Of course, video games are just as bad, with ideas and themes liberally borrowed and repeated ad nauseam. So with this in mind, I've compiled a list of ten of my least favourite video game clichés - and yes, I know the subject itself is something of a journalistic cliché these days, so I've at least tried to come up with some vaguely original ones. Well, mostly I hope. I've also liberally sprinkled this entire column with as many over-used, meaningless turns of phrase as I can think of - so a free packet of Mintolas if you can spot them all...

1. The princess in peril
The most obvious cliché of them all really, since it's been a video game objective since the dawn of time. Donkey Kong was probably the earliest back in 1981, or at least it's the earliest example I can think of. Despite Nintendo's insistence on repeatedly using the hapless royal stereotype - Zelda and Peach have spent most of their lives staring dolefully out of high towers - there doesn't appear to be a real-life instance of a kidnapped princess anywhere in the annals of history (according to Google, anyway).

2. The post-apocalyptic landscape
While I love a well-crafted sci-fi dystopia, I'm getting more than a little tired of the over-used post-apocalyptic landscape. Whatever the cause - nuclear holocaust, ecological disaster or some other catastrophe - the results are the same: grey, colourless landscapes full of dust, miserable skies and knackered buildings. Maybe it's distant memories of horrible British summers spent on an east coast beach with the wind howling through my bones, but I'm beginning to find the relentlessly monochrome palette of most current-gen games thoroughly depressing.

3. The ice world / fire world / water world
I'm probably showing my age with this one, but themed worlds were one of the most irritatingly over-familiar features in any platform game of the eighties or nineties. Every one of them (or so it seemed), from JuJu Densetsu (aka Toki goes Apespit) to Super Mario would have a series of levels based on the four classical elements. A decade or so ago, any console owner knew that an Ice world would inevitably feature slippery platforms, while a fire stage would contain lava that killed at the slightest touch. The water world was arguably the worst of the lot, since swimming inevitably required the endless, rhythmic tapping of the jump button.

4. The amnesiac
A mainstay of the RPG genre, this lazy plot device is in desperate need of retirement. While games like Bioshock have used an amnesia-suffering central character to admittedly brilliant effect, most games use it as a cheap way of forcing the player to explore an environment the protagonist should otherwise be familiar with.

5. The Giger-inspired landscape
This one's fairly self-explanatory - along with the visual stylings of James Cameron and Ridley Scott, the Swiss artist HR Giger has done more to influence the look of video games than any other living artist, to the extent that any alien in any given game will look grey, insect-like and eyeless.