Back to the 80s! Movies and TV that Made It Into Video Games!

The licensed video game was a staple of the gaming industry for several decades. If a TV show or movie was a hit, it was reasonable to expect that there would be a video game adaptation for it.
Unfortunately, more often than not - the video game adaptations weren't very good. Aside from a few high points (like David Crane's C64 classic Ghostbusters, or the arcade Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), movie/tv licensed video games would be mostly low quality product. Still, in the days before internet reviews were accessible at the tap of a finger, millions of us kids didn't know better - and would eagerly grab and play these titles.
In this video, we take a look at a little over 50 of these licensed games! How many did you play? How many would you play?
Notes/Credits:
- Opening "Back to the Future" theme, "Knight Rider" theme and "Miami Vice" theme & clip courtesy of the amazingly talented people at the Enzo Music channel ( / @enzomusic_de ) - please give their page a visit!
- Every movie in here was released in the 80s; every TV show in here premiered in the 80s.
- For movie licensed game, the game had to have been based on the actual movie in question; so games like the recent "Robocop: Detroit City" - which is another chapter in the series. would not appear.
- Many titles received wholly different versions for different platforms (or even the same platform in some cases, like Aliens and Die Hard) . For each clip, the game platforms are listed in clockwise order, starting from the top left.
- The video clip for Moonwalker is actually from Michel Jackson's Smooth Criminal video, and not the actual Moonwalker movie. However, the Smooth Criminal video was essentially turned into a short film for the Moonwalker movie, and was clearly the inspiration for the game(s).
- The ZX Spectrum game for Blade Runner was actually based on the "musical score" for the movie, not the movie itself

[@GaryRetroGamer]

*CORRECTION* For the Die Hard clip, there is a 5th platform not mentioned - the PS1 version. So, the clockwise ordering should be C64/Arcade/PS1/NES/MS-DOS.
Thanks @Obikka for pointing this out!!

[@GaryRetroGamer]

Apologies for this video appearing/disappearing/reappearing. There were some issues with UA-cam uploads *and* with the 4K encoding process. Should be all good now.

[@ObiKKa]

Wow. Love this video. Never seen anywhere else like this before.
BTW, at 8:12, there appears to be 5 game clips for die hard, but only 4 mentions of platforms.
I'm sure the one in the bottom middle is of DH Trilogy which was on the PC & PS1/sat.
Ooh, "To be continued" all in capital letters in the Back to the Future movie trilogy title font at 10:00. So suspenseful! Hehe.

[@GaryRetroGamer]

Thanks for the kind words! Yeah, this was a fun video to assemble - mostly because I had no idea some of these licensed games exist (a Rambo TEXT ADVENTURE???)
Unfortunately, this is one of the lowest-ever viewed videos this channel has posted. So, the likelihood of Part 2 isn't very high...
And THANK YOU for catching the missing Die Hard title. I'll post an errata.

[@samuelmelendez7566]

Woah! It looks and feels like I'm straight out of the movie!

[@tb3411]

Willow might just have the best looking NES game ever.

[@GaryRetroGamer]

Thanks again for pointing out the Alf omission and making me realize I had goofed up the version upload!

[@lustisnotlove6226]

Blessings from Hong Kong 97 Hong Kong🤙🏻

[@justincorber7528]

What is the Rambo 2 game in the lower left corner?

[@GaryRetroGamer]

It's a 1985 text adventure game (!) game based on the movie. Yep, they made a freaking text adventure out of Rambo: First Blood Part II. You can play it online here: www.retrogames.cz/play_675-DOS.php?language=EN

[@justincorber7528]

@@GaryRetroGamer I'm referring to the game where Rambo has his back to the viewer.

[@GaryRetroGamer]

@@justincorber7528 So, that's Rambo III you're talking about. The game pictured is an arcade release, developed by Taito and released in 1989.

[@justincorber7528]

@@GaryRetroGamer Gotcha. I thought it was Rambo 3. But I knew it most likely was not the Genesis release. Thanks

[@GaryRetroGamer]

@@justincorber7528 Actually, I'm glad you pointed this out. I was aware there was a Genesis release of the game *but* I thought it was actually just a port of the Arcade version, which is why there isn't a clip of it here. If we make a v2 of this video, we'll definitely add the Genesis version. Thanks for bringing it to my attention!