By: Nik Aberle
Video games like Mario Brothers, Mortal Kombat, and Doom will go down in history as some of the most influential video games of our time. These immortal titles help establish and save video games to make them what they are today. You would think that if someone tried to turn these into a movie that it would be worth watching, however you would be sorely mistaken. These selections were based on how popular the game was compared to how badly the movie did, as well as how well it portrayed the story, characters, and events of the game. Here is a list of the top 10 worst game to movie adaptations. Disclaimer: The opinions in this list are mine, and are not meant to offend anyone who may hold these titles or their directors in very high regard.

10. Mortal Kombat: Annihilation

Now the first installment of the MK movies did a great job of portraying the game's storyline in an entertaining movie that hit the nail on the head for VG adaptations. Christopher Lambert playing Raiden did a great job of leading the Earth's fighter on the journey to save it from Shang Tsung. The movie differed very little from the first MK games storyline. When the second MK movie was released however it tried far to hard to follow all the different storylines of the new MK games coming out. In an attempt to incorporate MK2 and MK3 into the movie, it eventually got over cluttered and overdid the characters, graphics, and even the action. All in all it was a decent movie to sit down and watch, but if you tried to follow the storyline closely with the games, it all fell apart and made the movie just another martial arts movie with a weird storyline.

9. Double Dragon

Always a classic arcade game for anyone to play. I myself have found a few emulators just so I could play this classic arcade game again. You play as Billy and Jimmy Lee, two martial artists fighting crime in a corrupt city. All around just a really fun beat em up arcade game that you can easily waste a few roll of quarters on and want to play some more. The movie however wasn't a very good translation of the game. Apart from the horrible fashion portrayed in the movie, it's a semi-decent fighting movie to watch. The storyline stays fairly intact, even though corny lines and kicks to the groin are a regular occurence. If the cinematography had been better and the fighting better choreogaphed this movie would have been a decent adaptation of the game.

8. Lara Croft: Tomb Raider

The original Tomb Raider revolutionized gaming with its third person shooter feel and great 3D graphics for it's time. The 1996 arrival thrilled many gamers and was played for a very long time, and spawned multiple sequels; I lost count, but I believe it's somewhere around 7. The movie however didn't do the same; even with a huge budget and the always beautiful Angelina Jolie, it failed to deliver what most Tomb Raider fans felt was a good representation of the game. The story line was way off even though it made a decent action movie. If you were to take James Bond, Indiana Jones, and Charlie's Angels, smash their heads together and wipe away the blood, it would probably look something like this movie. All in all a decent movie but horrible representation for the game itself. The same goes for the second movie, even though it hit way farther off the mark as far as story-line goes.

7. Super Mario Bros.

One of the all time great games, a game that has a character so noticeable that pretty much everyone in the free world could probably say his name from just a little picture or description of the game. There have been so many off-shoots and remakes of this game that pretty soon one would think they will run out of ideas. This character is known as Mario, and he has been Nintendo's powerhouse character for nearly 20 years. We all know the story, save the princess, kill Koopa/Bowser, and have a happy little ending. Apparently the multiple directors of this movie, never played the game. While a play by play exactly of the game may get a little boring, the only similarity between the game and movie is the saving princess part. I don't remember Koopa having a plot to turn every human into a monkey, but I may have just skipped that part I guess. The movie itself is a decent one to watch if you have no desire to see the Mario Bros. storyline. Somehow they turned the cheery and fun world into a dark and depressing city run by an evil dictator who evolved from a T-Rex. Personally I think they could have done a better job of following the story, while still making it exciting.

6. Resident Evil

At some point or another I'm pretty sure most gamers have at least heard of the Resident Evil series, and it has come to signify a great achievement for horror movies on consoles. The first few games were great, and even though I personally believe the last few weren't the best, the series is still made immortal by the great gameplay and story line of the first. Now one would instantly assume that a movie based off the game would be great as well, and it probably would have, had it ever been made. Paul Anderson, director of Mortal Kombat, didn't seem to think the original storyline was as good as everyone else did. This movie is far off the mark, basically taking the great name of Resident Evil and throwing it on what most people would just classify another boring zombie movie, full of gore, blood, and poor acting. In the end, whatever Anderson was going for wasn't anything close to giving this great series a decent representation on the big screen, the movie wasn't even scary, which is a must for zombie movies to succeed.

You've now made it half-way through the list. The first half were mainly movies that either followed the story with poor acting, or didn't follow the story and had decent acting. Let me warn you, the second half of this list isn't for the faint of heart, these truly are, in my eyes, the worst of the worst when it comes to turning a video game into a movie. Watching these made me cringe even though I hadn't played some of the games, not only was the acting way way off, but the storyline was pretty much nowhere to be seen.

5. Doom

Known to many as quite possibly the greatest first person shooter to ever be made, and considered by all to be one of the most revolutionary first person shooters; Doom is given credit for being the first true multiplayer FPS, one where you could be sitting next to the person you just shot in the back. While other games created the genre, Doom redefined it. Before Doom, FPS's were played in a linear manner shooting only computer generated enemies, but thanks to id Software we now have games like Counter-Strike and Halo. True, had Doom not done what it did, someone else would have, but we got it sooner than expected. Now to trying to make such an important game in the history of gaming into a movie would be quite a task and director Andrzej Bartkowiak thought he had the vision for the movie. He was ,however, sorely mistaken. It's never really clear which of the Doom games this is based off of. While the environment resembles that of Doom 3, the storyline doesn't go along at all with any of the games. About the only thing kept consistent was the way the laboratories looked in the movie. And even though Doom, didn't have much of ga multi-layered storyline, it still would have made the movie a whole lot better had they followed it, atleast hardcore gaming fans would have liked it more. In most gamers eyes this movie bombed, and while it was a decent film to watch action wise, when you look at how it succeeded in carrying on the Doom name it was absolutely appaling. Star actor The Rock even got nominated for the Razzi Award of "Worst Actor". If your looking for something to drain two hours out of your life, then sit down and watch it, but if you want the next big thing in the Doom series, go buy Doom 3, or bang your head against a wall until Doom 4 is released.

4. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

In a time when Squaresoft was about to go under and have to shut it's doors, the genious idea of one writer saved it, that same game has spawned multiple sequels; each one having it's one storyline, feel and gameplay. The game I'm talking about is the original Final Fantasy, so aptly named because if it didn't do well, it was going to be the final game Squaresoft ever produced. Luckily it succeeded gloriously and the sequels I've referred to are some of the best RPG's ever created. People always argue about which Final Fantasy was the best, usually the top three listed are Final Fantasy III (also known as Final Fantasy VI), Final Fantasy VII, and Final Fantasy Tactics. Of course each person likes different games and I'm sure some people out there thought FFVIII was an amazing game, while I thought it fell short in many areas and didn't even finish it. However all FF fans agree on one thing, that the series as a whole is amazing and greatly important to the evolution of gaming. Now with over 13 different plot lines to pick from, somehow the creators of Final Fantasy: The Spirit Within claim to be based off of the games, but the only similarity I've ever noticed in the movie was that one character was named Sid, and FF6 & 7 have a Cid in them. Other than that the movie shows absolutely no similarities to the games. While the movie was a pretty good cinematic achievement, that was filled with some of the first really good looking CG, when trying to say it was a movie for the Final Fantasy series, it was way, way off. It lands so low on the list, because while it was a visually stimulating movie, it lacked any relevance to any of the games.

3. Alone in the Dark

This gloriously bad film takes the number three spot. The original game itself had a great impact on video games, seeing as it used the first 3D characters ever, and kind of set the precedent for the rest of horror survival games like Resident Evil and Silent Hill. This game had a huge impact on not only the horror genre, but video games in general. When I heard the movie was coming out I had hoped it would be done well and pay homeage to the game, boy was I disappointed. This was directed by the same person who destroyed House of the Dead and Bloodrayne, Mr. Uwe Boll. What's worse was that there was an early script created that followed the game storyline quite closely and is shot from the eyes of a reporter following Carnby who's investigating paranormal stories. The original script also kept very close to the feel of a H.P. Lovecraft novel and the low-tech feel of the game. Instead Mr. Boll hired a crack team of people, who should have been fired immediately after this movie was released, to write a story that he apparently thought had all the essentials of a good film, including ditsy blonde archealogist Tara Reid, dog-like creatures from another dimension and Matrix like battles. Most fans of the game were most disappointed with the movie because Boll didn't incorporate anything even remotely close to Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, which had a M-A-J-O-R influence on the game. The only semi-saving grace of this movie was the occasional scene of cinematographic brilliance, however there were only about two in the whole movie, which was nowhere near enough to save it. This bomb alos managed to receive two Razzi Awards, one for worst actress (Tara Reid) and one for worst direcctor (Uwe Boll). It was also named worst movie of 2005 by the Stinker Bad Movie Awards and is ranked number 38 on IMDB's bottom 100 list. All in all, this is an amazingly aweful movie, though not quite as bad as Bloodrayne or House of the Dead.

2. Bloodrayne

This was a game that upon release did amazingly well, and even produced an equally appealing sequel. The game takes place in Nazi Germany, and as the main character, you basically run around gunning down Nazi's with disregard, drinking blood, and basically raising hell. It also has elements of stealth in it, and brings fresh new aspects to gameplay, storyline, and overall feel of the game. When Mr. Uwe Boll took this movie on, many people were skeptical that it was going to turn out like another House of the Dead. Now, it wasn't as bad as House of the Dead, but those people were awful close in their predictions. For some unknown reason he decided to have the movie take place in some medieval time period instead of Germany, and turns the movie into some kind of holy war, one in which Rayne gets help along the way from what appear to be holy vampire slayers, slayers which appear nowhere in the game. Add in all the other things that never appear in the game, which seemed like everything except Rayne herself, and you have a very poorly translated film. But if that was all that was bad about it, it would still be exciting to watch, but this is quite possibly some of the worst acting and fighting scenes I have ever seen. There are a few scenes in which Rayne is performing acrobatics and instead of doing one fluid motion, you can actually see where she just stands there and then jumps into a roll. For some reason Mr. Boll also felt like it was necessary to put in a bunch of cheesy and out of place lines that when you hear them you just think, "HAHAHAHA." When you try to take a great game like Bloodrayne and transform it into a movie, it would definitely be do-able, but Uwe Boll had another bomb with this one, and IMDB.com agrees seeing as Bloodrayne is #91 in their 100 bottom movies of all time.

1. House of the Dead

Well, you've made it to the number one worst movie based off of a video game. The winner of this award goes to yet another Uwe Boll movie, House of the Dead. The game was a very big arcade hit and played by all kinds of people, it was also the first arcade game to allow the players to choose different branches in the plot depending on the choices they make in game. This was a very large breakthrough in games and people loved being able to play a game that was non-linear. As always, one would assume that a important game would create a great movie, but as this list alone will atest to, thats simply not true. Upon watching the movie I had to hold back laughing through most of it due to the horrible acting, horrible set/costumes, and even worse storyline. A group of teenagers travel to an island where the rave of the year is occuring, only to find no one there and very quickly find out why. The movie picks up fast and is horrible the whole way through. Just like Alone in the Dark, apart from a few cinematographic moments that were pretty cool, this movie is horrible all the way around. I will give Boll credit for incorporating some of the clips from the game into the movie but it really didn't make sense considering the storyline is completely different. The only thing I noticed that carried over from the game to the movie, apart from the zombies and killing them, was the main character is named Curien, which you don't even find out until the very end of the movie. Now I would recommend you to go see this movie simply to see the horrible quality of it, it is ranked #21 on IMDB's bottom 100. So with horrible storyline, horrible acting, and horrible everything else The House of the Dead, while a great arcade game, turned out to be another absolutely horrible movie produced by Mr. Uwe Boll; hopefully his next three video game conversions won't be as terrible as the three I listed.

Well this list has come to an end, and I must say I enjoyed writing it. There are definitely more lists coming out soon, but with work and other things I'm shooting for about one a week. Hopefully you enjoyed reading this one; if you disagree with what I said, by all means make a comment, I'll check them often and be happy to discuss other opinions on the topic. I'd also like to thank wikipedia.org for having a list of movie's that were based on video games.