Movies, books, folks tale... take you pick.

Last year I played King Kong from 2005 and in my opinion it is much better than the 2005 movie. It has a better sense of adventure, better pacing and player gets more connected with the characters. Meanwhile the movie is a mess thanks to very poor editing making the action scenes unwatchable and some actions simply insult my intelligence (like King Kong juggling with a woman, while fighting 2-3 T-Rexes or the Brontosaurus stampedo). There is like zero character development for supporting characters, so when someone dies I couldn't care less, which is an impressive feat for a movie that is over 3 hours long.

Another example is American McGee's Alice from 2000. The game is bit rough around the edges, but the idea behind is great and I think the distorted world he built is much more interesting than in original. The surreal surroundings are further improved with a great soundtrack. The sequel is a mess, ruined with really amateurish level design and filler content, so to be clear I only mean the first game.

For me it's the most recent re-released game for Blade Runner.

I bought it, though I've never played the original game before, seen the movie or read the book. It just sounded like an interesting game.

And maybe it's a bit of a cheat, because I still didn't read the book and probably not going to. So I'm actually not counting the very original source here.

But back to the game and the movie. I played the game through, really enjoying the story and stuff - what makes me wanna take a look at the movie it's based on. Well, I've struggled to keep my concentration on watching movies the past few years, even worse when I watch it on my own without company, so this wasn't the best idea in the first place. And yeah, well, the movie couldn't manage to keep my interest. The protagonist was way too goofy played, no real surprising events and boring dialogues. I stopped around every 10 min. to take a break and do something else.
I gave up on watching through after an hour.

The game nailed my taste far better, but at least I could figure out where the origamis came from by watching the movie.

I was planning to play that game for a long time, but keep delaying it. I really should play more adventure games.

This thread went under the radar, I hope for more people to join in.

KotOR was the ones for me, and Force unleashed. It felt so much better than the movies, which were some decent films but not as great as everyone wants to make them seem.

Other than that, Better than their source material.... Hard to say. Most game movies and movie games suck, and the LotR games are bad ,the Game of Thrones games are all dross, and the Witcher games are pretty good, on par maybe the 3rd on is slightly better than the books. So... I'll go with KotOR.

To be honest despite owning several hundred games, I'm struggling to think of many "movie / novel games" I own where the book / movie came first but the game that came later turned out better (as opposed to stuff like Doom / Street Fighter where the game came first and was better simply because most "video game movies" are terrible). I really enjoyed the Blade Runner movie (a lot of people were disappointed because they went in expecting some action movie like Star Wars, rather than judge it for its unusual "Sci-Fi / Film Noir" cross-genre style in its own right).

In fact there were a lot of 1980's / early 1990's franchises, eg, Alien, Die Hard, Predator, Lethal Weapon, James Bond, The Godfather, Robocop, Stargate, Terminator, Jaws, Ghostbusters, etc, where the movies were universally better than the relatively primitive platformers / 'beat-em-ups' that flooded the 80's-90's consoles or pre-PC Amiga / C64 / ZX Spectrum market at the time. Almost every PC game I own is just a video game without any equivalent media (deliberately because I find "movie video games" rarely 'translate' well).

The only thing I can think of are the Sam & Max games. I know Steve Purcell created comics originally plus an animated series, but the great thing about LucasArts point & click games were the funny responses you often got when combining the wrong things (which is something that doesn't work anywhere near as well in passive media).

I have the CD/DVD version of that (got it free from someone at my previous work). but my understanding is that it works only in Windows XP, not 7 (or later). Did you get it to work somehow on modern PCs, or does it need some crack to work?

I know there was also a digital DRM-free version of the game in GamersGate.com, too bad they are not selling it anymore. Not sure if it worked any better with modern PCs/OSes.

EDIT: Well, googling for it...

https://www.play-old-pc-games.com/2016/03/09/peter-jacksons-king-kong-the-official-game-of-the-movie/

Not sure if I dare to install my retail version as it has Starforce. Damn it that I didn't buy the GamersGate version when it was available, I recall they were selling it for 5€ or so.

I can think of games that I enjoyed based on movies and books...

... and games that I enjoyed that I wish had movies and books based on them...

... but...

... I can't think of any games based on movies and books that I enjoyed more than the movies and books they were based on.

Yeah, I'll third the nomination of the KotORs. The SW movies were all right, but not something I was particularly keen on, but those games were really nice, bar the rushed ending of the 2nd, though it's otherwise superior to the first, even if the first also has Jolee to shine more than Kreia does in the 2nd.

Would also be tempted to go for Betrayal at Krondor, and I'm comparing to the Riftwar Saga, since that's all I read from the whole cycle, and the Riftwar Legacy is a novelization of the games and not the other way around anyway.

Yep. Although apparently the Robocop 3 Amiga game is better than the movie, not that I've seen it or played the game.

I enjoyed The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay more than any of the Riddick films.

Heavy Metal F.A.K.K.2 was far better than the film of the same name (Heavy Metal 2000 in some countries) and The Melting Pot graphic novel.

The Mega Drive/Genesis version of Moonwalker (and to a lesser extent, the arcade version) was much more enjoyable than the "film" was.

Ninja Ryukenden/Ninja Gaiden for the Famicom/NES was better than the original arcade version.

I liked Star Trek: Voyager - Elite Force more than any episode of Star Trek: Voyager.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time were better than the cartoons upon which they were based. I wasn't much a fan of the original graphic novels either.

And finally NBA Jam is better than actually watching NBA basketball, although I would probably say the same about any video game based on a spectator sport.

Betrayal at Krondor.
Raymon Feist's books are too juvenile for my taste now. I found the writing in the game more mature.

Icewind Dale
Great game with a good atmosphere, but the first of R. A. Salvatore's books set in ID was cringeworthily bad.

You need to look for King Kong Gamer's Edition, that is the DRM free version. It is a port of the Xbox 360 version and has updated graphics. It works on modern systems, but it is full of bugs.

https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Peter_Jackson%27s_King_Kong_Gamer%27s_Edition

The PC version you mention is graphically inferior and is more or less the same as the PS2/GameCube versions and the newest OS you can run it on is Windows 7 32 bit, 64 bit will not work. Even the DEMO of that version has StarForce DRM and can not be played ! The best way to play that version on computers today would be playing the GameCube version using the Dolphin emulator, unfortunately that version has the worst graphics. PS2 version looks slightly better and has some better textures, but the PCSX2 emulator does not run it well.

Is the source material for Cool Spot 7 Up commercials or 7 Up soda?

More seriously, games that I enjoyed more than their source material include:

Wendy: Every Witch Way - My favorite Wayforward game. It took me a while to get really get the hang of its mechanic, but the hard mode does quite the job of teaching due to requiring near perfection. I would have been interested in seeing more than one boss.

Astro Boy: Omega Factor - Treasure knows their action games and Astro Boy gets a wide array of moves at his disposal that you're able to power up as the game progresses. There are a large number of story sequences and many hidden characters to find. The game culminates in a playable cut scene set to the music from Gunstar Heroes ending scene.

Bleach: The Blade of Fate and Bleach: Dark Souls - Similar to Treasure's Yu Yu Hakusho fighting game for the Mega Drive, but easier to obtain due to a larger release. There are a lot of features that can help people not that good at fighting games, such as touch screen commands for special and super moves, the ability to break a combo with good timing during card use, and a variety of evasive options.

Retro Game Challenge and Game Center CX 2 - These collections of new games in an old style provided a nice mix of different genres, while also occasionally having sequels that build on the 'past' titles. The in-game magazines are a pretty neat source of secret info and codes. The sequel follows in the footsteps of the first, so aside from the text adventure (which isn't needed to progress), it is completely playable without any knowledge of Japanese for those familiar with the first.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game - Scott Pilgrim already makes many video game references, so it translates into a beat 'em up reasonably well. A fun game in single and multiplayer with a catchy soundtrack.

The Witcher games I vastly prefer to the books just because the author is such a piece of human fucking shit for what he did to CDPR. No one game a shit about his books until the games and he tried to screw over CDPR by demanding a huge sum of money up front. And now years later he wants more money.

So fuck him and his trash books - the games are much MUCH better!