Most of the time, when video games are published across multiple platforms, the developers will try to keep things as similar as possible. You might see a performance boost on one format, a couple of exclusive levels on another, or maybe even an exclusive character here or there, but basically, the game’s the same.
But what if it’s not the same? What if the game is completely different? This list is about the exceptions to the aforementioned rule; the times when the same game with the same title is released across platforms with clear variations between versions, such that they might seem barely related. Maybe the same license was picked up by different publishers and they raced to bring out the best version, perhaps the limitations of handheld gaming are to blame, or maybe the developers just felt like doing something different.
Either way, if you were playing one of the following games on one format, and your pal was playing on another, you were likely having completely different experiences! That’s what we’re all about here at TripleJump – try something different, expand your horizons. Just within games, though, you know. Don’t go too crazy.
I’m Ben from TripleJump, and here are 10 Games that Were Vastly Different Across Platforms.
10. Jurassic Park
We begin our journey in a land before time. Yes, back in the murky past of 1993 with the release of Jurassic Park. The movie was a huge hit, wowing audiences with incredible animatronics and special effects, nail-biting action, and iconic characters. Surely video game interpretations wouldn’t be far behind?
Sure enough, in that same year, Jurassic Park was released on the SNES and the Mega Drive. However, they went about things very differently.
In the SNES outing, the player controls protagonist Alan Grant as he tries to escape the island. Armed with a cattle prod, tranquilliser guns, and other more dangerous weaponry, Alan roams the maze of trees, fighting off dinosaurs and giant bugs in top-down shooter action. When he enters a building, the game switches to a first-person perspective, resulting in some atmospheric jaunts through claustrophobic corridors.
The Mega Drive game was a straight-forward side-scroller with digitised sprites and platforming sections which, despite some neat moments and allowing players to become a Velociraptor, is generally considered a bit of a bland movie tie-in. Though far from perfect, the SNES version had more variety and provided a huge area to explore, meaning that in the eyes of most, Nintendo were the apex predator when it came to dino movie tie-ins.
9. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
Ah, the first Harry Potter film. They all look so young. Released back in 2001, this Hogwarts extravaganza saw tie-ins appear across multiple generations of home and handheld games consoles.
Versions of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (or Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone if you wanna get American about this) were first released on PC, PlayStation, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance in 2001, and all of them were different.
The PC and PlayStation adaptations were both 3D, third-person action games, with the console version being an action adventure while the PC outing was more puzzle-focused.
The handheld games changed things up even more, with the Game Boy Color title being an RPG with turn-based spell-slinging, and the Game Boy Advance edition boasting top-down, puzzler-based gameplay.
If all that variety wasn’t enough, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was released again in 2003 for the GameCube, PS2, and Xbox, with the gameplay and graphics remixed again to suit the more modern consoles.
While none of these adaptations were considered all-time greats, the magical internet sorting hat that is GameRankings had the Game Boy Color RPG at the top of the point tracker with a very reasonable 73%. Well done House Game Boy Color!
Dragon’s Lair was originally found in arcades in 1983, but the classy visuals and frustratingly addictive trial-and-error gameplay caused such a splash that many home ports soon followed.
The ports for Sega’s Mega-CD add-on, as well as the 3DO and the Phillips CD-i, all stayed fairly close to the arcade original. These versions presented protagonist, Dirk the Daring, in almost all of his Don Bluth-animated glory as he explored the visually impressive environments and avoided the devious traps and baddies.
Not every home console could handle this LaserDisc-based technology, though, and certain ports had to do something entirely different with the Dragon’s Lair name. The SNES version, for example, is a cinematic platformer, where players controlled Dirk directly as he jumped and slashed his way through linear, monster-filled levels.
Alas, this SNES Dragon’s Lair port was not well-received, with players lamenting a sluggish pace, poor controls, and overly-punishing difficulty. Still, compared to the original Dragon’s Lair, which can barely be described as a game by today’s standards, perhaps the SNES version was a slightly more enticing prospect.
We don’t know about you, but we like our games to be … you know, somewhat interactive. I know, we’re a fussy bunch.
7. Dizzy Kwik Snax
Back in the days of the Spectrum and Commodore 64, a little egg with a big, yolky heart was one of the most recognisable gaming heroes. Dizzy’s famous adventure games were more-or-less the same across formats, graphical differences aside, so if you were buying a Dizzy game, you pretty much knew what you were going to get. That is, until our ovular idol starred in maze-based puzzle game, Dizzy Kwik Snax.
In the Spectrum version of the game, Dizzy was tasked with picking up collectibles in a specific order while avoiding enemies, and the egg-shaped protagonist could push blocks around to open new routes and squish the bad guys. It was kind of like Pac-Man mixed in with Sega’s Pengo arcade game. It was well-received at the time, providing an interesting, quick-thinking take on Dizzy’s eggy world.
The C64 version, for reasons lost to time, was a completely different game. Reminiscent of Flicky, our hero had to navigate a maze, locating entities called “fluffies” and guiding them to the exit. This version fared worse in reviews than its Spectrum counterpart, but was still enjoyed by Commodore 64 owners in need of more Dizzy-based action.
Just shows that there really is more than one way to crack an egg.
6. SpongeBob SquarePants: The Battle for Bikini Bottom
Sometimes, there’s just nothing quite like a good old 3D platformer featuring a colourful mascot character. Back in 2003, everyone’s favourite sentient sea sponge had a crack at the genre, bringing the humour and mayhem of the Nickelodeon series to PS2, Xbox, and GameCube.
Rendering the submerged, 2D world of SpongeBob in glorious 3D, SpongeBob SquarePants: The Battle for Bikini Bottom gave players the chance to explore the show’s environments, play as multiple characters, and save the day in a crowd-pleasing adventure. While not really offering anything new, the game was praised for its graphics and sound, solid gameplay and camera controls, and for nailing the trademark zany humour. It even received an updated remake in 2020!
If you were a computer-owning SpongeBob enthusiast, however, you would have had a very different experience, as The Battle for Bikini Bottom on PC was a mini-game collection.
That’s right, push blocks, capture flags and answer quizzes in simplistic, mouse-controlled mini-activities. Honestly, it feels like a huge downgrade from the opportunity to explore SpongeBob’s world in full 3D, and felt so uninspired that I doubt many gamers would even bother leaving the house to buy it, myself included.
Yes, I’ll stay right here in my pineapple, thank you very much.
5. Spider-Man 2
There’s nothing quite like swinging freely from building to building with the twinkling windows of giant skyscrapers lighting your way. I mean, I assume it’s a pretty cool feeling. I’ve never been able to experience it in real life, because no matter how much I coaxed it, that radioactive spider just wouldn’t bite me.
Anyway, Spider-Man 2 for the Xbox, PlayStation 2, and GameCube was beloved by many for allowing players to do just that. Opening up New York City in a way that previous Spider-Man games had only dreamed of, the 2004 release allowed players to fling webbing with wild abandon and navigate Spidey’s home town in exhilarating style. The flowing, free-roaming gameplay was backed up by exciting combat, great visuals, and a fun story, pleasing critics and consumers alike.
The PC release was not quite so well-received. We’re not sure what the home computer crowd had done to upset publisher, Activision, but they were handed a stage-based beat-’em-up with comparatively archaic web-swinging mechanics and no free-roaming. Critics were unimpressed with almost all aspects of the game, and PC owners were left to watch with barely-contained jealous rage as console-owning Spidey fans gleefully explored an open New York.
That’s how super villains are made, you know.
4. Aladdin
With the success of Disney’s Arabian Nights-based blockbuster in 1992, the race was on to get a high-quality video game onto the market in time for the movie’s home video release the following year. Mega Drive and SNES game adaptations of Aladdin did indeed hit the shelves in November of 1993, and the battle between two alternate Agrabahs had begun.
While both games are action-platformers, and both would look very similar if viewed through a puff of genie smoke, they are actually entirely different games that were created by different developers. In both versions, players got to leap around representations of the movie’s locations, avoiding enemies, throwing apples and engaging in other cool Aladdin stuff, while the Mega Drive title armed the titular street rat with a scimitar, giving the game a more swashbuckling feel.
While Nintendo arguably won the 16-bit Jurassic Park exchange, Virgin Games’ Mega Drive version of Aladdin is generally seen as superior to its Capcom-developed rival, sporting sleeker visuals, animations that more closely resembled the Disney style, and tighter gameplay.
Looks like Sega managed to find the cave of wonders this time around, then, but the adventure isn’t over. There’s one more SNES and Mega Drive face-off to come, so stay tuned to find out who wins.
3. Max Payne
Known for its adult themes, spectacular gunplay, and notable use of bullet time mechanics, Max Payne was a staple of store shelves in the early 2000s, and blasted its way into the hearts of reviewers and consumers alike. Even if you haven’t played the games, you’ll surely recognise Max’s trademark grimace. Forever looking like he’s in the process of jumping through a gross-smelling window, he truly does have one of gaming’s most iconic mugs!
Did you know about the Game Boy Advance version, though? Played from an overhead viewpoint, this surprising adaption of the gritty tale is reminiscent of the overhead shooter sections in Die Hard Trilogy, albeit with lots of bullet time mixed in. Oh, and loads and loads of blood. Seriously, this has got to be one of the most gore-drenched games on the GBA, and pretty much everyone Max came across ended up lying in an expanding puddle of their own viscera.
Despite the GBA being an unlikely home for a maverick cop with a murdered family and vengeance on his mind, this handheld version of the game was well-received, and retained the game’s atmosphere despite working with a fraction of the processing power.
Max respect to the creators then, it must have been a real Payne to develop…
2. Ghostbusters: The Video Game
In 2009, before that Ghostbusters movie, the famous, spook-catching franchise was making a splash with its first appearance on home consoles since 1990’s oddly-proportioned Mega Drive effort. Ghostbusters: The Video Game, attempted to relive the franchise’s glory days by setting the story in the timeline of the original films and allowing the player to take on the role of a new recruit.
The Xbox 360, PS3, and PC versions of the game all featured lifelike recreations of the four lead characters and got all four actors on board to provide the voices. A genuine Ghostbusters experience, the game was a gift to anyone who had ever wanted to strap on an unlicensed nuclear accelerator and battle supernatural entities across New York.
Ghostbusters: The Video Game was also released on the PS2, Wii, and PSP, but instead of scaling down the game to fit on more limited hardware, the developers decided to change things up a bit. Gone were the realistic renditions of Egon, Ray, Winston, and Peter, and players were instead presented with stylised characters that appeared more reminiscent of The Real Ghostbusters cartoon.
This version also let you create your own Ghostbuster, and added cooperative multiplayer too, thankfully assuring players that busting would make them feel good no matter what hardware they’re using. Spooktacular stuff.
1. Shadowrun
We end our list with Sega and Nintendo once again vying for supremacy like a pair of colossal, dystopian mega-corporations, this time with adaptations of pen and paper RPG system, Shadowrun. The console gaming powerhouses presented two very different takes on the same cyberpunk world, and Nintendo were the first to strike with their isometric action/role-playing game. Sega soon brought their own tech to the market, presenting a top-down, open-ended RPG for the indoctrinated masses to consume.
The SNES version had players controlling the action with a cursor, using it to select doors and terminals to interact with and to target enemies to blast with their cool cyberpunk guns.
The Mega Drive version had a top-down view and featured larger sprites and third-person hacking sections, but both games attempted to evoke the vibe of a dark and dangerous cyberpunk future, and both went about it in interestingly distinct ways.
Honestly, I played up this clash of industry giants earlier, and have now painted them as mega-corps wrestling for global domination with Shadowrun, but in reality, neither version of the futuristic RPG made much of a lasting impression, so the comparison doesn’t really work. Oh well, I’m sure I’ll do better next time.
No, it’s in the clash between the portly plumber and the speedy hedgehog where the real dystopian, rampantly consumerist war for the dominion of our hearts, minds and wallets takes place. Best not to think about it, though. Just keep on buying that merch…
10 Games That Were Vastly Different Across Platforms
Most of the time, when video games are published across multiple platforms, the developers will try to keep things as similar as possible. You might see a performance boost on one format, a couple of exclusive levels on another, or maybe even an exclusive character here or there, but basically, the game’s the same.
But what if it’s not the same? What if the game is completely different? This list is about the exceptions to the aforementioned rule; the times when the same game with the same title is released across platforms with clear variations between versions, such that they might seem barely related. Maybe the same license was picked up by different publishers and they raced to bring out the best version, perhaps the limitations of handheld gaming are to blame, or maybe the developers just felt like doing something different.
Either way, if you were playing one of the following games on one format, and your pal was playing on another, you were likely having completely different experiences! That’s what we’re all about here at TripleJump – try something different, expand your horizons. Just within games, though, you know. Don’t go too crazy.
I’m Ben from TripleJump, and here are 10 Games that Were Vastly Different Across Platforms.
10. Jurassic Park
We begin our journey in a land before time. Yes, back in the murky past of 1993 with the release of Jurassic Park. The movie was a huge hit, wowing audiences with incredible animatronics and special effects, nail-biting action, and iconic characters. Surely video game interpretations wouldn’t be far behind?
Sure enough, in that same year, Jurassic Park was released on the SNES and the Mega Drive. However, they went about things very differently.
In the SNES outing, the player controls protagonist Alan Grant as he tries to escape the island. Armed with a cattle prod, tranquilliser guns, and other more dangerous weaponry, Alan roams the maze of trees, fighting off dinosaurs and giant bugs in top-down shooter action. When he enters a building, the game switches to a first-person perspective, resulting in some atmospheric jaunts through claustrophobic corridors.
The Mega Drive game was a straight-forward side-scroller with digitised sprites and platforming sections which, despite some neat moments and allowing players to become a Velociraptor, is generally considered a bit of a bland movie tie-in. Though far from perfect, the SNES version had more variety and provided a huge area to explore, meaning that in the eyes of most, Nintendo were the apex predator when it came to dino movie tie-ins.
9. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
Ah, the first Harry Potter film. They all look so young. Released back in 2001, this Hogwarts extravaganza saw tie-ins appear across multiple generations of home and handheld games consoles.
Versions of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (or Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone if you wanna get American about this) were first released on PC, PlayStation, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance in 2001, and all of them were different.
The PC and PlayStation adaptations were both 3D, third-person action games, with the console version being an action adventure while the PC outing was more puzzle-focused.
The handheld games changed things up even more, with the Game Boy Color title being an RPG with turn-based spell-slinging, and the Game Boy Advance edition boasting top-down, puzzler-based gameplay.
If all that variety wasn’t enough, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was released again in 2003 for the GameCube, PS2, and Xbox, with the gameplay and graphics remixed again to suit the more modern consoles.
While none of these adaptations were considered all-time greats, the magical internet sorting hat that is GameRankings had the Game Boy Color RPG at the top of the point tracker with a very reasonable 73%. Well done House Game Boy Color!
8. Dragon’s Lair
Dragon’s Lair was originally found in arcades in 1983, but the classy visuals and frustratingly addictive trial-and-error gameplay caused such a splash that many home ports soon followed.
The ports for Sega’s Mega-CD add-on, as well as the 3DO and the Phillips CD-i, all stayed fairly close to the arcade original. These versions presented protagonist, Dirk the Daring, in almost all of his Don Bluth-animated glory as he explored the visually impressive environments and avoided the devious traps and baddies.
Not every home console could handle this LaserDisc-based technology, though, and certain ports had to do something entirely different with the Dragon’s Lair name. The SNES version, for example, is a cinematic platformer, where players controlled Dirk directly as he jumped and slashed his way through linear, monster-filled levels.
Alas, this SNES Dragon’s Lair port was not well-received, with players lamenting a sluggish pace, poor controls, and overly-punishing difficulty. Still, compared to the original Dragon’s Lair, which can barely be described as a game by today’s standards, perhaps the SNES version was a slightly more enticing prospect.
We don’t know about you, but we like our games to be … you know, somewhat interactive. I know, we’re a fussy bunch.
7. Dizzy Kwik Snax
Back in the days of the Spectrum and Commodore 64, a little egg with a big, yolky heart was one of the most recognisable gaming heroes. Dizzy’s famous adventure games were more-or-less the same across formats, graphical differences aside, so if you were buying a Dizzy game, you pretty much knew what you were going to get. That is, until our ovular idol starred in maze-based puzzle game, Dizzy Kwik Snax.
In the Spectrum version of the game, Dizzy was tasked with picking up collectibles in a specific order while avoiding enemies, and the egg-shaped protagonist could push blocks around to open new routes and squish the bad guys. It was kind of like Pac-Man mixed in with Sega’s Pengo arcade game. It was well-received at the time, providing an interesting, quick-thinking take on Dizzy’s eggy world.
The C64 version, for reasons lost to time, was a completely different game. Reminiscent of Flicky, our hero had to navigate a maze, locating entities called “fluffies” and guiding them to the exit. This version fared worse in reviews than its Spectrum counterpart, but was still enjoyed by Commodore 64 owners in need of more Dizzy-based action.
Just shows that there really is more than one way to crack an egg.
6. SpongeBob SquarePants: The Battle for Bikini Bottom
Sometimes, there’s just nothing quite like a good old 3D platformer featuring a colourful mascot character. Back in 2003, everyone’s favourite sentient sea sponge had a crack at the genre, bringing the humour and mayhem of the Nickelodeon series to PS2, Xbox, and GameCube.
Rendering the submerged, 2D world of SpongeBob in glorious 3D, SpongeBob SquarePants: The Battle for Bikini Bottom gave players the chance to explore the show’s environments, play as multiple characters, and save the day in a crowd-pleasing adventure. While not really offering anything new, the game was praised for its graphics and sound, solid gameplay and camera controls, and for nailing the trademark zany humour. It even received an updated remake in 2020!
If you were a computer-owning SpongeBob enthusiast, however, you would have had a very different experience, as The Battle for Bikini Bottom on PC was a mini-game collection.
That’s right, push blocks, capture flags and answer quizzes in simplistic, mouse-controlled mini-activities. Honestly, it feels like a huge downgrade from the opportunity to explore SpongeBob’s world in full 3D, and felt so uninspired that I doubt many gamers would even bother leaving the house to buy it, myself included.
Yes, I’ll stay right here in my pineapple, thank you very much.
5. Spider-Man 2
There’s nothing quite like swinging freely from building to building with the twinkling windows of giant skyscrapers lighting your way. I mean, I assume it’s a pretty cool feeling. I’ve never been able to experience it in real life, because no matter how much I coaxed it, that radioactive spider just wouldn’t bite me.
Anyway, Spider-Man 2 for the Xbox, PlayStation 2, and GameCube was beloved by many for allowing players to do just that. Opening up New York City in a way that previous Spider-Man games had only dreamed of, the 2004 release allowed players to fling webbing with wild abandon and navigate Spidey’s home town in exhilarating style. The flowing, free-roaming gameplay was backed up by exciting combat, great visuals, and a fun story, pleasing critics and consumers alike.
The PC release was not quite so well-received. We’re not sure what the home computer crowd had done to upset publisher, Activision, but they were handed a stage-based beat-’em-up with comparatively archaic web-swinging mechanics and no free-roaming. Critics were unimpressed with almost all aspects of the game, and PC owners were left to watch with barely-contained jealous rage as console-owning Spidey fans gleefully explored an open New York.
That’s how super villains are made, you know.
4. Aladdin
With the success of Disney’s Arabian Nights-based blockbuster in 1992, the race was on to get a high-quality video game onto the market in time for the movie’s home video release the following year. Mega Drive and SNES game adaptations of Aladdin did indeed hit the shelves in November of 1993, and the battle between two alternate Agrabahs had begun.
While both games are action-platformers, and both would look very similar if viewed through a puff of genie smoke, they are actually entirely different games that were created by different developers. In both versions, players got to leap around representations of the movie’s locations, avoiding enemies, throwing apples and engaging in other cool Aladdin stuff, while the Mega Drive title armed the titular street rat with a scimitar, giving the game a more swashbuckling feel.
While Nintendo arguably won the 16-bit Jurassic Park exchange, Virgin Games’ Mega Drive version of Aladdin is generally seen as superior to its Capcom-developed rival, sporting sleeker visuals, animations that more closely resembled the Disney style, and tighter gameplay.
Looks like Sega managed to find the cave of wonders this time around, then, but the adventure isn’t over. There’s one more SNES and Mega Drive face-off to come, so stay tuned to find out who wins.
3. Max Payne
Known for its adult themes, spectacular gunplay, and notable use of bullet time mechanics, Max Payne was a staple of store shelves in the early 2000s, and blasted its way into the hearts of reviewers and consumers alike. Even if you haven’t played the games, you’ll surely recognise Max’s trademark grimace. Forever looking like he’s in the process of jumping through a gross-smelling window, he truly does have one of gaming’s most iconic mugs!
Did you know about the Game Boy Advance version, though? Played from an overhead viewpoint, this surprising adaption of the gritty tale is reminiscent of the overhead shooter sections in Die Hard Trilogy, albeit with lots of bullet time mixed in. Oh, and loads and loads of blood. Seriously, this has got to be one of the most gore-drenched games on the GBA, and pretty much everyone Max came across ended up lying in an expanding puddle of their own viscera.
Despite the GBA being an unlikely home for a maverick cop with a murdered family and vengeance on his mind, this handheld version of the game was well-received, and retained the game’s atmosphere despite working with a fraction of the processing power.
Max respect to the creators then, it must have been a real Payne to develop…
2. Ghostbusters: The Video Game
In 2009, before that Ghostbusters movie, the famous, spook-catching franchise was making a splash with its first appearance on home consoles since 1990’s oddly-proportioned Mega Drive effort. Ghostbusters: The Video Game, attempted to relive the franchise’s glory days by setting the story in the timeline of the original films and allowing the player to take on the role of a new recruit.
The Xbox 360, PS3, and PC versions of the game all featured lifelike recreations of the four lead characters and got all four actors on board to provide the voices. A genuine Ghostbusters experience, the game was a gift to anyone who had ever wanted to strap on an unlicensed nuclear accelerator and battle supernatural entities across New York.
Ghostbusters: The Video Game was also released on the PS2, Wii, and PSP, but instead of scaling down the game to fit on more limited hardware, the developers decided to change things up a bit. Gone were the realistic renditions of Egon, Ray, Winston, and Peter, and players were instead presented with stylised characters that appeared more reminiscent of The Real Ghostbusters cartoon.
This version also let you create your own Ghostbuster, and added cooperative multiplayer too, thankfully assuring players that busting would make them feel good no matter what hardware they’re using. Spooktacular stuff.
1. Shadowrun
We end our list with Sega and Nintendo once again vying for supremacy like a pair of colossal, dystopian mega-corporations, this time with adaptations of pen and paper RPG system, Shadowrun. The console gaming powerhouses presented two very different takes on the same cyberpunk world, and Nintendo were the first to strike with their isometric action/role-playing game. Sega soon brought their own tech to the market, presenting a top-down, open-ended RPG for the indoctrinated masses to consume.
The SNES version had players controlling the action with a cursor, using it to select doors and terminals to interact with and to target enemies to blast with their cool cyberpunk guns.
The Mega Drive version had a top-down view and featured larger sprites and third-person hacking sections, but both games attempted to evoke the vibe of a dark and dangerous cyberpunk future, and both went about it in interestingly distinct ways.
Honestly, I played up this clash of industry giants earlier, and have now painted them as mega-corps wrestling for global domination with Shadowrun, but in reality, neither version of the futuristic RPG made much of a lasting impression, so the comparison doesn’t really work. Oh well, I’m sure I’ll do better next time.
No, it’s in the clash between the portly plumber and the speedy hedgehog where the real dystopian, rampantly consumerist war for the dominion of our hearts, minds and wallets takes place. Best not to think about it, though. Just keep on buying that merch…
Related posts: