The Thing game didn't suck because it was based on an existing IP, it sucked because the technology of the time couldn't make an appropriate Thing game involving the gameplay elements they wanted to include.
Also the Saw games are pretty cool for budget games. They're essentially halfway-clever puzzle games that happen to have fatal consequences if you mess up. They're pretty neat.
Also Dead Space, despite being a new IP, isn't terribly "original" - it cribs very heavily from Alien, Event Horizon, and (you guessed it), The Thing.
The plot is also 100% formulaic. When you think about it, all of these movies and games have the same exact plot structure:
- Event Horizon (movie)
- Deep Rising (movie)
- Dead Space 1 (game)
- Cold Fear (game)
- Virus (movie)
- Ghost Ship (movie)
Smaller rescue ship docks with larger vessel, finds the passengers missing, smaller ship gets disabled/destroyed and strands the rescue crew onboard, rescue crew ends up fighting for their lives against some sort of crazy supernatural/alien threat, everyone dies except 1 or 2 characters who barely manage to escape. Sometimes ends with a last-minute jump-scare just before the credits roll (Dead Space, Virus, Ghost Ship, Event Horizon).
Seriously all of those movies and games are
exactly the same.
