If you read my article about the success of video games and movies in this recession, you would think that if these two were married they would make the perfect couple. However, history suggests this to be the opposite, as movie-based video games rarely get high ratings. They might sell well, but for the semi-hardcore gamer, it isn't even worth renting these half-finished games. But why can't a game developer create a successful movie-based game? I mean the content is there. You have some great storylines with characters already fleshed out. You have some excellent action-packed movies already released like The Dark Knight, Transformers, Wanted and James Bond's Quantum of Solace. So what gives? I'll tell you what gives; time.

Yes time. There is just not enough time to develop a decent video game when a movie is announced. On top of that, movie makers want a video game that doesn't stray too far from the theme of the movie, which puts game developers in a bind when they feel they have a great idea but the movie dudes disagree with them. So with the amount of time a game dev have plus trying to please the movie guys creates a horrible video game.

Want to know how bad some movie games are? Here are a list of low rates movie-based video games. All of these games scored below a 69 out of 100(or 6.9 out of 10) on metacritic.com:

• Jumper: Griffin's Story 2.9
  
• The Golden Compass 4.1
  
• Tron 4.3
  
• Hellboy: The Science of Evil 4.4
  
• Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer 4.5
  
• Iron Man 4.5
  
• Eragon 4.8
  
• Shrek-N-Roll 4.9
  
• WALL-E 5.0
  
• Beowulf 5.1
  
• Superman Returns: The Videogame 5.1
  
• X-Men: The Official Game 5.2
  
• Transformers: The Game 5.2
  
• Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Burning Earth 5.4
  
• The Incredible Hulk 5.5
  
• Shrek the Third 5.6
  
• Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian 5.6
  
• Ratatouille 5.6
  
• Lord of the Rings: Conquest 5.6
  
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 5.8
  
• Cars Mater-National 5.8
  
• Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End 5.8
  
• Open Season 5.9
  
• The Spiderwick Chronicles 5.9
  
• Watchmen: The End is Nigh 6.1
• Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa 6.2
  
• Spider-Man 3 6.3
• Cars 6.5
  
• Meet the Robinsons 6.5
  
• Quantum of Solace 6.5
  
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix 6.8
  

I bolded Jumper: Griffin's Story because it is the third worst game released ever on the Xbox 360 ratings wise. A 2.9 out of 10? I'll be nice and round it up to a 3. So a 3 out of 10...wow. Granted, I thought Jumper was an ok movie action wise, but the story was shit. Was it because of the constant teleporting that the game developer of Jumper just couldn't nail it? I mean come on even the Pimp My Ride video game did better than the Jumper game(3.8). I think the ultimate question is, would Jumper: Griffin's Story had been a better game if it had more time to develop? I guess we will never know, but I'm sure it had to have a factor with a 3 rating. What about the actual game developer of Jumper? I can tell you that the publisher, Brash Entertainment, is out of business right now. The developer, Collision Studios, only has a few games under its belt, which could have also played a factor.

Will movie-based games ever wow us? So far the highest rated movie-based game is Peter Jackson's King Kong with a score of 8.0 out of 10. This year, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Wanted: Weapons of Fate, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, and G.I. Joe are some of the few movies with games following with them. I hope they have ample time to finally prove us gamers wrong about the hopelessness of actually getting a worthy movie game title.

Head over to Jaquemini.com to read my guest post about video-game-based movies like Max Payne and why they fail so often.