10 Fake Video Games From Movies We Wish We Could Play

Movie characters are just like us, and sometimes, that involves showing them playing video games. To make a film more immersive, this can entail showing off an actual game that exists in the real world, like Thor (Chris Hemsworth) getting all worked up about "Fortnite" in "Avengers: Endgame" or Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) playing "Rage" in "Breaking Bad." These can be fun nods to the gamers in the audience, but for a more immersive experience, some films decide to create an entire new game from scratch. 

In many instances, the game featured is a one-off joke but nonetheless looks enticing from what we can see. In other cases, the fake video game is pivotal to the plot. We learn more about the game's mechanics even if they have real-world consequences. We wouldn't want to actually play something that sets the world up for nuclear annihilation, but as a game to play with friends, it seems like it could be pretty fun. 

We're not even sure if some of these fake video games from movies would be fun to play in the long run, but we'd love to give them a shot. Maybe some dedicated modder out there can make it happen, but for now, these are the games we want to see become reality. 

"Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" is jam-packed with video game references, from subtle "Legend of Zelda" musical cues to the presence of the Chaos Theater from "Earthbound." The movie pays tribute to plenty of real-world games, but it's best contribution to the medium is in the showcase of the fake game "Ninja Ninja Revolution," a knockoff of "Dance Dance Revolution" where players create ninja stances instead of dancing. 

It's a fun sequence in the film as Scott (Michael Cera) and Knives Chau (Ellen Wong) show off their moves as he explains why Pac-Man isn't named Puck-Man. The moves go beyond just stomping feet against the floor mat, with Knives even rolling across Scott's back to resume her position on the other side of the game console. It makes us wonder if the machine has a camera watching all of your moves to ensure you follow the ninjas on-screen exactly. What's even more entertaining watching the sequence today is that Scott and Knives appear to do a primitive form of "dabbing" all the way back in 2010, which wouldn't take off until around 2015. The pair are trendsetters in a way. 

Not only is "Ninja Ninja Revolution" a fun game, but it also foreshadows the finale. Scott mentions how he can never defeat the Nega-Ninja, to which Knives says he shouldn't beat himself up over it. Later, Scott realizes the way to beat NegaScott is by not beating him up (and in turn not beating himself up). Leave it to Edgar Wright to cram a cool made-up video game, gamer lore, and foreshadowing within a 40-second scene. 

When talking about "Wreck-It Ralph," you might initially think we'd want to play the game where the titular character hails from — "Fix-It, Felix Jr." But from what we can see from that game in the film, it looks... fine? It's a classic '80s arcade cabinet where you run around trying to fix the damage caused by Wreck-It Ralph (John C. Reilly). It might be fun enough, but seeing the kind of existential anguish it causes in Ralph would make us wary of playing it too often. 

Instead, we have to opt for the classic racing game, "Sugar Rush." "Mario Kart" set the gold standard for racing games, but this one looks like it could have some merit. The colorful visuals and tracks incorporating candy into the aesthetic makes it look like a visual splendor to behold. The two-player game would be a ton of fun to play with a pal at an arcade, and if as much attention went into an actual game as the "Sugar Rush" sequence in the film, this could be an all-timer. 

There are many behind-the-scenes facets to "Wreck-It Ralph," one of which is that a lot of attention went into the "Sugar Rush" scenes. This includes the development team treating each car (with all of them based on a different treat) as its own character with special skills and stats. There could be some really cool strategies to implement even if you don't rely on the Vanellope (Sarah Silverman) glitch. 

"The Simpsons" has had no shortage of great-looking fake video games over the years. We still wish we could learn valuable life lessons via "Bonestorm" or skip days upon days of school playing "Dash Dingo." We'd even settle for an arcade cabinet of "My Dinner with Andre." But this is about fake games featured in movies, so we'll have to go with "Grand Theft Walrus."

As we wait for "GTA 6" to finally come out, this thing would definitely scratch that itch. We don't see much of the gameplay, but Homer does play as a gangster walrus who encounters a happy, dancing penguin, only for the walrus to then shoot said penguin. We'd like to imagine the rest of the game carrying out various crimes while avoiding detection from an arctic fox police force that you can evade by hiding behind a mailbox for a couple of minutes. 

If nothing else, "Grand Theft Walrus" reminds us a lot of the all-too-real game, "The Simpsons: Hit & Run," where you drive around Springfield completing missions while engaging in some light vehicular mayhem. It seems increasingly unlikely we'll ever get a "Hit & Run" sequel, but at this point, we'd even just settle for a remaster. And if someone really wants to play a video game that started fake on "The Simpsons" but eventually became real, they'll be utterly delighted to learn you can now play "Lee Carvallo's Putting Challenge" in real life. It's the game every boy wants!

2013's "Her" is a particularly prescient film in how people would incorporate technology into their everyday lives. The way Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) becomes increasingly reliant (even emotionally) on his virtual assistant Samantha (Scarlett Johansson) isn't too far off from people becoming dependent on ChatGPT these days, including having AI companions to talk to. As far as video games, we may be a ways off from getting something like "Alien Child," but when it does come around, we absolutely want to play. 

It's a holographic game Theodore can interact with without the use of heavy VR goggles. He just talks to the alien child, voiced by director Spike Jonze himself, without any extra tech, and the child understands him. It's an extraordinarily advanced game, as the child can even see and comment on the photos Theodore scrolls through in the middle of gameplay. 

Of course, the game being a cool hologram is only part of the equation. The main reason we'd love to play even a rudimentary version of "Alien Child" is because of the titular character's foul-mouthed nature. He insults the player with a string of profanities and gets progressively cruder as Theodore starts talking about how it's okay for men to cry. Your mission may be to return to your ship, but we'd want to drag out the gameplay as long as possible to laugh at everything the alien child has to say.

"Grandma's Boy" may not have set the world on fire when it came out in 2006, but it actually stands as one of the best stoner comedies to come out over the last few decades. It's about 35-year-old Alex (Allen Covert) who moves back in with his grandmother as he works as a video game tester. And one of the games he has to test is "Demonik," which holds a unique placement on this list because it wasn't always meant to be a fake game. At one point, it was in development and supposed to come out. 

In fact, there was supposed to be a "Demonik" movie to accompany the game with horror maestro Clive Barker working on both. Barker eventually dropped out of the film and the game soon followed suit to where it's now a footnote within the legacy of Happy Madison Productions. 

In 2013, a trailer for "Demonik" leaked, and it looks like a pretty fun dark action game in the vein of something like "Bloodrayne." "Grandma's Boy" shows off some of the gameplay as well, in what appears to be an attempt at synergy to promote the game to the folks most likely to play it — huge stoners.

The early 1980s were a period of nuclear anxiety, as kids were taught to hide under their desks if they ever got a warning that a nuclear bomb was about to drop on their city. As such, a movie like "WarGames" was perfect at the time to tap into those fears while offering a tiny bit of escapism. The plot involves David Lightman (Matthew Broderick), a hacker who accidentally access a supercomputer used by the United States military to simulate war projections. Of course, he just thinks it's all a game and plays as the Soviet Union, inadvertently threatening World War III. 

Naturally, we wouldn't want to actually be in charge of any real-world nukes or make the U.S. government think they're being attacked and start prepping their own weapons. But seeing as simulators, from flying planes to washing cars, are all the rage these days, it could be fun (and educational!) to get a glance at global politics and learn potential real-world consequences to engaging in such actions. 

Ultimately, the game in the movie ends once David learns that the only way to win is not to play. No matter who strikes first in a nuclear war, everyone will suffer soon enough, so it'd be best for world powers to de-escalate. There are certainly some people in positions of power who could probably learn to take that moral to heart...

"Spy Kids 3D: Game Over" might be the most quintessentially 2003 movie ever made. It has in-your-face 3D effects and incredibly questionable visual effects; however, it also marks the big-screen acting debuts of both Selena Gomez and Glen Powell, so maybe it's more influential than we're giving it credit for. Much of the film takes place in a VR game Juni Cortez (Daryl Sabara) enters in order to save his sister Carmen (Alexa Vega), who's trapped inside. To save her, he has to solve a series of increasingly difficult mini-games.

We wouldn't want to be trapped inside a VR game against our will where a maniacal toymaker holds us prisoner, but playing Robo-Arena and Mega-Race does sound kind of fun. It's yet another way "Spy Kids 3D" kind of predicted the future in how people would one day have VR systems readily accessible. It'd be the perfect thing for the Oculus where your character gets a sweet suit of armor and battles mechs. 

The only downside to "Game Over" is that there are only five levels, which feels a little short. It's fine for an 84-minute movie where we need things to chug along, but if we're paying $60 to $80 on a VR game, we want to get our money's worth. But maybe they just couldn't afford to put more mini-games into "Game Over" considering the star power of George Clooney, Sylvester Stallone, Steve Buscemi, Salma Hayek, and Bill Paxton that's in this thing.

There's definitely no shortage of tie-in "Toy Story" video games from standard movie games to the toys appearing in "Kingdom Hearts III." But there's one game actually featured in the film franchise we would've loved to see become reality. "Toy Story 2" opens with Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) fighting his way through the Quadrant, eventually encountering his mortal enemy, Emperor Zurg (Andrew Stanton), who promptly incinerates the upper half of his body. The film then pulls out to reveal this has all been a video game played by Rex (Wallace Shawn).

The in-universe video game is "Buzz Lightyear: Attack on Zurg," and the most striking thing about it is how good the visuals look for a game that would've been around in 1999. Even before you get the chance to fight Zurg, who's probably the final boss, you get to fly as Buzz through a desolate world and rely on strategy rather than sheer brute force to take out a horde of robots. We did wind up getting "Toy Story 2: Buzz Lightyear to the Rescue," but that more or less just copies the plot from the film. We want a "Buzz Lightyear" space adventure game with no ties to the films.

And this may not be the last time a "Toy Story" movie incorporates video games into its story. "Toy Story 5" will deal with toys struggling to be relevant amidst tablets and technology, and one would assume kids might be more interested in playing games on their devices than an old toy from the '90s. But with '90s nostalgia at an all-time high, Pixar releasing a genuine "Attack on Zurg" game would probably do very well right now. 

Every Bond bad guy needs some kind of gimmick or gadget, whether it's a flying bowler hat or a slow-moving laser that inches ever closer to one's groin. In the case of 1983's "Never Say Never Again," Maximillian Largo (Klaus Maria Brandauer) tasks James Bond (Sean Connery, returning to the role after a 12-year break) with a video game. Bond may be decent at cards, but this was new territory for the spy figuring out how exactly to work a joystick. [Insert typical James Bond double entendre here].

The game is "Domination," and the two players must fire lasers at various countries until one emerges victorious in total world conquest. But there's a catch; after every round, whoever scores the lowest receives a small electric shock, enough to take Bond off guard at first. The shocks grow in intensity based on how much the players wager because Bond isn't playing anything unless he can bet his life savings on it. It's a fun scene, and not to sound too masochistic but this is one game that would be fun to play, shocks and all.

We wouldn't want anyone to get hurt, but a small shock like a joy buzzer would be a neat gimmick in a video game. It would force you to stay on your toes and work to get better in each subsequent round. If Bond can figure out how to play and strategize in a matter of minutes, it'd be the perfect game to play with friends and have a blast with. 

You've probably all too familiar with the likes of "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" and "WarGames," but this final fake video game from a movie is from an underseen gem called "Deadware." It came out in 2021 but takes place in 1999. Two friends — Rachel (Sarah Froelich) and Jay (Ali Alkhafaji) — play a mysterious browser game called "House of Hunger," and it soon becomes clear that spooky things are imminent. 

"House of Hunger" is a neat throwback to PC games of the 1990s. It looks a little janky, but that's part of the charm as the characters point and click to go through doors and answer riddles all while the game cuts out to old video camera footage of a freaky ghost and some old abandoned trails in the middle of a forest. It may go for retro vibes, but this is something that'd be cool to play over Twitch these days with a lot of people watching and reacting at the same time as the player. 

"Deadware" also gets some bonus points for being part of the ever-expanding screenlife genre of films, including the likes of "Missing" and "LifeHack" where everything we see is from a computer screen. And if you have 68 minutes to spare, "Deadware" is available to watch on YouTube completely for free.