This past May saw the release of quite possibly the best movie based on a video game of all time, "The Angry Birds Movie." At least that’s what the film’s 42 percent Rotten Tomatoes score says. Although that number is considerably mediocre, it's still better than the majority of scores earned by other video game adaptions, including some that were released this very year. In fact, including "Angry Birds," four video game film adaptations will have been released worldwide by the end of 2016. First,was "Ratchet & Clank," then the Duncan Jones-helmed "Warcraft" followed earlier this month of June, and "Assassin's Creed," starring Michael Fassbender, will wrap up the year with a Christmas season release. It's perhaps the largest amount of video game adaptations being released this wide in a single year, showing that Hollywood sees a viable future in gaming properties. So with all of this talent and money invested into these projects, why is the word “mediocre” still the highest praise they can receive? Why are video game films still considered to be terrible?

This is a subjective question. The recent release of "Warcraft" though, directed by a critical darling like Jones, still received a critical flogging. It's so mind-bogglingly frustrating as to why video game movies continue this trend. Many gamers have argued that 1996's "Mortal Kombat"is perhaps the best attempt at a video game movie, as it stays true to the established aesthetic of the franchise. The frequent complaint from many gamers is that these movies tend to fail because they deviate too drastically from their source material, leaving them to become just another tedious studio genre film. However, staying true to aesthetic couldn’t be a more fitting description for the crop of video game films this year. Both "Warcraft" and "Assassin's Creed" are produced by the gaming studios they call home. "Ratchet & Clank" literally lifted the same models from the Playstation games to animate, and even "Angry Birds" incorporated the iconic slingshot gameplay into its plot. But still, these films can't obtain the general consensus of being good.

Perhaps the most poignant explanation for this is that gaming is not necessarily a story-driven industry. Where novels and comic books lend themselves to better film adaptations as they come from an entirely story-driven medium, gaming requires a more refined approach as it comes from a source with a focus on functionality in gameplay over everything. That’s not to say storytelling isn't important to the industry. The general focus of most game developers, though, is on how a game plays, with the story serving as an external drive to give context to the player's actions. However, these actions do not always require a story. Nobody downloaded "Angry Birds"to discover a deep narrative as to why a group of pigs was tormenting little birds; they were doing it to kill time on the toilet or during long commutes. With this in mind, video games can give you a basis for a story, but not all of them provide much structure for one.

"Warcraft" is an interesting case in providing a narrative context for the player, as it has built an extensive lore over the course of its two decades as an intellectual property that expands outside of gaming and into novels, comics, and short films. It's not hard to track down a "World of Warcraft" book at your local Barnes & Noble, but when compared to the hundreds of other fantasy novels sitting next to it, what makes these books stand out? If it didn't have the brand recognition behind it, would the tales of Orgrim Doomhammer and Thrall be able to hold their own against Bilbo Baggins and Harry Potter?

That's not to say that the extended "Warcraft" universe isn't worthy storytelling, but it’s a product of popularity and its main focus is to tie into the heart of the franchise. If a movie is seen simply as an extension of marketing, then what potential does it have to reach across demographics outside of the games’ already devoted fan base? This is an issue all its own in Hollywood outside of gaming, with many movies feeling more like gestating commercials based on established brands in literature, TV and even the film industry itself. In gaming, however, where storytelling is not always necessary, the odds of it falling into this pale process of marketing are much greater than a medium that completely relies on narrative structure. The best way to put it is that you don’t necessarily need to have a good story to have a great game, and studios want to make movies about great games. Nearly every "Super Mario" title has the same general plot of the damsel in distress, and they are still the best-reviewed games of their respective eras. When that paper thin plot was applied to the 1993 film adaptation of the franchise, it was an unmitigated disaster and it crashed and burned.

That being said, there are a number of video games that are driven or entirely carried by storytelling, with some being distinctively cinematic. Naughty Dog is perhaps the best developer to incorporate the cinematic into their games. With an extensive focus on story arches, characterization, and thematic depth that evolved over a decade across such games as "Jak and Daxter," "Uncharted" and "The Last of Us." The studio has proved that gaming can tell entertaining and emotionally evoking stories on the level of the classic Hollywood blockbuster. The post-apocalyptic narrative of "The Last of Us" has been praised by gamers and non-gamers alike for providing a slow burn of nuanced characterization between its two leads, Joel and Ellie. It’s storytelling that rivals similar zombie narratives like "The Walking Dead." With all of this effort put toward their storytelling, one has to wonder why no film studio has adapted one of Naughty Dog’s games to film yet. In fact, both "Uncharted" and "The Last of Us" film projects have been announced but have unfortunately fallen into “development hell.” This is most likely because of the continued negative stigma that video game movies receive.

Despite the outcome of the four video game movies this year, hopefully, Hollywood will push forward in trying to get the formula just right the same way it eventually did for the comic book movie. Hopefully, we will get a video game movie the general public can collectively call "good."