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This week, Vince, Sarah and I come up with lists of our favorite video games, as casual gamers. And join Vince and I later this week for a special podcast review of Zombieland!
LLAP
-Cap’n Logan
You know you’ve seen them and probably hated them, but try telling me with a straight face that they aren’t your guilty pleasure. They’re possibly the greatest display of absurdly awesome ridiculousness (yes that’s right) to ever emerge from the gaming industry, and now it’s time to take a trip down memory lane to salute, ridicule and laugh at gaming’s worst films.
Annihilation was a corny follow-up to an actually decent original gaming movie. Mortal Kombat (the original) could easily be placed on an opposing list for gaming’s best film adaptations; however, its sequel, Annihilation, fell far short from ever reaching the same popularity and embrace as its predecessor. Annihilation was basically terrible on every level: bad actors, horrible plot, terrible dialogue, cheesy special effects, horrific costumes and overall it was just badder than the bad. It’s like the director just decided to throw as many characters into the movie as possible without any back-story and then have them killed off as equally fast as they were introduced. Hell, even the music (don’t tell me you can’t remember the awesome Mortal Kombat theme song) in this sequel was a let down. However, even though MKII: Annihilation is one of the worst gaming movies ever created, I can’t help but watch when it’s on television. I know, I’m just as pathetic as this movie.
I don’t think I even need words to describe this screen shot of the movie, but it’s always more fun if I do. Nice costumes…no really, I mean it.
Okay, I’ll be honest… I never actually saw Bloodrayne because my two best friends saw it and told me how horrible it was, and trust me, if they said it was bad then it must have been utterly pathetic because they like some bad movies. However, on the surface, Bloodrayne had all the ingredients needed to become the next Underworld, aside from the flawless Kate Beckinsale. Anyways, Bloodrayne had a decent cast of relatively famous actors, and it had sex appeal too. Other than boobs and a few names, Bloodrayne was no less painful than an actual vampire sucking your blood. The plot, if you could call it one, had no coherence and the acting, which should have been decent, sucked just as bad as the script. What’s worse than Bloodrayne the movie? How about Bloodrayne 2: Deliverance the movie. Yeah, they made a sequel. It’s as if they just didn’t quite get the hint from the first one’s resounding failure.
Umm….hmmm…take a look at the tagline for the movie – “A heart-stopping adventure.” I agree with that slogan, but I don’t think it’s for the same reasons that the creators do – it’s more like you will literally die if you watch this wretched excuse for a movie.
Double Dragon (1994)
Just look at that artwork….I’m utterly speechless. I don’t even need to crack a joke here because it does it for itself.
Wow! I mean wow! Where do I even begin with this one? It’s been literally 14 years since I saw this movie (in theaters no less), so I had to brush up on a couple of reviews to refresh my memory of this, this…classic? Well let’s see, for starters the Lee brothers were played by one white guy and one Japanese guy, so it’s beyond me how they’re related. Not to mention that in the actual Double Dragon video game one of the brothers was blonde. Out of everything they got wrong in this movie you’d have thought they could at least get the right hair color – guess not. Anyways, moving on to awesome fact number two. The bad guy in the movie, can you remember the actor? Well, it was Robert Patrick – T-1000 anybody? That’s right after he was done getting his ass kicked by
Horrible movie, great game…I mean those are the straightest looking outfits I’ve ever seen.
One’s thing for starters, Doom doesn’t exist on the same level of horribleness as the other movies on this countdown thus far; however, it still makes my cut for one of the worst video game film adaptations ever made. The film itself is an overall decent movie if you’re a total action movie junkie who can’t seem to get enough of people dying, exaggerated explosions and big guns. The main area that Doom failed in was that fact that it didn’t even remotely follow any Doom game storyline. Honestly, how hard could it have been to at least keep the general plot of at least one of the games? I never thought I’d actually say this but The Rock has surprised me in some of his recent movies with is acting skills, and I could even branch out on a limb to say that he’s become a decent actor. However, his role in Doom is not something he should add to his resume for credibility. The movie is your basic knock off of an action/sci-fi/thriller classic like Aliens, but it’s no where near the prestige of that action/sci-fi flick. Oh, and the best part about Doom is the fact that they actually shot some scenes to resemble a first person shooter game (you know with the camera as the characters view and only showing the gun on screen), something ridiculous enough to make me laugh at its corny attempt to relate to the games originating feature.
This wouldn’t be cheesy if it were a screen shot for the actual video game, but unfortunately this is the actual poster for the film – it’s not even a real arm and gun, why?
House of the Dead was one of my favorite arcade games growing up, and it was the first of its kind to incorporate a non-linear campaign – you could choose your designated path. My friends and I would go to the local arcade, get five dollars in quarters and we would play House of the Dead (and later HotD II) until we beat it. The games were terrific, and when I heard that they were making a movie based off of the series I remember getting excited because not only were the games personal favorites of mine, but they also just so happened to be horror related– my favorite movie genre. However, after watching House of the Dead in theaters my appetite for flesh-eating zombies ceased from a growling stomach to a sharp pain in my side from all the laughter. For starters, the movie’s plot is ridiculous even for cheesy slasher movie standards. A group of friends are on their way to a tropical island for the rave of the year. Okay, there’s my sign to stop watching the movie and it’s only just begun. The acting is horrible, but we already expected that, right? The plot is preposterous, but we expected that too, right? The least the movie could have done was provide some cool deaths, right? Nope! Apparently director Uwe Boll, who’s also responsible for the equally as bad video game movie, Alone in the Dark, (don’t be surprised if you see it in the second half of the countdown) can’t even capture an originating death scene. Not to mention that the zombies look like ravers from the party with face paint rather than brain-munching, flesh-decaying zombies. Oh well, at least it’s worth a good laugh… or fifty?
“Am I dead, Angel? Cause this must be heaven.” – Ironically, that’s the exact pick-up line he used on her at the rave in the movie.
Stay tuned next week for the top half of the countdown as I give you the remaining five worst video game movies ever created. You won’t want to miss it because the countdown is only sure to get more absurd and the movies more pathetic. As always, thanks for reading.
-Dillon (D-Dub)