Ever since the movie industry has discovered that you can get a lot of money out of the game industry, tons and tons of video games based on movies have been released and been labeled as ''crappy'' games. But what makes a movie based game crappy? I'll tell ya'. Sometimes a movie is good and sometimes movie is bad, we all know that. When a company like Universal or 20th Century Fox thinks one of their movies is going to be a big hit cause of massive promoting, they wanna cash in on that by knocking on the door of a gamedeveloper. Ta-da, there you have your average videogame with lack of depth and fun.

A good example of a bad movie based game is E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial for the Atari 2600. Your goal in this game is to stay out of the hands of US government. Sounds exciting, but the excitement doesn't last long. As you try to run off in forests and try to avoid being ''killed'' you get stuck in a series of linear events of falling into pits, being stuck in narrow places and inescapable deaths. There is no way to do anything against this since E.T. isn't quite the alien killing machine like James Cameron imagined them in his mind with Aliens. The game is crappy, it just is, and there is nothing that seems familiar with the movie! And if it was familiar with the movie the game would just be as crappy since E.T. isn't really a movie with the right material of creating a good first-person shooter, a RPG or a fighting game. It would be fun to kick the hell out of the little kid or a young Drew Barrymore with the long neck of E.T. as ultimate fatality or to have a street race on that little bicycle, but it just doesn't work for that movie.

E.T. the game is over 20 years old and so it lives in the past, but modern videogames that are based on movies are still crappy most of the time. Games like Catwoman, Open Season, Enter The Matrix, Disney's Tarzan Untamed and many more are just part of a huge percentage of crappy movie based games. But how is this possible? How come that so many great movies get turn into bad games? Actually, it is rather simple to explain in one word: Source. The source of the movie is the baseline for a game, without that there wouldn't even be a game. Movies like The Lord of the Rings and Star Wars have been proven to be great source for many action and strategy games that weren't that bad at all, some were even great or superb like The Battle for Middle-Earth. The reason for that lies within the elements of those movies, there are armies, heroes and villains, lots of swords and other weaponry, fantasy and sci-fi worlds and of course a clear image of good versus evil. If a movie contains these or some of these elements it should turn out to be a good or even a great game if the rights for the game falls into the hands of the right developer.

Sometimes a movie based game only uses the name of the movie and then gives its own twist to it, basing a subplot on the movie with just some elements of the movie and sometimes containing events and characters that weren't or just briefly mentioned in the movie. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Bee Movie, The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcherbay are all based on movies but contain different stories, characters or goals that weren't in the movies. Bee Movie might be a game created for the young gamers with the age of 6 or so, but it is a good example of how to make a video game with the source of its movie without making it dull. Just let the bee do what it does best: collecting nectar and making honey.

As for The Force Unleashed and Riddick, these games are given a total different subplot with great elements that are from the movies with some total new ones. In TFU you'll be able to use the Force and all with a lightsaber in the pocket, nothing new. But being the secret apprentice of Darth Vader and completing spec ops missions for him is something that's never been mentioned before in the movies. As for Riddick, escaping from a triple max. prison by stealth, hand combat and brutal weapons makes it a lot more fun than just hiding in the shadows and silently killing enemies like actor Karl Urban as in the movie.

It's no miracle that games like TFU (OK, it has to be released yet, but it is a highly anticipated game), (yes, even) Bee Movie and Riddick are multiplatinum selling games with great average ratings by critics. It's simple to make a game based on a movie, but it's one hell of job to make it fun. Developers just need to use the universe of the movie and not the movie itself to make a game. Sticking to close to the original plot and source of the movie isn't always going to turn out good. So, for gamer's sake make good games based on movies! It's not hard at all, just let your imagination go use a good movie source and the game isn't going to turn out that crappy.

It's just one of those days when you're in the mood to be a rock legend, to slam your guitar like Jimmy Hendrix did and share that with one of your buddies who comes along to play the multiplatinum game Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock! But that pleasant share of joy will come to a end not much later.

Yeah, guess what!? My guitar is broken! And no, no the first time or the second, but the frikkin' THIRD time! First the A/green button didn't work after that the Starpower wasn't able to function properly and now, again, the A button won't work for sh**... Joy!

Any of you guys have the simliar problem with GH or any other games?

So yeah, there are many blog posts about this movie, but that's because it's worth the effort of writing about it.

The 23rd of July, The Netherlands, I'm heading to a cinema with some friends to be at the premiere of the blockbuster boxoffice hit, The Dark Knight. We get free beer and nacho's since it's promoted by a major Dutch beer brand, Grolsch. Around 2,5 hours later, we were all stunned...

It's not a ''super hero'' movie, it's way more than that. The story that evolves around it is just so awesomely done, so dark and emotional. A lot of people think of lame comic books and other movies like Spiderman and Superman, but Batman Begins and The Dark Knight aren't really about the hero, Batman. You really see Batman isn't actually a hero. You have to watch it to know what I mean... It has a average of a 9.5 at Rotten Tomatoes, now that's sick. And the acting of Heath Ledger as the Joker, Oscar nomination/win for him. Sad that he died this January...