Whether it’s an age-old beat ‘em up, an arcade racer, or a 2000s flash game, developers have arguably “borrowed“ more than they should to the point where they’re almost identical.
What’s crazier is that, though most of them flop miserably, a couple of them have become world-famous and far surpassed their influences in terms of popularity. But regardless of how successful they are or how good they turned out to be, these games are complete knock-offs of others, and there are far too many similarities for it to be a coincidence.
Killer Instinct
As much of a rip-off of Mortal Kombat that Killer Instinct is, the game does try to do its own thing at times.
However, the game also borrows so much that it’d be indistinguishable from Mortal Kombat if it wasn’t for the disastrous graphics. Between the character rosters, the dark vibes, and the ultra-violence, it’s clear as day that it’s a knock-off.
Star Wars: Dark Forces
Along with Ubisoft’s currently in development open-world Star Wars game, the iconic franchise has so many video-games under its belt that in the 2010s, it was arguably a better game series than film series. But that wasn’t always the case, as there are some shocking entries that LucasArts would rather have players forget about. Being a first-person shooter with some massive machine guns, Star Wars: Dark Forces is a massive rip-off of Doom and Wolfenstein, and though it isn’t the worst Star Wars game, it really doesn’t have much to do with Star Wars at all.
Simpsons: Road Rage
Video-games based on The Simpsons have always been knock-offs of other games, whether it’s Simpsons Wrestling or Simpsons: Hit & Run. But those games actually worked, and it was because those games still put enough of a spin on the source material for it to stand on its own.
However, Simpsons: Road Rage was unabashedly a knock-off of Crazy Taxi in every way, and there weren’t even any attempts to hide that fact, which is why SEGA filed a lawsuit against the game. As The Simpsons is one of the best animated shows to binge watch on Disney+ right now, fans would rather watch the worst seasons of the show than play this game again.
Angry Birds
This may come as a surprise, as Angry Birds is now one of the most popular games of all time, but the mobile game is a knock-off of Crush The Castle. The formula is exactly the same in both games, as players have to launch a weapon at structures to try and destroy it. Where Crush The Castle had boulders, Angry Birds has birds... that are shaped a lot like boulders.
Fighter’s History
After the release of the first Street Fighter, the world was taken aback at how influential the game was and it spawned a ton of knock-offs across the planet, especially with arcade games. But the biggest culprit came with the release of Fighter’s History, which borrowed a few too many things from Street Fighter 2. It’s amazing how similar the two games are, and though there are a lot of things that make no sense about Ryu, one of the weirdest occurrences with Street Fighter characters is how their models have totally replicated polygon for polygon in Fighter’s History.
Garfield Go
What the developers were thinking when making Garfield Go is a mystery. Love it or hate it, Pokemon Go was a worldwide phenomenon because the franchise already had an existing fan base and it was already a game where players collected cards, so transferring that over to a mobile app was ingenious.
Garfield doesn’t have a fan base even a fraction the size of Pokemon and has never had any collectible aspect to it. It was just a comic strip with a couple of underwhelming movies, but nevertheless, Garfield Go somehow exists. Players have to catch Garfield wherever they find him by throwing Lasagna at him, and it’s utterly bizarre.
Saints Row
The Saints Row franchise has laid dormant for a few years now, but with each new release, it tried to out-GTA GTA. The final game in the series, Gat Out Of Hell, even saw players free-roam around Hell itself trying to save a gang leader from the wrath of the devil. It’s arguable that the hallucination scenes in Grand Theft Auto V, such as falling through the sky for five minutes and shooting aliens, were mocking the Saints Row series.
But with GTA Online being front-and-center of the series right now, there are literally endless possibilities and the ability to perform the most ludicrous of tasks. And with that said, GTA is now becoming more like Saints Row, which is one of the ways it has gotten worse since launch.
Final Combat
Team Fortress 2 was first bundled in The Orange Box with Half-Life 2: Episode 2 and Portal, the latter of which has had fans begging for a sequel for years. But Team Fortress was the wild card of the three games, as it was the only one without an in-depth story mode and was built for one reason only, for gamers to have a blast online.
Being one of the first battle royale games and featuring classic modes like capture the flag and king of the hill, it clearly inspired dozens of video-games. However, Final Combat took more than just inspiration from the game, as the two would look identical if not for Final Combat’s terrible-looking graphics and horrific gameplay.
Dante’s Inferno
Before God of War was a rollercoaster of emotions and was as close to a movie that the video-game industry has ever seen (which is why it’s one of the PlayStation 4 games that deserves the Netflix treatment,), it was a high-octane and highly satisfying hack and slash game. Dante’s Inferno, developed by EA, was clearly only put into production because of the success of God of War, as it replicates the gaming style of the classic franchise in every way. But even though EA’s money-grabbing methods were as clear as day, Dante’s Inferno actually turned out to be a quality game.
The Great Giana Sisters
The Great Giana Sisters is exactly the same as Super Mario Brothers; it plays the same, looks the same, and even the story is the same. It’s hilarious how the developer changed tiny details to make it seem like its own game, as instead of the protagonists being brothers, they’re sisters, and instead of there being Goombas, there are owls. Just like SEGA with Simpsons: Road Rage, Nintendo wasn’t happy with The Great Giana Sisters either, and they were able to have every single copy of the game sent out to stores fully recalled.