2005: Big year for movie/games

Before this year, most movie-spinoff videogames were either "abysmal" or "drably formulaic," writes New York Times "Game Theory" columnist Charles Herold. "Last month's release of the video-game adaptation of "Peter Jackson's King Kong" caps a year that proves those days are over." "Blade Runner" and "The Thing" weren't bad, Herold says, but "Charlie's Angels" and "The Crow: City of Angels" definitely went into the Abysmal category. "The Chronicles of Riddick" turned the tide, when game developers finally seemed to realize that more people would play a good game than a bad one - sales weren't necessarily tied to a film's box-office intake. "While nothing else this year has been as impressive as 'King Kong,' a healthy number of fun movie games like 'Madagascar' and 'Batman Begins' have appeared."