Computer games have come a long way since tic-tac-toe. Today, the video game industry rivals Hollywood as a source of visual entertainment, not to mention that video games are interactive whereas movies aren’t. Where the two behemoths meet, however, is a sour, ugly patch of land.

I played Super Mario Brothers with my son Jordan back in 1993. We racked up hours in front of the TV enjoying the game’s challenges.

Then, in 1993, Hollywood foisted upon us the Super Mario Bros. movie. Despite a good cast, it sucked.

That’s the first time I remember seeing a Hollywood-video game movie tie-in. There have been others, of course, but now they work the other way around: A blockbuster Hollywood film is produced and at the same day of the film’s release, we see a companion video game. With perhaps a few exceptions, the video games are truly awful.

The first, of course, had to be the E.T. video game, which pretty much killed off the Atari 2600 video game console back in 1983. (Earlier blog post.)

The Super Mario Bros. movie came later, but it’s complete failure didn’t stop Hollywood and the video game industry from continual collaborations. In fact, I’m sure in some boardroom somewhere, cigar-chomping bigwigs who’ve never played a video game are adamantly insisting that their “movie package” include a companion video game to be released at the same date as the film’s premier.

Such nonsense.

What’s the point of a video game that follows a movie? I suppose I just can’t connect with the type of person who would enjoy seeing a film — a visual story — and then try to re-live that experience in a video game? Why?

Gone With the Wind: the Game. Would that be a first-person shooter?

I discussed this topic with my son Jeremiah. He reminded me that the Spider-Man film from 2002 had a good companion video game. I agree; I played that game and it wasn’t that bad, but again it wasn’t a complete copy of the movie, either. The Harry Potter video game I bought the kids was so complete bereft of anything substantial that my boys played it only once.

Video games don’t always spawn from films. As with Super Mario Bros., and proving that Hollywood is frequently out of ideas, sometimes it goes the other way around.

I recall that the Doom movie was just horrid, almost painful to watch. It’s sad, too, because Doom could have been a really creepy thriller. Think of the possibilities of a character in a film who discovers “god mode”? That would be cool.

The only exception I can think of are the Tomb Raider movies, which weren’t that bad. Or they could be bad, but after watching Angelina Jolie for two hours, who would notice?

Beyond those few exceptions, it would be my continued observation that Hollywood and video games shouldn’t mix, but I don’t think that my lowly opinion will stop them.