There's a weird irony with video game characters. They suffer life-or-death, world-saving trials every day, but they never have to deal with the regular traumas of real every day life. You know, the little problems and flaws that bother and inconvenience real human beings constantly.

Yes, they have to fight off orcs, goblins, demons, and occult theocratic robot space-lemurs all the damn time, but missing a bus? Breaking a nail? Slipping a disc? Losing their place in the magical tome required to vanquish the local Elder God and having to go back to the contents page? No. Never happens. Click on for 14 more things that really should make being in a video game far, far harder than it is. In a way, those jerks have it easy.

Aiden Pearce is going 70 miles per hour down a city street with a dozen squad cars in hot pursuit, but he's not particularly worried. All he needs to do is raise a few bollards and change a few traffic lights and he'll be free and clear. Smirking at his own cleverness, he pulls his phone out from his pocket and loads up ctOS.

But then an unfamiliar screen greets him… the login screen. With mounting horror, Aiden realizes that he cleared his browser cookies last night after reading racy Brony fanfiction. His eyes dart from the street ahead to the empty password field below. He begins to panic. Dear Lord, what was his ctOS password? AidenNo1? blum3suck5? abc123?! Nothing's working! Where's the 'Password Reset' option?! Why hasn't the email arrived yet?! Why is he not watching the roa

Being the foremost robotics expert in the world and the recipient of a Nobel Prize, you might think that Dr. Light has done very well for himself financially. You would be half right. The profits from his world-changing technology allowed him to construct a state of the art lab and surrogate robo-children, yes, but it hasn't made paying off his Ph.D's student loans any easier. Particularly since interest rates have gotten even worse by 200X.

Dr. Light spends so much of his income just keeping up with interest that he can't actually afford a place of his own. He lives in the lab's broom closet, and Roll's beginning to suspect something after having found him passed out between the mop bucket and floor waxer for the dozenth time. At least Dr. Wily gets a castle. Then again, he does have to fill it with killer robots to keep the creditors from repossessing it.

It's easy to get attached to your armor in Destiny, given how you much time and Glimmer you invest in finding it, leveling it up, and customizing it to your liking. Thankfully, whatever sentimental pangs you may feel from swapping a trusty old piece of gear are usually crowded out by the joy and anticipation of slotting in a new item with more powerful stats and bonuses.

Unless it's not really a stat upgrade, and you just had to farm for new leg armor because your old ones are riding a little tight these days. Hey, it happens to a lot of Guardians - you get older, you start putting on some Light levels, and suddenly your butt doesn't fit in your old default dropship seat. Maybe go a few sizes up when you're farming Engrams to be future-proof, since you can always wear a belt.

You know, with all that armor plating, weaponry, and a freezer full of ice cream novelties, Sweet Tooth is nearly unstoppable. Doesn't really matter in the arena if your ride weighs five tons, handles worse than a bathtub on wheels, and belches plumes of acrid exhaust, as long as it keeps moving and shooting longer than all the other cars. Passing your biennial smog test, though? That can be a problem.

But if Needles Kane doesn't want to get pulled over for driving a vehicle with expired registration while he's trying to get his vehicular manslaughter on, he doesn't have much choice. Ugh, can you imagine how hard that would wreck his killer clown image? Now he can only pray that the technician doesn't notice he replaced the catalytic converter with a flamethrower…

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The Dragonborn was somewhere outside of Morthal, on the edge of the Hjaalmarch, when a familiar Argonian face appeared in the mists before her. "Mother?" she asked. "What magic is this? Why do you interrupt me as I work to liberate this frozen land?" The face was taken aback, inasmuch as a swirling grey visage could convey taken-abackedness.

"Well hello to you too, sweetie. Oh, I just went down the street to old Xolth's - you remember Xolth, he said the blessing at your scale-fasting - and asked him if he could conjure something that would let me talk to you. Because you never visit! And I worry about you up there in Skylimb because it's so cold and you never dress warm enough! Your horns will freeze off! And for that matter, how are you ever going to give me grandchildren if you spend all your time liberating? You need to come back to Black Marsh and meet Xolth's son, he's back from college and he's going into business with…"

The only thing harder to get out of a khaki-colored henley shirt than Nathan Drake is a bloody grass stain. That's why treasure hunting is such a vicious cycle for him - he goes looking for rare artifacts, but in the process gets his entire wardrobe shot up by mercenaries or torn to shreds from falling out of airplanes, so he has to sell all the treasure just to afford new designer shirts and pants to half-tuck into each other.

Money gets lean between adventures, though, and eventually he has to sit down with a needle, thread, and a spray bottle of stain remover to try and salvage what he can. His hands are so messed up from years of rock climbing and firing high-caliber weaponry that it usually ends up looking like the work of a five-year-old, but he knows Elena will just laugh him off if he asks for help. It's tough to be Drake.

Yeah, getting that new Mercedes Roadster seemed great at the time, but the problem with driving an actual car on the course is that you need actual car insurance. And it's a Benz, so the insurance is incredibly expensive. You wonder why Luigi has that ever-present death stare? He's willing you to stay the hell away from his car so that you don't get in an accident and drive his premiums into the stratosphere.

I mean, it's a great car, but taking care of it has kind of driven the joy out of racing, y'know? Not much to do about it now, though - Luigi traded in his kart to help with the downpayment and the secondhand market for tiny, cartoon-sized sports cars is notoriously fickle.

So you’re Gordon Freeman. You’re a badass guerrilla physicist. Egon Spengler, Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz, James Bond and Rambo rolled into one. Your time in City 17 since you arrived has been spent on one long journey of discovery, survival, and insurrection amid the long-standing Combine occupation. Now, finally, it looks like victory is in sight.

One thing though. You’ve noticed lately that your aim has gone to shit. And the loud bangs and ratta-tatt-tatts of the battlefield are making you really twitchy. And you keep forgetting important tactical conversations you’ve just had with various members of the resistance. And you keep getting really sad and teary about the stupidest little things. And you’re really, really, really paranoid. Then you realise. You haven’t taken a minute’s break since Half-Life 2’s continuous, unbroken campaign started four days ago. And those aren’t Combine that you’re shooting up, but the innocent Sunday shoppers of Tesco, and you’re actually just tripping balls.

Marcus steps out from behind a rock with a look of relief on his face.

Dom: Where's your bandana?

Interesting thing about months-long, cross-continental RPG quests. The human immune system wouldn’t like them one little bit. Between the perpetual, mostly on-foot travel, constant exertion, ever-present risk of attack, resulting plethora of minor flesh-wounds, repeat mana burn-out, and potential for zero sleep, even if your game has a day/night cycle (and if you do get any, it’s likely to be al fresco), an RPG campaign conducted under real-world conditions would make you ill.

Levelling up as the journey goes on? No way. By the end of an RPG quest conducted under real-world conditions, you wouldn’t be stronger. You’d be a quivering, snotty, coughing ball of infection. Maybe that’s why levelling slows down the further you get into a game.

Slippy-slidey ice worlds! Amazing! Slipping! Sliding! Pretty, tinkley tunes, evocative of all the best things about Christmas! Murderous snowmen! I love them, you love them, and Mario certainly loves them. He loves the atmospheric change of pace. He loves the new challenges thrown up by the extra momentum and inertia under his platform-savvy feet. He loves stomping on insidious, sentient snow-piles and making friends with friendly penguins.

He loves all of that because he only has to involve himself with the fun parts of winter. Never once has he, around level five or six, realised his error in only bringing along his standard dungarees and thin work jumper. Never once has he found himself slowing in the run up to an important jump, joints seizing and hands aching. Never once has he slumped under a tree, mere feet from the final flag pole, so tired, so cold… so hungry… so… blue…

You know what’s ridiculous about the epic, House of Blue Leaves fight scene in Kill Bill: Part One? It’s not that Beatrix kills roughly a thousand sword-wielding Yakuza while taking barely a scratch. It’s the fact that after demolishing the structural integrity of seven or eight gangsters, she’d have found herself unable to inflict more than a nasty bruise on the rest. Swords, you see, go blunt really fast.

Katanas in particular, being the samurai’s weapon of choice, are not really design for long, protracted duels. Instead, they’re all about short, incredible sharp, one-hit kills, ideally after walking up to someone like a badass and slowly explaining how you’re definitely about to kill them and that there’s nothing they can do about it. Sorry, Mitsurugi, Yoshimitsu, and any protagonist from Onimusha. In real-life, after a few choice cuts you’d be reduced to slapping your opponents to death with a long, steel ruler.

Ken had it in the bag. It had been a tough fight. Bison had been typically relentless from the off, keeping up the Knee Press pressure and dodging every corner-trap with that bloody EX Psycho Crusher of his (seriously, how does he get that crap out so fast with half a scrap-yard attached to his shins?), but all the pain had been worth it. Ken’s Ultra gauge was now ready to go, and while he had just been knocked down, his opponent was getting cocky. The dictator had thrown caution to the wind and was actually jumping in. The crazy fool! What was he thinking? One Ultra Dragon Punch on wake up, and that shit-eating grin would be wiped off Captain Cap’s face forever.

Bison’s boots grew closer. Time slowed down. Ken rose to his feet, prepped the Shinryuken, and leapt. His fist connected with Bison’s chin, and his wrist crumpled with a nasty ‘snap’ noise, as a direct result of the sprain he’d incurred during that cheap, one-two punch combo after the cross-up in round two. Ken’s fist went as limp as a dead squid, and immediately afterwards, all was darkness.

John Marston was not happy. “Yeah, we’ll help”, had said the cheery locals of the oppressed Mexican town in the south. “Just one thing. Can you go and single-handedly clean out the fort in the north for us first? We’d appreciate it ever so much. You’ll find it really easily. It’s only 50 miles away, just past the big rock and left at the third cactus”.

What they’d spectacularly failed to tell him was that the entire desert was made of rocks and cacti, and the northern border was 150 miles across. And everywhere was full of hungry coyotes. No, John Marston was not happy at all.

Anything else you'd add? Any average, underplayed woes plaguing your life that you really think game characters should get their fair share of? Let us know in the comments, and then go and have a nice cup of tea to calm down.

And while you're here, why not check out what would happen if a game hero applied their high-fallutin' powers to a more normal life, in .

Names are tough, because there's such a fine line between sounding cool and sounding completely bonkers. A good name sticks with people, a bad one sticks with people because it sounds like something a porn star would reject for being too obvious.

We have a lot of porn star-sounding game character names in the following slides, as well as ones that are too-cool-for-school and others still that are just complete nonsense. If you've ever been picked on for having a goofy sounding name, take comfort in the fact that it could have been worse - much worse.

Seen having a stupid name in: Punch-Out!! (arcade game)

Name is stupid because it sounds like: a first grader's attempt at identifying 'Italian things'. Seriously, was this THE FIRST THING that popped into the developers' heads when designing their Italian boxer? What about Gucci Gnocchi?

Seen having a stupid name in: Super Punch-Out!!

Name is stupid because it sounds like: a fun way to speed the weekend. Do you think when Bear's parents named him, they knew their son would grow up to be a grizzled old mountain man who's also a boxer? It was destiny.

Seen having a stupid name in: Street Fighter EX

Name is stupid because it sounds like: WrestleMania, only deadlier.

Seen having a stupid name in: Mega Man X5

Name is stupid because it sounds like: Duffman from The Simpsons, oh yeah! Fun fact: the Duff is apparently short for Duffin, which doesn't make it any better.

Seen having a stupid name in: Mega Man X6

Name is stupid because it sounds like: a device that plays metal sharks. What would even be on a metal shark? Music, videos, lots of teeth?

Seen having a stupid name in: The King of Fighters XIII

Name is stupid because it sounds like: a grab bag of words people think sound cool. If he started a band, it would totally be called Nightmare Final Infinity.

Seen having a stupid name in: King of the Monsters 2

Name is stupid because it sounds like: some sort of weird, online sex slang (unlike all that totally normal online sex slang).

Seen having a stupid name in: Sonic the Hedgehog 2

Name is stupid because it sounds like: a stupid pun on the phrase "miles per hour." Tails is a decent enough name, but when you learn his name is actually Miles Prower - which sounds like "prowler" - it makes him sound like a creepy stalker.

Seen having a stupid name in: Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN-

Name is stupid because it sounds like: laziness.

Seen having a stupid name in: several Tekken games

Name is stupid because it sounds like: martial law. Even though the character has nothing to do with the military or the legal system. Super funny, right? Get it?

Seen having a stupid name in: No More Heroes

Name is stupid because it sounds like: a cheap way to have "down" in his last name. The main character's name is Travis TouchDOWN so, naturally, his rival should have the word 'down' in there somewhere.

Seen having a stupid name in: Toshinden 4

Name is stupid because it sounds like: a bunch of knightly words strung together. If your character is already a knight - and you feel the need to put the word knight in his name - then take a step back and really think over the decisions you've made in your life.

Seen having a stupid name: Final Fantasy X

Name is stupid because it sounds like: the noise a teeny, tiny baby would make while playing with a toy. Actually, Wakka was the goofball of the group, and he did fight using a toy, so I guess this name fits.

Seen having a stupid name in: Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

Name is stupid because as a matter of fact: Starkiller didn't kill any stars.

Seen having a stupid name in: Ready 2 Rumble Boxing

Name is stupid because it sounds like: the name of a porn star. Seriously, you're going to find a lot of these in this list.

Seen having a stupid name in: Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner

Name is stupid because it sounds like: an Australian game show host. And yes, I'm saying the name's Australian because it has the word 'dingo' in it. I'm sorry.

Seen having a stupid name in: Zettai Hero Project: Unlosing Ranger VS. Darkdeath Evilman

Name is stupid because it sounds like: the first draft of a new Power Rangers villain. To be fair, ZHP is a parody game, so Mr. Evilman is technically a parody of generic villain names. But even so, it's still too ridiculous not to feature here.

Seen having a stupid name in: Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker

Name is stupid because it sounds like: his parents had a really, really cruel sense of humor. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall during the 'Hot Coldman vs. Cold Hotman' naming meeting at Kojima Productions. Thankfully, good taste prevailed.

Seen having a stupid name in: Mario Kart 8

Name is stupid because it sounds like: Nintendo really has run out of new ideas for Mario Kart Racers.

Seen having a stupid name in: Devil May Cry 3

Name is stupid because it sounds like: a basic description for a character. There's actually a wonderfully convoluted reason for why Lady calls herself Lady, but the end result is that it's still a dumb name.

Seen having a stupid name in: Kingdom Hearts 2

Name is stupid because it sounds like: someone wanted a group of 13 people to all have the letter 'X' in their name, but ran out of good ideas after the first one.

Seen having a stupid name in: Chris Moneymaker's World Poker Championship

Name is stupid because it sounds like: an evil CEO in one of those family-friendly movies starring a talking animal.

Seen having a stupid name in: EarthBound

Name is stupid because it sounds like: Mr. Carpenter, which would have been a fine name, but if you really squint your eyes and read it again it actually says car painter. Car painter? As in, one who paints cars?

Seen having a stupid name in: Dirge of Cerberus

Name is stupid because it sounds like: blue the blue, which is basically what he's called. His name sounds like azure, a shade of blue, and his... um... title is cerulean, another shade of blue. There you have it: Blue the Blue.

Seen having a stupid name in: too many Mario games

Name is stupid because it sounds like: Luigi but with a 'W' at the front, yeah, we get it Nintendo, it's like what you did with Wario, only his named sounded cool and this just sounds like some kind of word jumble. Poor Luigi, even his villains are lame.

Seen having a stupid name in: Fracture.

Name is stupid because it sounds like: the name of a '50s high school football hero transported into the year 3090, where he stars as the protagonist of a pulpy sci-fi adventure serial, itself made in the '50s. Also, he sounds a bit like a porn star.

Seen having a stupid name in: Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire.

Name is stupid because it sounds like: computer science slang.

"Yeah, I was having trouble getting that part of the UI to display properly, but I've run a quick dash rendar to kluge it together for now. I'll fix it properly tomorrow"

Even for a character living in the Star Wars universe, it's ridiculous.

Seen having a stupid name in: the Gears of War series.

Name is stupid because it sounds like: the name of a porn star. Seriously. Take him out of context and it does.

Seen having a stupid name in: Trevor McFur in the Crescent Galaxy on the Atari Jaguar. That's why you've never heard of him.

Name is stupid because it sounds like: the developers did not realise that simply putting "Mc" in front of an obvious character trait does not a plausible name or believable characterisation make. Also, given the current state of internet culture, it's inadvisable to put the word "fur" in any character's name. Also also, Trevor is my dad's name and so all of this just freaks me out. Click on to the next slide now and forget that this one ever happened.

Seen having a stupid name in: Rosco McQueen, Firefighter Extreme.

Name is stupid because it sounds like: the name of a southern '70s sheriff who works by his own rules but gets the job done.

Seen having a stupid name in: the Halo series.

Name is stupid because it sounds like: of all the real-world naval ranks available to them, Bungie chose the one most likely to sound like "Captain Boss" to those uninitiated in military designations.

Seen having a stupid name in: Star Ocean: The Last Hope.

Name is stupid because it sounds like: the name a 10 year-old would give themselves if handed a deed poll form shortly after being handed a bottle of whiskey and a giant bag of Skittles.

Seen having a stupid name in: Final Fantasy VII and its multitudinous spin-offs.

Name is stupid because it sounds like: the name of a teenage goth's online alter-ego. Or alternately, that of a French porn star.

Look, I'm going to stop doing the porn star joke now, because a) it's not a joke, and b) it applies to nearly all of them. Can we just agree that it goes without saying from this point on? It'll save me a lot of time. Like, literally seconds.

Seen having a stupid name in: Final Fantasy VII and its multitudinous spin-offs.

Name is stupid because it sounds like: Square-Enix realised that "Cloud" sounded too much like the product of hippie parenting. Given that Cloud was to be their most emo hero to date, they thus stuck "Strife" on the end in order to add additional angst. He might as well be called Rainbow Misery.

Seen having a stupid name in: Far too many Sonic the Hedgehog games.

Name is stupid because it sounds like: an instruction to do something unpleasant to a rabbit.

Seen having a stupid name in: Mace Griffin, Bounty Hunter.

Name is stupid because it sounds like: the developers decided that sticking together the respective names of a medieval weapon and a mythical beast was a dead-cert route to badassery. And it should be. But in practice, it isn't.

Seen having a stupid name in: the Wolfenstein series

Name is stupid because it sounds like: iD effectively tried to shoehorn the word "blast" into the name of an action hero.

Seen having a stupid name in: Metal Gear

Name is stupid because it sounds like: the subtitle of any modern military FPS.

Seen having a stupid name in: Metal Gear Solid

Name is stupid because it sounds like: a gadget used by James Bond during the ultra-camp Roger Moore period.

Seen having a stupid name in: Parasite Eve

Name is stupid because it sounds like: the name of a mad scientist. Which is exactly what he is. A really, really obvious mad scientist. Who was somehow allowed to carry on with his mad science until he nearly brought about the destruction of the world. Hans Klamp, people. He was called Hans Klamp. And just look at his freaking beard! Look at it!

Seen having a stupid name in: the Virtua Fighter series.

Name is stupid because it sounds like: Sega obviously didn't pay attention to my "Jimmy McCharactertrait" rule from earlier on.

Seen having a stupid name in: the Virtua Fighter series.

Name is stupid because it sounds like: Sega have tried to subvert the "Jimmy McCharactertrait" rule, but only slightly succeeded.

We know that Wolf is a nature-loving woodsman, but the point need not be laboured by stapling together three elements of the natural world in order to create his name. Who's his arch-rival, Concrete Buildingstreet?

Seen having a stupid name in: Final Fantasy VIII.

Name is stupid because it sounds like: half a sentence. Rinoa Heartilly what? Ate a juicy roast chicken? Laughed at the poor? What? What was Rinoa doing with such gusto, Squenix?

Seen having a stupid name in: the real world, as a pro-gaming association.

Name is stupid because it sounds like: the supporters' association of a well-known assisted suicide clinic in Switzerland. Apparently the whole thing was a complete, really unfortunate accident, and they were quite embarrassed when they discovered connotation.

Seen having a stupid name in: the Guilty Gear series.

Name is stupid because it sounds like: OH COME ON!

Seen having a stupid name in: the Star Fox series.

Name is stupid because it sounds like: his parents spent very little time naming him.

"So we, Mr. and Mrs. McCloud, being foxes, as we are, have birthed a baby fox. What shall we call him?"

"Fox?"

"Done"

Seen having a stupid name in: Dark Souls.

Name is stupid because it sounds like: I'm not even getting into this one.

Seen having a stupid name in: the Ace Attorney series.

Name is stupid because it sounds like: Capcom tried to go for a name that playfully danced with genre conventions, but then went a bit too far, effectively naming their character "Detective Detective".

Seen having a stupid name in: the Ace Attorney series.

Name is stupid because it sounds like: Okay, looking back over these pages I think we we might actually have stumbled upon the method for coming up with your own personal Video Game Name. By my estimation the method is simply a case of working out your porn name (first pet + mothers maiden name) and then substituting one of the words with the name of a mythological beast or dangerous real-world animal of your choosing. Mine is Goldie Minotaur*. Tell me Metal Gear Solid has never used anything sillier.

*I imagine Goldie Minotaur to be a street-smart female detective in a lightly steampunk-tinged '20s-noir universe. Because why wouldn't she be? She's not a minotaur though. I'm not going all Star Fox with this one.

Seen having a stupid name in: the Ace Attorney series. Again.

Name is stupid because it sounds like: the name of a low-to-medium-profile mid-'80s wrestler, with a garish gold outfit and a large beard.

Any other stupendously named characters you think I've missed? Any in this list you think have been hard done by? Let me know. And don't forget to drop your official Video Game Name in the comments.

And while you're here, check out some of our other tasty feature content. I'd recommend .

It seemed like such a good idea at the time. You saw a trailer for the latest gotta-have-it game, or saw some bad-ass box art at the local game store, and you said to yourself “I'm going to own this thing, no matter what”. So you sell off all your worldly possessions, take your latest acquisition home, fire it up and - wait a minute. This game is garbage. And thanks to most stores' absurdly inflexible return policies, well, you're now out $60 / £45.

It sucks when you drop hard-earned cash on a game that ultimately ends up being a complete waste. Even worse is when you shell out hundreds of dollars for the latest hotness only for the price to get sliced to ribbons literally a day after you buy the damn thing. Don't worry, because we've been there too. Each editor has detailed the most regrettable gaming purchase they've ever made. They say money can't buy happiness, but it sure as heck can pick up a family-sized portion of disappointment.

I have a sketchy history with Nintendo consoles. They're the single, dark source of my gaming buyer's remorse. Despite buying and loving the Gamecube because it played Resident Evil 4 and Wind Waker, my console largely collected dust for a couple of years, before I traded it in against a (much more widely used) Xbox.

I tried to get back into the Ninty spirit with a DS, but despite sinking a few hours into Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin and Phoenix Wright, I ended up ditching it after a year. And my recent 3DS purchase? Even worse. Bought it seven months ago, haven't played it for six. No, I can't explain it. Yes, I realise that I'm probably the only person alive who doesn't find infinite joy in Mario and his pals. I may have a problem…

Back in 1998, Sega Saturn was dying. I had played all of the good games available in the UK, but didn't have my Saturn chipped so I couldn't play import games. So I started looking at 'lower tier' games. And then I did the most stupid thing ever. I traded my copy of Daytona CCE and another game (I think it was Manx TT Superbike)… for this.

As soon as I loaded it up, I realised I'd made a huge mistake. The game was choppy, glitchy, and full of pop-in. Amid the countless ovals, it had one (just one) decent track, Ranch Tower, which my dad and I played in split-screen and did get a lot of fun out of. But if your car flipped in two-player mode, it had no undertray. It was a hollow shell. Dreadful quality, especially compared to the beautiful games I had traded (that the shop refused to give back). To make matters worse, my mum pointed out in rightful indignation that Daytona had been a Christmas present. I was ashamed.

My most regrettable gaming purchase had to be Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex. Up to that point, I was the biggest Crash fan. It was one of the few games on the PlayStation that I could actually play and not become violently ill. I played all of them. I did speed runs. I collected every damn piece of fruit. And I even cheered as Crash did his little pelvic thrust dance. Hell, I even owned the toys made by Resaurus. One of the main reasons I bought the PS2 was to play the latest game in the series

And then I actually played it. Or I at least tried to. All of the magic that the fine folks at Naughty Dog had made was gone and I was heartbroken. No longer did I delight in hanging out with my favorite Bandicoot. No more riding on tigers, sliding on ice, bad guys with huge foreheads, or weirdly sexualized dances to make me giggle. On top of it, the new game mechanics made me sick. I felt so betrayed and still feel the sadness.

Now, I'm sure we've all rented bad games and suffered through them when we were younger. You only have enough cash to rent one new game over the weekend, so you’d better get your money's worth. Plus, there's something uniquely entertaining about the rage a truly awful game induces. But the one time I rented Glover when I was 13 was so disappointing that it taught me an important lesson about the value of a dollar.

The latest issue of Nintendo Power made it seem so interesting, and being an N64 owner with literally nothing else to play, I went down to Blockbuster and spent my weekly allowance on a rental. And wow, it was such a mediocre experience that I literally have no recollection of it other than the fact that it inspired me to be more responsible with my money. Real exciting stuff, I know. I played it for a couple of hours, looked sullenly at the TV screen, and switched off my N64 with a sigh. It felt like my eyes had finally opened up; like I'd just stepped out of the Matrix and into the real world for the first time, knowing that there's no going back.

I remember this dark day of my childhood well. The game: a complete copy of Chrono Trigger. The trade: Captain America and The Avengers (on SNES, just the cartridge) and $40. Rarely a day goes by that I don't kick myself for this MIND-BREAKING, RAGE-INDUCING MISTAKE of a trade. How did it come to this? Well, I'd finished Chrono Trigger several times and knew the game like the back of my hand. At the same time, there was an arcade cabinet for Captain America at my local video store, and I was getting sick of pouring quarters into it.

So I figured, "What the hell, I'll just trade away one of the greatest Japanese role-playing games of all time complete in box with manual and little bonus map inserts for some mediocre beat-'em-up that I played maybe twice before getting bored." Yep. Yuuuup. That's a thing that happened; good job younger Max. Today, a complete copy of Chrono Trigger fetches a pretty penny on eBay, but what really bums me out is that I don't have access to my old save data. It would be fascinating to go back and see what I named all my characters, how long I played, where I stopped, and so on. Such a waste.

It's painful how recently this one happened, but it seems the conditions were just right. As the release of the new Thief game approached in 2014, I started pondering whether or not I should pre-order it. I hadn't played the previous Thief games, but I had seen them in action, and knew that Dishonored (which is among my personal top ten games ever) was heavily inspired by the Thief franchise.

After checking out gameplay footage and mulling it over for a while, I decided I would take the gamble and pre-ordered it the day before release. I really wanted the pre-order bonus mission and also I am an idiot. I was quickly disillusioned with the weird story and lackluster gameplay (which, funny enough, felt like a poor man's Dishonored) and traded it in as soon as I could. I got $20 of my original pre-order back. Ugh. Garrett really is the world's greatest thief.

After a few weeks of hearing how great Halo 4 is, I was convinced that this would be the installment that got me back into the Halo multiplayer fold (having completely ignored online play since Combat Evolved on PC). So I pick up a copy after work one day and excitedly hurry home to play it with some ex-GR staff. Coop, Ryan, and Brian invite me to their Xbox Live party, and within minutes, we're in the thick of combat.

And by God, am I bored. I had forgotten how much I hate vehicular combat in my FPS; while racking up a few kills is always fun, having your spree ended by a shell from a distant Scorpion tank most certainly is not. I don't remember who said it, but someone sheepishly suggested "Do you guys just want to go back to playing Black Ops 2?" We all agreed in unison. Ten minutes later, we were back to picking off UAVs and calling in Killstreaks. That was the first and last time I ever played my copy of Halo 4, and I seriously doubt I'll go back. How about that: 60 bones for one hour of disinterest.

I feel so, so conflicted saying that I regret my Game Boy Advance. Firstly, my mom was the one who actually spent money on it (hey, I was ten at the time). Secondly, I loved so many of the games: WarioWare, Mega Man Battle Network, Metroid Fusion, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (which is how I finally finished one of my favorite games of all time). But wait a minute… I didn't actually finish A Link to the Past on Game Boy Advance. I finished it on Game Boy Advance SP. Just like almost all of my other GBA games.

Much as it pains me to say it, my life would have been better if I'd just waited for GBA SP's gloriously backlit screen to illuminate it. My vision is still OK a decade or so later, but just imagine how much better it would be if I hadn't strained over the original's inscrutable grey mirror for hours. I could probably see for miles!

I hate to kick someone when they’re down, but paying $500 for an Xbox One bundled with Kinect has to be my most regrettable purchase. In 2013, buying it made so much sense. First off, I felt I needed both an Xbox One and a PS4 on launch day as part of my profession. And even though the last thing I ever needed in my life was a Kinect, it was being touted as integral to the console, so I took it in my stride, figuring it’d work great in the coming months. Less than a year later, and Kinect was stripped out of the box and most of its functionality was pushed aside.

You can imagine my frustration. It was a bit like an architect showing me a completed house that looked great, except it was a little more than my budget, and had one room I wasn’t too fond of. Instead of fixing that room, the architect burned it all to the ground and started over after publicly firing half the construction team. He then sold the new house to someone else for a fifth off the asking price. That’s basically the pain of being an early Xbox One owner.

I made the mistake of buying a game called Earth Defense Force 2025. At the time, all I heard were good things about it and it's cooperative gameplay. I was in desperate need of a good co-op game, so I bought it. Never have I been so disappointed by a game in my life. The frame rate chugged so bad I could hardly play it. Everything was delayed and slow. It was like playing a highly demanding PC game on a low-end computer. I found myself helplessly crying out "Noooooooooooo" as if I were running in slow-motion as a giant ant devoured my avatar each time I failed.

Did I mention that there was a co-op mode? Good grief yes! A co-op mode! As if the game wasn't struggling to process all the events happening in single player. Can you imagine it trying to display both players at the same time? It ran even slower and after about two minutes of torture, I turned the game off. Purchase value: $59.99, Trade in Value: $16.00, The look on my face: Priceless.

Think of these stories as one part cautionary tale, one part therapy session. Have you made any purchases that gave you an almost instant feeling of buyer's remorse? Or have you had the rug pulled out from under you with a sudden price drop? Let us know in the comments!

Looking for more? Perhaps you could swing over here and let us know

It seemed like such a good idea at the time. You saw a trailer for the latest gotta-have-it game, or saw some bad-ass box art at the local game store, and you said to yourself “I'm going to own this thing, no matter what”. So you sell off all your worldly possessions, take your latest acquisition home, fire it up and - wait a minute. This game is garbage. And thanks to most stores' absurdly inflexible return policies, well, you're now out $60 / £45.

It sucks when you drop hard-earned cash on a game that ultimately ends up being a complete waste. Even worse is when you shell out hundreds of dollars for the latest hotness only for the price to get sliced to ribbons literally a day after you buy the damn thing. Don't worry, because we've been there too. Each editor has detailed the most regrettable gaming purchase they've ever made. They say money can't buy happiness, but it sure as heck can pick up a family-sized portion of disappointment.

I have a sketchy history with Nintendo consoles. They're the single, dark source of my gaming buyer's remorse. Despite buying and loving the Gamecube because it played Resident Evil 4 and Wind Waker, my console largely collected dust for a couple of years, before I traded it in against a (much more widely used) Xbox.

I tried to get back into the Ninty spirit with a DS, but despite sinking a few hours into Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin and Phoenix Wright, I ended up ditching it after a year. And my recent 3DS purchase? Even worse. Bought it seven months ago, haven't played it for six. No, I can't explain it. Yes, I realise that I'm probably the only person alive who doesn't find infinite joy in Mario and his pals. I may have a problem…

Back in 1998, Sega Saturn was dying. I had played all of the good games available in the UK, but didn't have my Saturn chipped so I couldn't play import games. So I started looking at 'lower tier' games. And then I did the most stupid thing ever. I traded my copy of Daytona CCE and another game (I think it was Manx TT Superbike)… for this.

As soon as I loaded it up, I realised I'd made a huge mistake. The game was choppy, glitchy, and full of pop-in. Amid the countless ovals, it had one (just one) decent track, Ranch Tower, which my dad and I played in split-screen and did get a lot of fun out of. But if your car flipped in two-player mode, it had no undertray. It was a hollow shell. Dreadful quality, especially compared to the beautiful games I had traded (that the shop refused to give back). To make matters worse, my mum pointed out in rightful indignation that Daytona had been a Christmas present. I was ashamed.

My most regrettable gaming purchase had to be Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex. Up to that point, I was the biggest Crash fan. It was one of the few games on the PlayStation that I could actually play and not become violently ill. I played all of them. I did speed runs. I collected every damn piece of fruit. And I even cheered as Crash did his little pelvic thrust dance. Hell, I even owned the toys made by Resaurus. One of the main reasons I bought the PS2 was to play the latest game in the series

And then I actually played it. Or I at least tried to. All of the magic that the fine folks at Naughty Dog had made was gone and I was heartbroken. No longer did I delight in hanging out with my favorite Bandicoot. No more riding on tigers, sliding on ice, bad guys with huge foreheads, or weirdly sexualized dances to make me giggle. On top of it, the new game mechanics made me sick. I felt so betrayed and still feel the sadness.

Now, I'm sure we've all rented bad games and suffered through them when we were younger. You only have enough cash to rent one new game over the weekend, so you’d better get your money's worth. Plus, there's something uniquely entertaining about the rage a truly awful game induces. But the one time I rented Glover when I was 13 was so disappointing that it taught me an important lesson about the value of a dollar.

The latest issue of Nintendo Power made it seem so interesting, and being an N64 owner with literally nothing else to play, I went down to Blockbuster and spent my weekly allowance on a rental. And wow, it was such a mediocre experience that I literally have no recollection of it other than the fact that it inspired me to be more responsible with my money. Real exciting stuff, I know. I played it for a couple of hours, looked sullenly at the TV screen, and switched off my N64 with a sigh. It felt like my eyes had finally opened up; like I'd just stepped out of the Matrix and into the real world for the first time, knowing that there's no going back.

I remember this dark day of my childhood well. The game: a complete copy of Chrono Trigger. The trade: Captain America and The Avengers (on SNES, just the cartridge) and $40. Rarely a day goes by that I don't kick myself for this MIND-BREAKING, RAGE-INDUCING MISTAKE of a trade. How did it come to this? Well, I'd finished Chrono Trigger several times and knew the game like the back of my hand. At the same time, there was an arcade cabinet for Captain America at my local video store, and I was getting sick of pouring quarters into it.

So I figured, "What the hell, I'll just trade away one of the greatest Japanese role-playing games of all time complete in box with manual and little bonus map inserts for some mediocre beat-'em-up that I played maybe twice before getting bored." Yep. Yuuuup. That's a thing that happened; good job younger Max. Today, a complete copy of Chrono Trigger fetches a pretty penny on eBay, but what really bums me out is that I don't have access to my old save data. It would be fascinating to go back and see what I named all my characters, how long I played, where I stopped, and so on. Such a waste.

It's painful how recently this one happened, but it seems the conditions were just right. As the release of the new Thief game approached in 2014, I started pondering whether or not I should pre-order it. I hadn't played the previous Thief games, but I had seen them in action, and knew that Dishonored (which is among my personal top ten games ever) was heavily inspired by the Thief franchise.

After checking out gameplay footage and mulling it over for a while, I decided I would take the gamble and pre-ordered it the day before release. I really wanted the pre-order bonus mission and also I am an idiot. I was quickly disillusioned with the weird story and lackluster gameplay (which, funny enough, felt like a poor man's Dishonored) and traded it in as soon as I could. I got $20 of my original pre-order back. Ugh. Garrett really is the world's greatest thief.

After a few weeks of hearing how great Halo 4 is, I was convinced that this would be the installment that got me back into the Halo multiplayer fold (having completely ignored online play since Combat Evolved on PC). So I pick up a copy after work one day and excitedly hurry home to play it with some ex-GR staff. Coop, Ryan, and Brian invite me to their Xbox Live party, and within minutes, we're in the thick of combat.

And by God, am I bored. I had forgotten how much I hate vehicular combat in my FPS; while racking up a few kills is always fun, having your spree ended by a shell from a distant Scorpion tank most certainly is not. I don't remember who said it, but someone sheepishly suggested "Do you guys just want to go back to playing Black Ops 2?" We all agreed in unison. Ten minutes later, we were back to picking off UAVs and calling in Killstreaks. That was the first and last time I ever played my copy of Halo 4, and I seriously doubt I'll go back. How about that: 60 bones for one hour of disinterest.

I feel so, so conflicted saying that I regret my Game Boy Advance. Firstly, my mom was the one who actually spent money on it (hey, I was ten at the time). Secondly, I loved so many of the games: WarioWare, Mega Man Battle Network, Metroid Fusion, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (which is how I finally finished one of my favorite games of all time). But wait a minute… I didn't actually finish A Link to the Past on Game Boy Advance. I finished it on Game Boy Advance SP. Just like almost all of my other GBA games.

Much as it pains me to say it, my life would have been better if I'd just waited for GBA SP's gloriously backlit screen to illuminate it. My vision is still OK a decade or so later, but just imagine how much better it would be if I hadn't strained over the original's inscrutable grey mirror for hours. I could probably see for miles!

I hate to kick someone when they’re down, but paying $500 for an Xbox One bundled with Kinect has to be my most regrettable purchase. In 2013, buying it made so much sense. First off, I felt I needed both an Xbox One and a PS4 on launch day as part of my profession. And even though the last thing I ever needed in my life was a Kinect, it was being touted as integral to the console, so I took it in my stride, figuring it’d work great in the coming months. Less than a year later, and Kinect was stripped out of the box and most of its functionality was pushed aside.

You can imagine my frustration. It was a bit like an architect showing me a completed house that looked great, except it was a little more than my budget, and had one room I wasn’t too fond of. Instead of fixing that room, the architect burned it all to the ground and started over after publicly firing half the construction team. He then sold the new house to someone else for a fifth off the asking price. That’s basically the pain of being an early Xbox One owner.

I made the mistake of buying a game called Earth Defense Force 2025. At the time, all I heard were good things about it and it's cooperative gameplay. I was in desperate need of a good co-op game, so I bought it. Never have I been so disappointed by a game in my life. The frame rate chugged so bad I could hardly play it. Everything was delayed and slow. It was like playing a highly demanding PC game on a low-end computer. I found myself helplessly crying out "Noooooooooooo" as if I were running in slow-motion as a giant ant devoured my avatar each time I failed.

Did I mention that there was a co-op mode? Good grief yes! A co-op mode! As if the game wasn't struggling to process all the events happening in single player. Can you imagine it trying to display both players at the same time? It ran even slower and after about two minutes of torture, I turned the game off. Purchase value: $59.99, Trade in Value: $16.00, The look on my face: Priceless.

Think of these stories as one part cautionary tale, one part therapy session. Have you made any purchases that gave you an almost instant feeling of buyer's remorse? Or have you had the rug pulled out from under you with a sudden price drop? Let us know in the comments!

Looking for more? Perhaps you could swing over here and let us know