CREDIT: STEAM
Transformers: War for Cyberton is one of the best movie to game adaptations to ever hit the small screen.

For reasons that have never been clear to anybody, video games based on movies and TV shows — no matter how promising the pairing may initially seem — have almost exclusively been terrible, leaving fans of numerous franchises disappointed time and time again.

Some of these adaptations have been so spectacularly bad that they are the topics of some of gaming's most popular urban legends (the one about the landfill allegedly full of E.T. games from 1982 has yet to be proven). Yet occasionally, like the following instances, a game company takes the license that they have been given and shapes an interactive experience that pleases the series' fans and gamers alike.

South Park: The Stick of Truth (2014)
Despite being very new, this incredibly crude, offensive and brilliant RPG is well deserving of a place in this list. Boasting a graphical style indistinguishable from the show itself and a story penned by series creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone featuring the entire show's cast, it's easy to mistake the game for an episode at first glance. The game is a love letter to fans of South Park, with every location and item taken from the series' 17-year run, and featuring the show's trademark offensive humour, but without the shackles of television censorship.

Transformers: War for Cyberton (2010)
With over 25 years of giant robots fighting an interstellar war, the Transformers franchise seems like the perfect candidate for the most awesome video games ever created. Unfortunately, fans of the franchise were made to suffer through many years of truly awful video games, as no title was able to fully grasp the lore of the franchise or the feel of the characters.

That all changed when High Moon Studios released War for Cybertron, a project that was fully backed by Hasbro and featured the voice talents of Peter Cullen and Frank Welker, the original Optimus Prime and Megatron. This game finally put fans into the midst of the war that preceded the original series, but more importantly, it took full advantage of the key transformation concept that has driven the series for so long, putting a vehicle form a click away in a wide-open combat space. The game inspired an equally successful sequel in 2012, leaving the series' video game future in seemingly safe hands.

Batman: Arkham Asylum (2009)
Comic book superheroes have been one of the most prominent sufferers of the licensed game conundrum, with Spider-man, the Incredible Hulk and Superman all suffering from poor representation in a number of past releases. Because of this, the release of Rocksteady's Arkham Asylum was met with held breath, which quickly gave way to sighs of relief as gamers found themselves playing through one of the most badass Batman stories ever told.

In what has become the benchmark for superhero video games, this release melded a perfect combination of gameplay, visuals and voice acting, namely Batman veteran Kevin Conroy in the title role and Mark Hamill with a truly frightening turn as The Joker, with a tremendous attention to the detail and spirit of the source material to create something that took gaming by storm.

While it is the first title in what will soon be a trilogy, Arkham Asylum will always be known as the game that beat the superhero game trend more effectively than its hero beats up thugs.