In a world full of online mini-games based on everything from TV shows and cartoons to movies and mascots, it might seem like big corporations have always had their hands in video games (who else would produce all those games we love for both the internet and consoles?). But, corporate dealings haven't always been just about who will distribute what games. Sometimes corporations and businesses get in the business of making their own games (or more accurately, paying others to do so). In the 80s and 90s, you couldn't throw a controller without hitting a game with some kind of corporate mascot begging you to guide them through a new adventure and also check out a few in-game ads along the way. They've even made their way into some of or more recent console gaming fun. So, here's a look at 10 of the weirdest, best and worst corporate sponsored video games. Considering these things are a bit difficult to rate, we'll take a more chronological journey by year.

CHASE THE CHUCK WAGON (Atari 2600) 1983 - dog food maze

Creating a fairly simple puzzle game and offering it to your customers in exchange for some proofs of purchase (5 in this case) might seem like a pretty obvious idea nowaday. But, back in 1983 for a dog food company like Purina? It was downright earthshattering. It wasn't the first company to offer up free games for good customers and it won't be the last, but the promotion did bring about the mostly-unsuccessful Chase The Chuck Wagon which gave players control over a dog trying to get some grub from the chuck wagon, kind of like Pac Man.

PEPSI INVADERS (Atari 2600) 1983

Pepsi Invaders might be the one and only game solicited by one company for the sole purpose of slagging a competitor. Back in 1983, Coke made a deal with Atari to make a new version of Space Invaders with the ship blasting letters in the word "Pepsi" instead of invading aliens. The game was reportedly limited to 125 copies and given out to executives at a sales convention, making it one of the more rare Atari cartridges out there.

KOOL-AID MAN (Atari 2600) 1983

Even back in 1983, the Kool-Aid Man had a reputation for bursting through walls, being the life of the party and blasting thirsties. Well, that last one might not be all that well known. See, thirsties are trying to drink from what looks like Kool-Aid Man's giant pond of Kool-Aid that he patrols, knocking away the straw-using baddies. Kool-Aid Man can also get an invincibility power-up which basically sent him around like a kid who drank way too much of the red stuff.

AVOID THE NOID (Commodor 64/DOS) 1989/YO! NOID (NES) 1990

Here's something to chew over, some of these mascot-starring games were so popular that they branched out into different systems and spawned sequels. The now-forgotten Noid was a claymation creation from the ad wizards at Dominos who you were supposed to avoid due to his pizza-ruining tendencies. In his first video game outing, the Noid plays the part of antagonist, while you control a pizza delivery boy just trying to deliver a pizza. In the more popular follow-up Yo! allowed you to play as the Noid in an effort to put a stop to his evil counterpart Mr. Green's evil plans. As an interesting side note, the game is based on a Japanese game called Kamen no Ninja Hanamaru. The look was changed, but the gameplay was kept the same.

CHESTER CHEETAH: TOO COOL TO FOOL (SNES/Sega) 1992/CHESTER CHEETAH: WILD WILD QUEST (SNES/Sega) 1992

Cool cat and Cheetos spokesfeline Chester Cheetah was also fortunate enough to star in not one, but two video games in the mid-90s, both of which came out on the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis. In Too Cool, Mean Eugene steals Chester's scooter only to crash and destroy it, so now Chester has to travel through his zoo home to find all the pieces. In Quest, it's pretty much the same story with Eugene stealing Chester's map and tearing it up, spreading it across the United States. See, this time, Chester needs the map to get to Hip City. Man, don't we all. As one of the few remaining mascots from that time who's still around, we hope we haven't seen Chester's last video game appearance. Maybe there will be a spot in Gears Of War 3.

M.C. KIDS (NES, Game Boy, PC) 1992

There have been several games based on McDonalds and its stable of characters. Heck, there was one called Donald Land only in Japan back in 1988. Why Donald? Because in Japan Ronald McDonald is called Donald McDonald. If that isn't a Pulp Fiction-style conversation point for you we don't know what is. Anyway, in 1992, McDonalds gave the whole video game thing another shot with M.C. Kids. Your basic sidescroller, Kids gave players a choice between two boys who would travel through McDonald Land, interact with different characters and collect special cards before moving on. Interestingly enough, the game was transformed into a Spot game when it was ported over to the Game Boy called Spot's Cool Adventure. Those mascots sure do stick together.

COOL SPOT (Sega, SNES, PC, Game Boy, Game Gear) 1993/SPOT GOES TO HOLLYWOOD (Sega, PS1, Sega Saturn) 1995

Speaking of the 7Up mascot's video game legacy, the red circle starred in two other video games in addition to Cool Adventure. Both Cool Spot and Spot Goes To Hollywood gave gamers control over the shades-wearing mascot and offered up surprisingly good graphics for the time. While probably the most ambitious product-based games of their time, the Spot series did suffer from being much more difficult than they probably should have been offering up more frustration than desire to drink soda.

McDONALD'S TREASURE LAND ADVENTURE (Sega) 1993

It took a while, but in 1993, gamers the world over were finally given the power to control Willard Scott. And by that, we of course mean Ronald McDonald (who was originally played by the birthday wisher in his younger days). Not only did you get to steer Ronald through a very Sonic The Hedgehog-looking series of levels, but players got a better look at McDonald land and dispensed with foes using jumps and by tossing out magic. We may have missed out on this one at our local video game rental place, but from the videos we've seen online it looks like a pretty fun entry as far as games from that era go. If only Ronald turned even more yellow and got even faster when he collected those emeralds, er gems.

CHEX QUEST (PC) 1996

When you think cereal the first thing that comes to mind is space and blasting aliens right? No? Then how do you explain Chex Quest? The folks over at Check cereal didn't think it was such a leap when they included Chex Quest, a first person shooter based on cleaned-up levels of Doom, in cereal boxes. Considering the title of the game alone still garners 176,000 hits on Google almost 14 years after it was originally dusted off and played by those of us who actually had computers back when they were considered nerdy, we'd say that Chex were way ahead of the curve when it comes to this kind of thing. Who knows, maybe Tony The Tiger will be in the world's next Myst!

KING GAMES (Xbox, Xbox 360) 2006

After years of seeming console-based mascot dormancy, Burger King came out of the gate swinging--if you'll allow us to mix metaphors--with three separate games offered in-store. You could choose from Sneak King, Big Bumpin' and PocketBike Racer. See, each of the three games was developed by Blitz Games originally to be downloaded from Xbox Live, but, after seeing how good they turned out, the games were deemed disc-worthy. And since Burger King as always had a good sense of humor when it comes to this version of the King, the games all had a quirkiness about them that made added to their fun factor. All in all they raised the bar and we still haven't seen anyone else jump into the pool, but we're always waiting.