Folks, it's Hollywood blockbuster season again, which means that all the 'real' games yet to appear in 2007 have pushed themselves back into the safe shadows of autumn while, shall we say, lesser offerings (Transformers: The Movie, Ratatouille, and Fantastic 4: The Rise of the Silver Surfer) now vie for our hard-earned cash and the summer No.1 spot.

If you ever doubted the impact and appeal of our $30 billion USD gaming industry and the knee-buckling effect it has on money-grabbing movie execs, then one only need look at the past few years of movie tie-in releases to witness the general level of dross that is pushed our way to help bolster Hollywood's sales margins. Indeed, it's quite scary. Scarier still is that many of us (read: you) fall for the promise of excellence each and every time... never learning from our (read: your) mistakes.

But the developers and publishers should perhaps be held most accountable for the absolute garbage they squeeze away throughout the summer months, and so we've taken the liberty of amassing a comprehensive round-up of (pretty much) all the videogame/movie tie-in releases that have come our way in the past five years - while also including cross platform average scores taken from the Internet's home of the critics Metacritic.com*, in order to expose the worst (and often repeat) offenders.

You may be surprised to learn that Ubisoft, usually the bastions of gaming quality, take away the dubious honour of "Worst Movie Game" with the truly atrocious "Charlie's Angels", while the likes of Activision, Disney, and THQ are the publishers most likely to sell you gloss-covered movie mediocrity. Be duly warned, dear reader.

It's not all doom and gloom at gaming's box office however, with the occasional ray of light breaking through an otherwise impenetrable black cloud. Vivendi Universal and Starbreeze's Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay rescues a degree of worth amidst the dirge of disgrace. And, although it's been a solid ten years since Nintendo and Rare's eponymous GoldenEye 007 on the N64, there's certainly some hope that rarities such as The Warriors, LEGO Star Wars: The Original Trilogy, and perhaps the upcoming Chronicles of Riddick: The Assault on Dark Athena can further alter the ugly landscape of movie-related games.

That said, as long as studios keep pumping out poo such as Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, The Polar Express, Zathura, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Flushed Away (how apt), there's a good chance poor design, awful gameplay, shoddy animation, and awful control will continue to lead the flow of easy profit expansion.

Enjoy!

Title (2007)	Developer	Publisher	%
Arthur and the Invisibles	Estranges Libellule	Atari	65
Ghost Rider	Climax Studios	2K Games	52
Meet the Robinsons	Buena Vista	Disney	64
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End	Eurocom	Disney	52
Shrek the Third	Amaze Ent.	Activision	62
Spider-Man 3	Vicarious Visions	Activision	57
Surf's Up	Ubisoft	Ubisoft	61
TMNT	Ubisoft	Ubisoft	60

Title (2006)	Developer	Publisher	%
Alex Rider: Stormbreaker	Altron	THQ	43
Ant Bully (The)	A2M	Midway	49
Barnyard	Blue Tongue	THQ	65
Cars	Rainbow Studios	THQ	68
Curious George	Monkey Bar	Namco	56
Da Vinci Code (The)	The Collective	2K Games	53
Eragon	Stormfront Studios	Vivendi/Sierra	50
Fast and the Furious (The)	Eutechnyx	Namco/Bandai	59
Flushed Away	Monkey Bar	D3 Publisher	45
Godfather (The)	EA Redwood	Electronic Arts	73
Happy Feet	Midway Games	Warner Bros.	46
LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy	Traveller's Tales	LucasArts	83
Miami Vice: The Game	Rebellion	Vivendi/Universal	63
Monster House	THQ	THQ	59
Nacho Libre	Budcat	Majesco	58
Open Season	Ubisoft Montreal	Ubisoft	55
Over the Hedge	Edge of Reality	Activision	61
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest	Amaze/Griptonite	Disney	61
Reservoir Dogs	Volatile Games	Eidos	50
Scarface: The World Is Yours	Radical Games	Vivendi/Universal	74
Superman Returns	EA Tiburon	Electronic Arts	49
X-Men: The Official Game	Z-Axis	Activision	52

Title (2005)	Developer	Publisher	%
Aeon Flux	Terminal Reality	Majesco	67
Batman Begins	Eurocom	EA/Warner Bros.	63
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory	High Voltage	2K Games	35
Chicken Little	Avalanche Soft	Disney	66
Chronicles of Narnia (The)	Traveller's Tales	Disney	68
Constantine	Bits Corp.	THQ	59
Fantastic Four	7 Studios	Activision	63
From Russia with Love	EA Redwood	Electronic Arts	70
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire	EA UK	Electronic Arts	67
LEGO Star Wars	Traveller's Tales	LucasArts	77
Madagascar	Toys for Bob	Activision	71
Peter Jackson's King Kong	Ubisoft	Ubisoft	79
Robots	Eurocom	Vivendi/Universal	56
Star Wars Ep.III: Revenge of the Sith	The Collective	LucasArts	66
Wallace & Grommit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit	Frontier Dev	Konami	68
Warriors (The)	Rockstar Toronto	Rockstar Games	84
Zathura	High Voltage	2K Games	45

Title (2004)	Developer	Publisher	%
Catwoman	EA UK	Electronic Arts	46
Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay	Starbreeze AB	Vivendi/Universal	89
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban	EA UK	Electronic Arts	68
Incredibles (The)	Heavy Iron	THQ	59
King Arthur	Krome Studios	Konami	60
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate...	Amaze Ent.	Activision	66
Polar Express (The)	Blue Tongue	THQ	40
Shark Tale	Edge of Reality	Activision	65
Shrek 2	LuxoFlux Corp.	Activision	63
Spider-Man 2	Treyarch	Activision	81
Van Helsing	Saffire	Vivendi/Universal	63

Title (2003)	Developer	Publisher	%
Cat in the Hat (The)	Vivendi/Universal	Vivendi/Universal	56
Charlie's Angels	Ubisoft	Ubisoft	23
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon	Genki	Ubisoft	50
Finding Nemo	Traveller's Tales	THQ	62
Hulk (The)	Radical Games	Vivendi/Universal	72
Italian Job (The)	Climax Studios	Eidos	56
Lord of the Rings: Return of the King	EA Redwood	Electronic Arts	82
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines	Black Ops	Atari	36

Title (2002)	Developer	Publisher	%
Blade II	Mucky Foot	Activision	51
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets	Electronic Arts	Electronic Arts	75
Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring	Surreal Software	Universal	59
Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers	Stormfront Studios	Electronic Arts	80
Men in Black II: Alien Escape	Melbourne House	Infogrames	50
Minority Report	Treyarch	Activision	52
Monsters, Inc.	Kodiak Int.	Sony	52
Rocky	Rage Software	Ubisoft	74
Spider-Man: The Movie	Treyarch	Activision	77
Star Wars Ep.II: Attack of the Clones	David A. Palmer	LucasArts	38
Thing (The)	Computer Artwork	Universal	78
Treasure Planet	Bizarre Creations	Sony	61

*Gathered Metacritic averages are based on collated home console scores unless a specific game is exclusive to one particular platform.