That Was Irritating.

What irritates a gamer more than anything? An unplayable release with bad physics, or the production of a title lacking any sort of demographics research? Regardless of the obvious annoyances, gamers as a crowd (including myself) can be a pretty picky bunch. We're always looking forward to the next big thing that hopefully doesn't transform into an overly hyped disaster, or collectively deciding whether or not a certain story checks out for other titles in question. We've seen it all and endured many great challenges, some cases which might involve just getting past a questionable intro.

For the sake of honoring (or insulting) certain concepts in the world of gaming, let's take the time to review some of the most annoying things we've had to face as gamers.

Random game "related" to movie

Ah, movie related video games. They're either miss or miss as I like to say. Seriously, when was the last time any of us heard about a great game that actually went along with a movie? Even the so-called "best" don't seem to get very far in the world of game reviews. That's just how it's always been though, even since the days of E.T. for the Atari 2600, where demanding requests from a greedy movie company resulted in millions of games supposedly getting buried in a desert.

Still, there was a golden age in the '90s when Virgin Interactive produced decent Disney titles left and right, including The Lion King and Aladdin. Most folks who think of movie based games that are actually presentable will usually reference one of Disney's side-scrollers for the Genesis or SNES. These days we're lucky to see movie tie-in games that actually have decent programming to go along with them. Nine out of ten times we're told to avoid games based on movies, which are usually nothing more than overpriced, flashy billboards advertising a mediocre flick that's probably equally abysmal.

Imagine that!

Ubisoft, I really love some of your games, but what the hell? I'm all for opening the world of video gaming to new audiences, but there isn't a clearance section I go to anymore without seeing one of these Imagine: Figure Skater or Rock Star titles. There's also my personal favorite, Imagine: Ballet Star. Oh, how I'd love to imagine I'm dancing around in a tutu while listening to my favorite Justin Bieber album.

So these games obviously weren't directed at folks like us (unless you're a twelve-and-under girl who somehow just happens to be reading this), but why so many of these titles are flooding the market is beyond me. Ubisoft has been famous for some pretty sketchy shovelware titles in these past few years (I'm looking at you Price is Right), but this is just ridiculous. We know, you failed to do your demographics research but decided to take all these titles to market anyhow. I suppose it happens to the best of us.

That's just ... bad.

We've covered movies with tie-in video games, but what about video games with a tie-in movie? Okay, so maybe some of them weren't really that bad, but most unfortunately turn out to be some form of overpriced Hollywood vomit that has little if nothing to do with the original game. There's always the possibility of a correct reference or two, like the name of a character or location. The rest usually comes out looking like pure garbage.

Take Super Mario Bros. for instance, quite possibly the harbinger of terrible video game movies. It had some comical moments and somewhat passable reference points (BOB-OMB), but that didn't save this nightmare from becoming one of the biggest failures known to ever flop its way into the gaming merchandise world. Sure, Mario and Luigi are plumbers, and there's reference of a so-called mushroom kingdom, along with random characters like Koopa, Yoshi and (a horribly portrayed) Toad. But honestly, an alternate universe where dinosaurs evolved into people, and it just happens to be parallel to modern day Brooklyn? That's certainly creative (for lack of better words), but what in a goomba's ass is this? The only thing worse would be a Pac-Man movie based on an agent codenamed "Yellow Slice", who must travel to some dark, pellet filled ruins in order to vanquish four colorful ghosts from Jupiter. Oh, and Ms. Pac-Man is literally just "Yellow Slice" in drag, because he's schizophrenic -- there, we have a tacky plot with a twist. Shall we cash in?

The Games we've played and imaginative concepts we've endured have inspired us to no end, so it's naturally painful to see masterminds in the industry neglectinging to put more dedication towards their own creative works.  All we can really do is hope the world of gaming continues on towards a bright, shimmering future -- for better or worse.