I've been collecting movie tie-in PS2 games for years, though my penchant for collecting "stuff" around my favorite films has been with me since childhood. From a Halle Berry's Catwoman Barbie doll – and its questionable Game Boy Advance platformer – to shakily painted Lord of the Rings Warhammer minis, my favorite part of going to the cinema was visiting Toys R' Us straight after. The Holy Grail of all my collector's items, though? The PS2 game adaptations.
Every so often I revisit my proud stack of treasures, flipping through my old PS2 CD book like a proud grandmother would a photo album, and get hit by an overwhelming sense of nostalgia. Once upon a time, every blockbuster hit seemed to have a video game counterpart released alongside it. Things seem to be staggered differently now, with no shortage of upcoming video game movies riffing off some of the biggest and best open world games ever to grace our consoles. But these big budget hits are a far cry from the simple joys of PS2 adaptations. It's a forgotten art, one I'd taken for granted in my wide eyed youth, and my favorite one of all demonstrates that long lost artistry at its very best.
Olaf-ing matter
My obsession with the 2004 Jim Carey adaptation of A Series of Unfortunate Events was a frightful thing, aggressively bolstered after having devoured the book series thrice over by the time it premiered. You can imagine my delight, then, when my mother came home from work one day and uttered the words me and my siblings longed to hear: "I've bought you some treats from the DVD shop."
I deflated slightly when the treat in question was not the movie itself, but it turned out to be something far better. A brand new addition to my most prized collection, the most ardent desire of my nine-year-old heart: a somewhat janky PS2 adaptation of a beloved film.
Memories of playing my PS2 copy of A Series of Unfortunate Events with my brother and sister still feel fresh in my memory. With Klaus, Sunny, and Violet Baudelaire also being a sibling trio of two sisters and one brother, we assigned one character to each of us, promising to pass the controller around as we went. Bearing in mind that my sister was only six, it made sense that she would play toddler Sunny. I commandeered eldest daughter Violet, despite being the middle child in real life, while my brother was happy to play as Klaus – and Sunny, and Violet, when we inevitably would need his expert help.
Hidden depths
Big budget hits are a far cry from the simple joys of PS2 adaptations.
Flinging rotten fruit at Count Olaf's dastardly theatre troupe. Rushing across a sprawling library in search of a specific book to complete a pattern before a timer runs out. Exploring Aunt Josephine's rickety house, trussed up to a cliffside in a precarious feat of engineering. I didn't expect it, but A Series of Unfortunate Events turned out to be the most complex, film-accurate game adaption I'd played then or since. Voiced by the same actors and covering the first three books and all their locations – just like the movie – my siblings and I quickly fell under its spell.
The narrative aspect is what drew us to it some 21 years ago, but currently replaying it in 2025, Unfortunate Events still impresses me as a solid third person action-adventure with none too shabby graphics to match. It helps that each of the Baudelaire children has unique combat and traversal abilities to make them feel integral to the experience: platforming specialist Sunny can crawl into small spaces and cross wide distances with her Baby Booster, Violet has stilts to reach high places and invents a host of unique weapons, while Klaus's grappling hook and levitating shoes allow him to make quick work of enemies and puzzles alike. In short: it's a belter, and a challenging one at that. I no doubt handed the controller to my brother far more times than I actually remember, because Unfortunate Events still makes me sweat in 2025.
Alas, movie-video game joint releases are very much a thing of the past. It's undoubtedly down to an increase in audience expectations and industry standards overall, with the desired quality of modern video games resulting in much lengthier development cycles. Long gone are the days of Hulk demos baked into DVD releases, or the mouthful of a title that is Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie – and yes, I own that bad boy as well. But I've loved revisiting the PS2 movie adaption that shaped so much of my childhood, shining a light on how special and unique these cross-media interaction points could be in the early 2000s. If you need me, I'll be playing Shrek The Third and pretending I'm 12.
Check out the best PS2 games of all time and see where your favorites rank.
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