DS Daily: License to thrill

I'd have to say Spider-Man on the gamecube. sorry, can't think of any on the ds or gba.

I can't think of any for the DS. I brought Disney Friends for my cousin and she says it's ok. BUt I haven't played it myself, so...

I enjoyed Riddick on the 360, as well as Astro Boy on the GBA. The Lion King on the Mega Drive was awesome, but that's taking it well back.

I'm going to say Spider-man 2 for the PS2, Batman for the NES and Batman Returns for the SNES. All three were great IMO.

I know this is going out on a limb by mentioning imports, but the anime "Yakitate! Japan" had a great board game on the DS. Tons of fun to play.

TMNT for the GBA was an awesome side-scrolling fighter, maybe one of the best I ever played. Of course, the other console versions of the game were junk, but the GBA game stood out for me.

Any DS or GBA attempt at a licensed game sucks. There's no way around it.

I'll agree with my Argentinian friend above though, Spider-man 2 for the PS2 was definitely the best movie licensed game I've ever played.

I liked the 1st lego star wars, I liked (I think it was the 2nd) Ninja Turtles game for the NES....

Astro Boy: Omega Factor for the GBA.

It is exactly what you want in a side-scroller: fast action, crisp controls, interesting abilities, good graphics, amazing combat. You can also upgrade everything your character can do several times over. :)

It is exactly what you want in a license: faithful to the character, tons of cameos for long-time fans, and has a great story.

I love this game to death. It also uses its level select in a cool way that weaves into the plot. Worth tracking down.

ClayFighter 63⅓ ftw!

"Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?" Ugh, that was really hard to type. My family seems to enjoy the DS game. I suppose any "game show" has a chance at be coming a "game show game".

Defintely Astro Boy. Definitely. That was a fantastic game.

on the GBA I really enjoyed TMNT, slated on pretty much all the other platforms (DS included), but the GBA version was a completely different game - a simple side scrolling beat em up which is fantastic fun to play. This one is currently in my DS case alongside the usual DS games...

I know it isn't DS/GBA, but I still rank Goldeneye on the N64 s one of the finest games ever made. Naturally pretty dated now as far as the graphics and design go, yet still one of the best games to play with a few friends on multiplayer.

SPEED RACER!

You wouldn't expect it, given how the movie kinda tanked, but the game is like F-Zero with tricks and car-fu (though that's kinda lame). Multiplayer may not have made it, but it's still a really entertaining racing game that's good for a couple of hours.

Pirates of the Caribbean 2 was not bad on either DS or GBA. I also liked Spidey 3 on DS.

All licensed games suck. It's the immutable law of the universe.

The only ones that did not were the ones that ripped off successful formula - Batman Returns for the SNES, and the Ninja Turtles games on the NES - because those were just your garden variety 2D beat-em-ups. There is no way in hell to make those not fun.

But these days, with your fancy graphics and technology, it's so easy to take an idea and just crap all over it.

Remember Superman 64? REMEMBER?

I try not to, every day I try not to.
sometimes I wake up at night gasping and drenched in sweat and I reach for a Gamecube controller to play spider-man 2. Just...don't mention that game again okay? please? can't believe I wasted my birthday money on that...

Astro Boy for GBA, yes. Spider-man 2 for Xbox/PS2/GC, yes.


For the DS, it's tougher, but... Over the Hedge is actually a very good time. It's short, and derivative, but a kids' title that isn't a platformer gets points from me, and a kids' title that borrows from Metal Gear gets major points.

Note that this does not apply to Hammy Goes Nuts, which looks pretty mediocre.

To say that all licensed games are trash is simply ignorant. While the vast majority are, there have been bright spots. As many have mentioned, Astro Boy & TMNT stand out for the GBA (My kid also SWEARS by the Ham-Ham games for the GBA too). For the DS, Balls of Fury wasn't that bad, and neither was For the PS2, Peter Jackson's King Kong was good, as were the Lego Star Wars games (not to mention the Battleground games) and the recently released Wall-E is decent. My daughter played the absolute shite out of the PS2 NeoPets game as well. It's all a matter of picking the right game play genre to take the game in (very few licensed titles offer original game play) and how well they execute it.

Going back further, in the 8 & 16-bit days, there was actually a much higher percentage of quality licensed titles (Duck Tales, Goonies II, GI Joe 1 & 2, plus all the other titles already mentioned for just the NES alone for example). Unfortunately, garbage titles constantly over shadow the good games, which is nothing new if you remember Total Recall for the NES or even ET for the 2600 if you want to go back 25 years =)

The Godfather: Blackhand edition for Wii was an awesome game. It's very fun. It's like GTA except in the 1950's, lol.

Transformers was really fun for me, but I am kinda biased towards TF to begin with.
Jump Superstars was quite fun.
Bleach The Blade of Fate is pretty fun too. I think that covers the bases of the licensed games that I've actually played for the DS and would recommend.
And Astroboy is one of the best games for the Advance.

Power Rangers for Game Gear was awesome, and I'm waiting for another Power Ranger game to live up to or surpass that. Super Legends, while okay, is not it.

Hmm, I need to work on the other cases for Harvey Birdman for the Wii, as the first case plays like an episode of the show.

The lego games (star wars, indiana) are fantastic on ds.