After the video game crash of 1983, it was Nintendo more than any other manufacturer that showed the way forward for video games. Today there is a whole generation for whom Nintendo Entertainment System games from the late 1980s that supplied the key formative experiences, with such homegrown hits as Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda. Unlike its main predecessor Atari, Nintendo was highly aggressive about pursuing licensed games based on movie and TV franchises, such as Teenage Muntant Ninja Turtles, Batman, The Simpsons, and Gremlins 2: The New Batch.

A while back a blog called VGJunk created some amusing title screens for licensed NES video games that never existed.

In some cases (Alien) it’s all too easy to imagine what the gameplay might be, but in many of the others, it’s a little harder to imagine. Does The Shining have a level in Dick Hallorann’s bedroom? In Ghost World, is the final boss Blues Hammer? Does They Live have a no-fighting bubble gum mode? So many questions!
 

 
More of these delightful NES games that never were, after the jump…...
 

 
Video games in the late 1980s and early 1990s were dominated by the Nintendo Entertainment System, also known as NES. In addition to Donkey Kong, which morphed into the iconic and incredibly addictive Super Mario Bros. franchise, NES also had its share of satisfying movie tie-ins, including Batman, Back to the Future, Total Recall, The Karate Kid, and Home Alone. For a slightly later generation of gamers, the best reason to remember the James Bond movie GoldenEye from the Pierce Brosnan era was the top-notch Nintendo 64 game GoldenEye 007. Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and Conan is best not mentioned at all, though…..

A few years back, the outstanding vintage video games blog VG Junk dedicated three posts to meticulously crafted and completely fictional “wouldn’t it have been great” NES title screens for movie and TV tie-in games that I for one would love to have played.

It’s amusing to contemplate NES games that are juuuust a bit too adult (or possibly WAY too adult) like A Clockwork Orange and Jacob’s Ladder and Videodrome, but I also dig the games where the only conceivable gameplay would consist of talking, à la making sarcastic remarks about Blueshammer in Ghost World or defending the virtues of “propane and propane accessories” in King of the Hill.

Some of the movies mentioned here actually did have console game tie-ins. For example VG Junk doesn’t think very much of the 1997 video game for the PC that Westwood Studios made for Blade Runner. In any case, these are super detailed and witty.

Feast your eyes below—and keep a careful eye on that They Live title screen….
 

 

 
More great title screens after the jump…...