Interactive did the Genesis and Sega CD versions, and shame on them for making such crap.
The games are both near identical platforming turds, although the CD one scores a few points for cool animations, somewhat fun Batmobile levels and a kick-ass soundtrack by Spencer N. Nilsen.

The Master System and Gamegear games are identical action platformers handled by Aspect Co. Ltd. and are at least playable, if a little generic.
The Game Gear one is better because of it's life bar and seems to have been developed with it in mind anyways.

The Atari Lynx version is an impressive looking but frustrating beat-em-up romp handled by Atari them selfs. There's fun to be had, if you think the Lynx is fun to begin with.

Spirit of Discovery handled matters quite differently with it's obscure PC version, making it the only Batman point and click adventure game ever made.
And while it's both cool and fun to explore the Dark Knight's investigating side a bit closer they really should have tried harder at making it fun.

Then there's the Amiga game by Dentons. It's a buggy platform beat-em-up mess that you and your mother should avoid.

Now were finally gotten to the good stuff again. Konami handled the nes and the SNES games.
Both are Beat-em-ups and both are amongst the best for the system.
While the nes one is limited obviously, the SNES one pushes the system to it's graphical and aural limits making it an audio-visual interactive trip through the movie.
Get both, especially the snes one as it's one of the best, if not simply the best Bat's game out there.


Konami then went on to make Batman: The Animated Series (1993) for the GameBoy.
Another action platformer, it positively oozes with the atmosphere of the show it's based one. So, another good one.


In 1994 we got two treats based on The Adventures of Batman and Robin.
Konami made the SNES game, another platform beat-em-up that looks almost identical to the show because of it's quality graphics.
It's a fun romp, though nothing revolutionary. Still, a quality title.

The Genesis one is a tad bit more interesting.
Developed by Clockwork Tortoise Inc, it was the first Batman game ever to allow you to play as (gasp) Robin!
Why the hell it took so long, we'll never know, but it is a fun excuse for a 2-player run-n-gun. Or is it run-n-bat-rang?
It also pushes the genesis to it's very limits doing all sorts of crazy effects that would make Treasure proud. A must!


Hot on their heels in 1995 came The Adventures of Batman & Robin Sega CD game by Clockwork Tortoise Inc., and things got bad again.
A Batmobil driving simulator, its graphics are great but the gameplay simple and frustrating.
driving trough Gotham in traffic should be fun, not tedious damn' it!
Oh well, it's only merit besides its graphics and good but limited soundtrack is the cut-sequences in between missions. Originally an unfinished episode in the series, you can spare yourself the pain of a playtrough by looking at it here www.youtube.com/watch?v=guCBoM_Njh4 and here www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pnfkGI7D_Y


-More to follow-

[Neo Rasa]

The PC Engine Batman game is much, much more like Bomberman than any Pac-Man game. In fact the only difference is you throw a batarang (or several if you go the multi-bomb, er, batarang item) ahead of you instead of dropping a bomb behind you.

Also it's notable that Sunsoft reused a lot of the music from the NES game for the PC Engine game. It's worth beating the first six levels or so just to hear the NES tunes as handled by the PC Engine's aural prowess.

The Genesis game was a revelation when it came out, but as we've become better at video game fisticuffs its faults become more apparent. Both it and the NES game have outsanding soundtracks though. The NES game has little to do with Batman beyond it having Batman (though earlier incarnations of the game actually had cut scenes that loosely followed the movie) but I do love the look of the game. The graphics themselves are very in tune with the comics in the late eighties (especially the first, fourth and fifth levels) and for that I respect it.


The Alien franchise is another one that has had several very good, or at least interesting games based on it. There's a cool one on the C64 where you manage the positions of the crew of the Nostromo while also trying to monitor where the Alien is. You have to use the crew members as bait to lure it around the ship while using others to open/close doors to isolate it and eventually blow it out an airlock.

Aliens had two very good games, a simple but visually (and aurally if you like Konami) great arcade game from Konami and a first person PC game with lots of pre-combat management involving your weapons and such, good stuff.

Alien 3 is an odd choice. It came out on many systems and is a terrible, terrible, horribly unbalanced and stupidly designed game. EXCEPT on the SNES, wherein Probe created a totally different and very solid product. It's not perfect, and is too repetitive for its own good, but it's a miracle compared to the other Alien 3 games.

The best Alien 3 game will always Sega's arcade game though. Alien 3: THE GUN. It's so much cooler than the title sounds. The cabinet has two full size pulse rifles and, visually, has a really cool array of sprites and digitized graphics.

It holds up a little better than the T2 arcade game since it makes use of copious scaling effects to make it looks like you're walking forward, turning around in a single room, and so on. It's very impressive for its time. It also kind of sort of has a better storyline and somehow darker ending than any released version of the actual movie. Bwah?

When I get my life together and finish the other articles/etc. I keep failing at completing, I've been wanting to do a big article concerning all the video games that have the Xenomorph in it. Some day.

Actually here's an early thing I just found wherein I wrote about some good licensed games:

_________________________________
Alien (C64?/Amiga, )

Interesting turn based adventure-ish game where you control the Nostromo crew and have to follow through with Dallas/Tom Skerrit's plan to trap the Xenomorph in the vents and flush it out the airlock. Makes good use of the motion sensor mechanics set forth in the original film. You can also access Mother to learn more about it and your situation and if I recall correctly converse with the other crew members as well to redistribute weapons and supplies. Very addictive.

Aliens (C64, Activision)

Fun first person action game with various mini-games interspersed to represent landing the EEV, weapons distribution, and so on. Again, simple yet addictive game that makes good use of its license.

Aliens (Arcade, Konami)

This title's greatness speaks for itself. All sorts of great takes on the Xenomorph form (Symphony fans should get a kick out of the level 3 boss) including infected half-eaten zombies and chesbursters popping out of cocooned people as you walk by them. The trademark Geiger bizarreness also is not lost as you fight new bosses that include what can only be described as a large aphid with a vagina taking up the upper half of it's body that spawns large, glass-enclosed hearts that revolve and rotate outside of the creature. The backgrounds look great and are all accurate to what you see in the film which makes the well drawn new Xenomorph designs fit in and still seem credible.

It plays like sidescrolling beatem'up, only you have fully automatic weapons on you at all times that never run out of ammunition and you have no melee attacks. Great fun with two players.

The early highlight of the game for me is when you're riding the elevator down halfway through level two. There's a constant assault of Xenomorphs from every direction and some of them will assault the elevator cables instead of you. If you don't kill those in time you, uhm, get to "skip" the elevator sequence at the cost of one life.

Finally, this game has a great sound track. Unlike other games based on this franchise, it doesn't try to replicate any of the existing orchestral scores at all. Rather it goes for something more akin to a Gradius or Contra game. The results are fantastic for a Konami game on this hardware. There's even a poster about halfway through the third level of a Mohai head.

Aliens: Thanatos Encounter (GBC, Konami)

Where did this come from? I'm not complaining. There's not much to say about this game due to it's absolutely perfect simplicity. It's Alien Syndrome except with the license this time and instead of having lives, you have a squad of marines with different stats that you choose from.

If ones loses his energy he/she doesn't die. Before you leave the level you have a chance to investigate deeper hives on that deck to try to rescue them before they're implanted. You can hold a weapon in each hand, a heavy weapon, or a single handed weapon in one hand and the motion sensor in the other.

The massive hoards of Xenomorphs you fight later on combined with this and ammo/energy scarcity later on make for great tension that perfectly balances charging into the fray and blasting everything with strategically retreating to lure them away from a colonist you need to rescue, to pick them off bit by bit, or just to catch your breath.

If you like the Alien franchise there's no real reason to give this a chance. Other games based on this franchise fall squarely into a genre one likes or dislikes, but the core experience of Alien Syndrome is, like Ash says of the Xenomorph itself in the first film, admirable for its clarity.


Alien^3: The Gun (Arcade, Sega)

David Fincher's first feature film despite what he'll tell you. A travesty of incoherence after Fox had their way with it. Fortunately the special edition on the Quadrilogy shows that what Fincher had in mind is outstanding. This title is basically T2: The Arcade Game (intresting as the films themselves were developed concurrently despite the very different release dates). Same use of tons of samples from the movie. A boss that pretty much is a Hunter Killer Tank. Same style of graphics mixing digitized images from the movie and 2D sprites. Lots of parallax loveliness.

The difference? This game is much more intense and visceral. Unlike Operation Wolf and other shooting gallery style games you do a lot of turning around, getting chased back and forth by variations of the Xenomorph, and so on. Despite being on rails it gives you a great sense of being surrounded and in the middle of a huge conflict at all times.

The coolest thing about this game is that your lightgun is a full-sized, almost perfectly replicated Pulse Rifle. This game takes great advantage of the franchise and has you fighting just about every type of Xenomorph life cycle stage you can imagine as well as synthetics, combat androids, and human marines. You also have to watch your aim. If you don't go straight for the chest or head it's possible to cut a fully grown Xenomorph right in half without killing it!

You also have the T2: The Arcade Game caveat of unlimited ammunition, but the gun overheating causing the rate of fire to decrease dramatically. Short controlled bursts, just like Apone says.

It's just about the perfect length for this type of game. Bosses all take a while to kill and have multiple phases but you always seem to finish them off just as you start to get bored. The screen moves from area to area at a pretty good pace and there's always enough enemies onscreen without slowdown that you'll never get bored. The game's only flaw is that, while there's a nice variety of enemies for this sort of title, in the later game it tends to toss hordes and hordes of the same enemy type at you at a time. Kind of a let down as the first several stages do a great job of introducing new enemy types and showing off various indoor and outdoor environments.


Alien^3 (SNES/Genesis/GB/GG/NES, Acclaim)

Besides the arcade game, a game based on Alien^3 was released on the NES, Gameboy, Game Gear, SNES, and Genesis. All of these are similar in premise but have different level structures and slightly different gameplay. All of them suck except for the SNES version. The games are based around Ripley running around Fiorina 161 with weapons killing Xenomorphs and setting prisoners free before they're incubated.

The SNES version goes above and beyond the call of duty in this department with the play controls, mission structure, and gameplay. Right off the bat you have three guns on you for the whole game. The Pulse Rifle, its underslung grenade launcher, and a flame thrower are with you and each is assigned it's own button on the SNES controller.

You can also jump and climb hand over hand, up and down ladders, crawl, and shoot in any direction with any weapon while performing any of the aforementioned actions.

That's a control scheme that does not mess around. The Pulse Rifle is so good you don't even see the bullets, you fire it and hear an awesome sample and whatever's in front of you explodes with often screen-shaking results. The game does a great job of making you feel like a full time Xenomorph killer.

You start the game by one of several computer bays, from these you choose from various missions to complete and can look at blueprints to help you not get lost in each of the massive levels. These missions range from sealing shut pressure doors to keep the infestation from spreading, repairing parts of the prison while under fire, rescuing prisoners, restoring/cutting off power at various points, and simply going to a quadrant and eliminating a ton of eggs.

You have to make some tough choices along the way as well. As an example at one point you can seal off a large nest area to keep Xenomorphs from appearing in one of the other sections. That area is also, unfortunately, the only way into the north armory and you can only carry so much ammunition at once. So you can let the creatures thrive in one area in exchange for easy access to weapons in another, or cut off your weapon supply in exchange for an easier time later on in the game IF you can survive that long.

The game also has a very visceral sound track that combines several of the queues from Elliot Goldenthal's Alien 3 score and James Horner's Aliens score just as the gameplay combines aspects of Alien^3 and Aliens. With more items and a fully open prison instead of large levels and different weapon variants, this game could have given Super Metroid a run for its money in terms of exploration. As it stands it goes to show just how great a licensed game be.

The designers were definitely fans of the franchise. Coming from early nineties Acclaim but not being a Mortal Kombat port, and being a licensed game, I'd say this release is a huge triumph against the odds.




Captain America and the Avengers (Arcade/Genesis/SNES, Data East)

Klaw and Living Laser: "DON'T DISTURB US!"
Player: "WHY SHOULD IT GO WELL?"

This is a great old style beat'em up in the vein of Double Dragon rather than Final Fight. You've got small characters but plenty onscreen at once, no pre-canned combos, and a lot of moves. Your playable characters are Captain America, Iron Man, Vision, and Hawkeye.

You get to smash your way through thousands of androids, space ships, and all the major Avengers villains on your way to destroy the Red Skull. Along the way there's tons of overly dramatic and not nessecarily coherent speech to amaze and amuse you.

This game really shines with two players as each character has a projectile move (Vision and Iron Man being able to perform said moves in mid-air) so while the odds are always against you the action ends up being very fast with you jumping/charging/shooting all over the place.

I'd quote some of the "amazing" spoken dialogue from the later levels but I don't want to spoil the amazing plot twist, explained solely by "YES. IT'S ANOTHER TRAP."

Namor has a cameo in this game in the third level, you get to the end of an aircraft carrier and there's nothing left to the right but ocean. Namor jumps out and exclaims. "THEY'RE IN THE SEA."

With this and other tricky clues you should be able to figure out the left to right pathway to the end of the game. This game is pretty much the epitome of cheesy Data East-calibur awesomeness on par with Bad Dudes (though not even coming close to the masterpiece that is Two Crude).

The SNES version is almost perfect graphically, however most of the voices are removed and the text versions of them are fixed to be grammatically correct. Horrendous.

The Genesis port on the other hand has worse graphics and worse quality voice samples but has EVERY sample and none are corrected. Excellent.

Dirty Harry (NES, Mindscape)

This is a fun action/platformer that is like a simplified Castlevania II: Simon's Quest. The plot is an amalgamation of the first Dirty Harry film and The Enforcer with villains from Sudden Impact and The Dead Pool making appearances. Right from the start you have your .44 magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, capable of blowing your head clean off at this range, and can shoot diagonally, jump, crouch, punch and kick all very easily.

You get to go all over different parts of San Francisco (and eventually Alcatraz for the showdown with the Anaconda). It's not nearly as linear as it seems at first. There's tons of alleyways you can go across to access different blocks. You can also enter most of the buildings in the game, as well as enter every room you encounter in said buildings (be it because they're unlocked or because you forced your way in with a crowbar).

The game also features an expansive sewer system under the city that you can go through pretty easily once you find the flashlight. Flashlight? Crowbar? Yes, there's some alternate weapons and items you select to use like the spear gun and LAW rockets, and ones like the Flashlight that are activated and work just by being in your inventory. Crowbars let you break into any apartment and then punch and kick at all the furniture/shelves/chests, confiscating all the drugs therein for points. You use chilidogs to restore your energy, also as per the films.

There's some interesting things in it usually not seen in a licensed game on the NES. At one point you encounter this huge bouncer that's indestructable (even bullets ricochet off him). There's a bookie/shady character guy in another building though you can exchange clothes with so you can get by the guy. You can also barter some items with other non-hostiles you see in the streets and in buildings. Fun action game with just enough depth to make it above average for a licensed NES game of the time. The controls are also much more responsive and better laid out than in Mad Max and Mindscape's other licensed efforts.



Robocop (Arcade, Data East)

There have been tons of Robocop games. This was one of the first. It's great. Basically it's like E-SWAT: The Ultimate Factor in the War Against Crime only with much better controls and sound.

The synth on this board served Bad Dudes, Chelnov: Atomic Runner, etc. quite well and it does a great job of reproducing the already heavily synth-aided Robocop score by Basil Pouledouris. Every track in the game comes straight from the movie.

Fun, difficult, addictive. Way above average for a movie-licensed game and one of the first movie-licensed arcade games I can recall (if not the first unless you want to count Death Race) that is truly good. Robocop is such a badass in this game that you'll notice the weakest enemies merely touching him results in said enemies getting blown across the screen and dying instantly.

Robocop vs. Terminator (SNES/Genesis/Master System/GG/GB, Virgin Interactive)

It's like the old Robocop arcade game but on crazy. Tons of great weapons, constant explosive action, and tons of secrets. The SNES/Genesis versions are highly recommended for the low price you'll see it for these days. The Game Gear version is pretty impressive too given the system.

UN Squadron (Arcade/SNES, Capcom)

Based on the old Japanese comic Area 88, this is a polished hoirzontal shooter that, while offering a mediocre selection of weapons like most Capcom shmups of this era, has great pacing and use of the character's personalities. I think this was the first time I saw "Go to hell!" in a video game. Lots of shmup action, lots of cool bosses and large, multi-stage vehicles to take out, plus a great final boss battle. Check this out if you've forgotten about it or never heard of it.

The SNES port is VERY good, featuring more developed differences between the different ships, pilots and weapon upgrades.

[Haz]

I liked the Batman games, especially the shooting one (Return of the Joker) which is graphically impressive and has nice music too.

There's Goldeneye of course (all I can think of atm)

[morphballer]

There were several great Star Wars games over the years. In fact, Star Wars is probably the most successful licensed videogame franchise.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the Simpsons were great arcade games. In both cases the lecenses had the advantage of good developers behind them.

[The bag of sand]

Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay was one of those rare moments where the game is better than its movie counterpart (Chronicles of Riddick). The game takes place before the first movie Pitch Black and tells the story on how Riddick got his eye shine that he is most noted for. It is really amazing. Gameplay fused FPS, hand to hand combat and stealth. The graphics are obviously the best looking 3D game last gen. The voice acting was spot on, Diesel did an excelent job.
Beautiful Screenshot.

[Haz]

What about the Genesis and PS1 Spider-Man games?

[neomerge]

thebagofsand said:

Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay was one of those rare moments where the game is better than its movie counterpart (Chronicles of Riddick). The game takes place before the first movie Pitch Black and tells the story on how Riddick got his eye shine that he is most noted for. It is really amazing. Gameplay fused FPS, hand to hand combat and stealth. The graphics are obviously the best looking 3D game last gen. The voice acting was spot on, Diesel did an excelent job.

Get on Messenger noob. Ive been trying to contact you all day.

[shelverton]

I think Capcom did an excellent job with their Disney license back in the late 80's, early 90's. Duck Tales is actually one of the best NES games ever i my opinion. Also, Duck Tales 2, Rescue Rangers 1 & 2, Darkwing Duck, Aladdin and Magical Quest were all good games. And no matter what some people say, Goof Troop, Little Mermaid (yes, I'm serious) and the Great Circus Mystery are definitely above average too.
Obviously, they're all way too easy (especially the NES games), but they're fun to play and that's what really matters.

I don't have very fond memories of Tale Spin or Adventures in Magic Kingdom though...

EDIT: Come to think of it, I wouldn't mind a Capcom/Disney article here on HG101.

[zzz]

Alien vs. Predator (arcade)
Cadillacs and Dionsaurs (arcade)
Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom
Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow Over Mystara
The Punisher (arcade)
Sanrio Carnival
Kero Kero Keroppi no Daibouken
Minna no Tabou no Nakayoshi Daisakusen
Hello Kitty World
Sanrio Cup: Pon Pon Volley
Hello Kitty no Hanabatake
Sanrio Carnival 2
Kero Kero Keroppi no Daibouken 2: Donuts Ike ha Oosawagi!
Sanrio World Smash Ball!
Keroppi to Keroriinu no Splash Bomb!
Kero Kero Keroppi no Bouken Nikki
Sanrio Shanghai
Ossu!! Karatebu
Gundam Wing Endless Duel
Dragon Ball Z Hyper Dimension
Choujikuu Yousai - Macross (FC)
Cho Jikuu Yosai Macross (SFC)
Chibi Maruko Chan - Mezase Minami no Island!!
Battle Pinball
Super Tekkyu Fight
Ranma 1/2 - Chougi Ranbu Hen

[neomerge]

DBZ: Legend of the Super Sayain (SNES)

[shelverton]

More:
-Tiny Toons Buster Bust's Loose by Konami.
-Willow by Capcom

[greenlink21]

-Yuu Yuu Hakusho (SNES)
-Yuu Yuu Hakusho: Tokubehuten (SNES)

Both are nice cinematic fighting games where you insert actions and watch the characters battle, like Far East Of Eden Karakuri Kakutoden on the PC-Engine FX. The graphics, voice samples, and the smoothness of the battle animation is quite nice being released in 1993 on the SNES. The sequel adds some upgrades and some new characters, following into the Chapter Black saga (where the 1st game left at the end of the Black Tournament). It's not too hard to play after getting behind the language barrier.



The first game has a story mode but no 2 player while the 2nd game has 2 player but no story mode (replaced by a random tournament mode), so you can decided on which game yo want to play from these merits .

[Weasel]

I'm going to admit that Burger King Sneak King isn't that bad of a game. It's actually a fairly entertaining Metal Gear Lite type of game - far from perfect, but not completely worthless either. It also makes for some easy achievement points if you're playing it on a 360.

There was an Ataxx/Infection game based on the 7Up Spot, simply called "Spot" - there were NES and Game Boy versions, but I grew up with the PC version in all its Adlib-powered glory. The entertaining animations Spot made when moving from tile to tile were amusing as well.

For those living in the UK, you might know of a snack food called Quavers, and its (since abandoned) mascot, Colin Curly. He got two games - Pushover (also released on the SNES, sans Quavers references) and One Step Beyond. Pushover is a fun puzzle game involving dominos (and has little to do with Quavers unless you watch the introduction). One Step Beyond actually stars Colin instead of putting him in a background role, and the Amiga version (at least) has some really silky-smooth animations and lots of personality. The puzzles in both games can get to be quite clever, so it's great for those of you that love puzzlers.

I can't count the number of awesome Alien/VS Predator games. Well, except the Jaguar version. It looked impressive for its day, but the gameplay sadly has not aged well. Monolith's AvP2 is incredible.

I'm going to mention Tapper here. Why? Well, It's a Budweiser game (or Suntory in Japan). It's the only arcade machine to feature a cup holder (unless you count Ridge Racer Full Scale).

[TheGunheart]

Astro Boy for GBA is an awesome, Nintendo Hard brawler by Treasure, and one of those rare games that does the license justice. It melds stories from Osamu Tezuka's entire canon, and merges them into an awesome story with some of the best boss battles on a handheld.

[marvrj]

I would have to go with Peter Jackson's King Kong. Played the Gamecube version.