Slightly more offensive than Strong Lyrics and Fantasy Violence, slightly less than Nudity and all the other kinds of Violence, the ESRB warning for Drug References tends to fall into a no man's land of rating neutrality. Not something you want attached to a Mario game, but when it's slapped on an M-rated title, it's probably not gonna be the thing that either puts you off or piques your interest. And yet, even if the Blood and Gore category has more visible examples, you can make a good case that instances of Drug References are vastly more memorable.

Whether it's to show that a character is going on a deep personal journey, chase a theme that benefits from absurdism, or toss in some insane bullshit for fun, games have been using drug trips to mess with your mind for decades. And sometimes? They get away without any warning at all. Intrigued? I've got eight examples here to show exactly what I mean, from in-your-face to sort-of-disguised, and everything in between. Go ahead and flip through, and don't worry - you probably won't get a contact high.

Like any good college vacation, Jason Brody's trip to the Rook Islands involves imbibing all sorts of strange substances and going on mind-altering head trips. Just, you know, maybe not for the reasons he thought it would. Over the course of Jason's journey to save his friends and finish off his sick magical warrior tat, brah, he's exposed to a worrying amount of hallucinogens and is repeatedly pulled into a freaky-ass dream world as a result. When he's not walking through shrinking greenhouses full of exploding mushroom puffs, he's fighting off demonic hallucinations of his girlfriend that keep trying to kill him. Err, trouble in paradise?

These crazy-ass trips are supposed to be a look into Jason's psyche, ravaged by the acts of violence he's committed while on the island. Well, that and drugs. So many drugs. If he lets that dream logic really take hold and carry over into the real world, he ends up and getting stabbed to death after, ahem, passing on his genetics. Weird liquid handed to you by total strangers: not even once.

Assassin's Creed has a long tradition of exposing its protagonists to brain-bending mindscrews, from Altair's mental battle against dead Templars to Edward swimming through an ocean full of corpses. Good times all around. But of them all, Arno's drug trip is the most blatantly surreal, and the only one required to get into the Assassin clubhouse.

After making the thoroughly intelligent decision to drink a cup of whatever that's given to him by cultists chilling in their underground lair, Arno goes on a spiritual journey to prove he has what it takes to join the Brotherhood. That apparently involves diving through a spinning cylinder of paintings depicting his life, and racing down an ever-expanding hallway as it crumbles and bursts into flames. I'm pretty sure Ezio just had to change his clothes to get his membership card, but all right. When Arno wakes up from a dream that presumably would have killed him if he screwed up, he officially becomes an Assassin, with only the occasional terrifying glitch to bring the memory back 'round.

Don't do drugs kids! Or you might end up like little Ness, who took something unsavory from the wrong back counter and ended up in a crazy 'alternate reality'. After Ness and Jeff discover actual criminal Everdred lying in an alley outside a café, he tells them there's something mysterious hidden behind the café counter. That's a giant red flag already - he might as well have tried to sell them 'sugar' in duct taped bags - but innocent Ness does as instructed, checking out what ol' Jackie has hidden in the back.

An instant later he's dropped into a bizarre-o version of Fourside called Moonside. There, black is white, yes is no (seriously, it gets really confusing), and inanimate objects make a serious effort to kill him. After navigating streets full of nonsensical citizens, weird psychedelic music and fluorescent happy trees, with presumably no clue what they're supposed to be doing, Ness and Jeff stumble on the 'center' of Moonside: an evil statue that creates illusions and has overtaken their minds. Breaking it 'destroys the illusion' and transports them back to the 'real' world, now free of its evil powers. Wow. I feel like this is what Reefer Madness warned us about.

Take a moment to scan the ESRB's breakdown of GTA 5 (take a few,even, it's a bit long) and somewhere near the bottom it mentions "Some sequences within the larger game allow players to use narcotics." While definitely 100% accurate, that clinical description doesn't begin to describe the intensity of the drug trips GTA 5 lays down. The original game's world of parachute-free skydiving and gun-toting circus performers is insane enough, but when you bring in the peyote animal adventures from the expanded edition? Then things really get wild.

While Franklin keeps pretty chill and doesn't move far from his couch or his joint, look to Michael and Trevor for much more colorful trips, and some of the best damn dialogue in the whole game. Trevor's personal revelations while gunning down clowns in a haze of flowers and glitter are a personal favorite. But if you're looking for something more transformative, gives you the chance to inhabit the body of an animal and cause all kinds of epic carnage. But, err, still don't do drugs. That's not a thing that actually happens I'm pretty sure.

HOLY S*** D*** F*** **** *** OF B******S AAAAAAH. If that wasn't your exact reaction to watching a vigor burn your fingers to the bone in BioShock Infinite, you're a stronger creature than I. Shown every time you pick up a new bottle of Magic Juice That Should Definitely Not Be Available To The Public, the cutscenes that display your liquid might in all its heinous glory are the definition of a bad trip.

Though the physical effects of BioShock's plasmids are bad enough - seeing bees crawl out of your skin is a good sign you need to head for the med tent - it isn't until BioShock Infinite that they're rendered in excruciating detail while you're forced to watch. Devil's Kiss may be the most shriek-inducing, as you witness your flesh getting barbecued away, but the rest aren't much better. Bucking Bronco rips huge chunks of meat off your hands, Undertow fills you with nasty barnacle holes, and Return to Sender straight-up turns you into Wolverine for a second. Of course it's all an illusion, and the effects are gone an instant later, but Troy Baker's bellows of horror as your digits are disintegrated into bloody stumps? Those stick around a little longer.

If you were, say, making a sandwich or looking at an interesting bug on the wall during the first minute and a half of Child of Eden, you basically missed the entire plot. But that's okay. It doesn't really matter, because look at the pretty colors! A rhythmic on-rails shooter that assaults you with more hues and sounds than your brain has room for, Child of Eden is the kind of game where you fight flying squid eels with the power of song and bosses are giant spheres made of blocks. It only makes sense if you are seriously trippin' balls.

That's not to say this game isn't fun for the sober set - anybody with even a little rhythm and an appreciation of majestic exploding phoenixes can find something to like here. But there's a reason why the word 'trippy' shows up in almost every discussion of this game, and why the whole thing looks like a rave would if people were blocks. . . . Like if they were magic, shimmering space-cubes or something. Whoa man. That just blew my mind.

Bless this game, it doesn't even put up a pretense! A bizarre and headache-inducing exploration game for the PS1, LSD Dream Emulator is all about wandering around a 'dream world' based on the sleep diary of one of its developers. A dream world where bright colors are constantly assaulting your brain, touching a lion transports you to a land of miniature wonders of the world, and whre you will at no point have any idea what's going on. Oh, and your introduction to all of that is a . Yes, this was based on a diary of dreams. Just dreams. WINK.

The point of the game, if it really has one at all, is to look around the world and walk into stuff to make it transport you somewhere else. Where you end up seems to depend on what you touch. Buildings will send you to pretty normal looking locations, like a logically constructed village, while touching an animal or an object lands you in the audience at a sumo match where the only exit is through a tunnel made of viscera. Quite the interesting dream indeed.

One of the weirdest games ever produced by mad genius Suda51 (and certainly the most insanely Suda-y), Killer7 does its best to be simultaneously badass and utterly nonsensical. It accomplishes that with a mix of random creepy laughing, erratically flashing visuals, bad guys who explode into clouds of pink particles, and a ghost decked out in bondage gear with a computerized voice and his eyes sewn shut. And that's just the first ten minutes.

Killer7 is bizarrely hard to classify, since it has a recognizable storyline and some of the time it nearly seems coherent. But don't be fooled: that's how it gets you. Start to think that things are making sense, and you're bound to find a severed-yet-still-talking head in the next clothes dryer you stumble across. Perhaps the weirdest thing of all is that, even when you do find a character who doesn't look like something out of an overly creative creepypasta, they don't seem to think anything strange is going on around them. Man, this . . . this is one seriously bad trip.

Quick, your loved one of indeterminate status is in trouble, and you must save them from the clutches of a dastardly villain! You struggle against the odds and through valiant and bloody effort you achieve victory. Finally, you get to hear your loved one say, "Congratulations hero, what took you so long? If I'd known I was gonna be here this long I would've brought a crossword!" Wait, no, that doesn't seem right…

Don't worry, that dizzying bout of cognitive dissonance isn't just you. While games have had the [blank]-in-distress plotline on lockdown since Jumpman first rescued Pauline from not-King-Kong, sometimes a wrench gets thrown in the works that makes you feel disinclined to rescue the focus of your efforts. I don't mean independent folks who didn't really need rescuing please leave me alone now either - I'm talking characters who desperately need and/or straight up ask for assistance and then make you instantly regret your decision to help them. Need an example? Already have one in mind? Is it one of X characters I have listed in the slides beyond? Why don't we find out?

I can cut Rinoa some slack over having to be saved early in the FFVIII storyline, when she basically ruins your assassination attempt by getting herself mind-controlled. She was at least trying to help, right? I don't mind saving her from falling off Garden either, because it's not like she asked for the floor to collapse. But then I get irritated when I have to find out how to save her from some damn coma, and then… space? Space? I have to rescue her from freaking SPACE?

Seriously, even if you get past Rinoa's and still like her as a character, the amount of times you have to come to her rescue makes the effort feel futile. Yeah, I saved her from electrocuting herself on an open power panel, but then she's walking in the path of a moving train, or falling down a manhole, or getting attacked by killer bees. She does admittedly get a moment of redemption when she saves Squall from a giant spoiler, so maybe they're just goddamn perfect for each other and I need aspirin right this second.

Somewhere between lighting nasty not-zombies on fire and trudging through gallons of misplaced viscera in The Evil Within, I was vaguely aware that I should be trying to rescue this kid named Leslie. He's the only patient to make it out of Beacon Mental Hospital, so he's plot-critical, and he's a defenseless kid running around a carnival of madness and so, so much blood. You honestly feel bad for him at first and want to make sure he's okay, because seriously a man in an iron mask with a bloody tank top and a cleaver just ran by dear God.

Your sympathy is pretty quickly tested though when you realize two things: Leslie does perfectly fine on his own, and you always get screwed over when you try to protect him. You can only watch this kid squeal away into the darkness, leaving you trapped behind a wall of monsters so many times before he starts to get on your nerves. Since his innocence and vulnerability is the only reason you're given to care about him, any attachment you might have quickly disintegrates when he leaves you locked in a room with Boxman HOLY FREAKING SLDKJFKLDS.

Ruto deserves props for fitting that much moxie in one tiny body. When Link makes his way into the cavernous belly of pampered fish god Jabu-Jabu to rescue her at her father's request, she makes it clear that she doesn't want to be saved. I can respect that kind of independence - until ten seconds later, when she's totally interested in letting you save her. And you're gonna have to work for it by carrying her around like the world's smallest and luckiest palanquin team. Aren't you grateful? Aren't you?

What makes saving Ruto so teeth-crackingly annoying isn't the act itself ('save princesses' is right before 'buy milk' on Link's chore list), it's how spoilt she is about the whole thing. If you ever put her down, she tells you to be a man and take responsibility for her well-being. But then she'll command you to do things that put her in peril and continues to be a diva when you're forced to save her. Turns out this is a sign that she's crushing on you and isn't mature enough to express herself better, but you know what? She probably has cooties, so there.

If you're a Star Fox 64 fan, you may remember Slippy Toad from the constant screech of "Whoooa, help me!" that echoes through the darkness of your nightmares. As the 'adorable' screw-up amongst the Star Critter crew, Slippy has a nasty habit of having a bogey on his tail 99% of the time, and he never seems to be able to handle it on his own. You can only hear him thank you for saving him so many times before your dentist has to prescribe you anti-grind jaw braces.

While Slippy certainly has the drive to be a badass Arwing marksman, there's no accounting for raw skill, which he distinctly lacks. That ends with a lot of crying to Fox and the rest of the team for help, all while they're kinda busy at the moment not getting blown up by the exact same enemies. It wouldn't even be a big deal if you only had to bail him out a few times (Falco and Peppy certainly don't have perfect records), but the fact is that it happens all the damn time and he never learns! When even your own teammates are loudly pointing out that suck at your job, you know there's a problem.

If Sonic '06 had blessedly failed to exist and Princess Elise appeared in some mediocre but hedgehog-less JRPG, she might've been bearable. Her entire personality could be boiled down to 'girl who doesn't cry because magic', but at least every moment she's on screen wouldn't get you one step closer to zoophilic snogging. But sadly, Sonic '06 happened, the Sonic/Elise romance is as real as it is , and every moment we have to spend saving Elise feels like pure torture.

Credit where credit is due, she's at least grateful to her knight in shining quills, so she won't have you snapping your controller in hatred over her snobbishness. But still, her tendency to get kidnapped by the same guy over and over again to goad the plot along gets old pretty much instantly. Plus, every time you sigh deeply and re-rescue her, your reward is watching a cutesy love scene between her and Sonic, each more vomit-inducing than the last. Okay Eggman, you can have her as long as I don't have to watch things get bestial. Please. Please.

If you're like me, the words, "Hey cousin!" make you immediately crush anything you happen to be holding (which explains the coffee burns) as The Dark Times flash through your mind. That's not just because Roman has an annoying desire for constant family time either, but because he needs to be saved from himself way too freaking often. Spending all his money on back alley poker tables is a sign of a gambling problem. Gambling away so much than his cousin has to repeatedly save him from brass-knuckled goons is a sign of something way worse.

Perhaps more than anyone else on this list, going to Roman's rescue is annoying as hell because the trouble is his own fault and, unlike Ruto, he's a goddamn adult. From the moment he sets foot on American soil, Niko has to start rescuing Roman from gang members trying to aerate his guts, and it just gets worse as time goes on. He even has to bail Roman out of gambling trouble with one mob while they're on the run from a different mob. And yeah, maybe Niko gets him into some trouble too, but you know what? Screw you cousin! I love you and I want to smack you.

You know that cranky dad character who shows up in way too many lives movies, who's impossible to please despite every effort to break through his shell of cigar smoke and disappointment? The Council in Mass Effect is a bit like that, except there's no silent nod of acknowledgement before the credits roll to show that you dun good, kid. Thwarting the plans of a planet-hopping psychopath? Keeping giant cuttlefish robots from murdering every organic being in the known galaxy? Saving their asses after they refused to listen to a single thing you said? Yeah, fine, but you could've done it better.

Even when you go so Paragon you make Mother Teresa look stingy, the Council is intent on nitpicking everything you do and pointing out that you did something wrong, however minuscule it may be. Their attitude is so infuriating that when the time comes to choose between saving them from the Reapers and letting them die, you kind of want to go with the latter just because they're assholes and you hate them. It's almost like BioWare did that on purpose or something.

Those are the most annoying, useless, aggravating game characters you'd rather leave for dead than rescue. Which of these characters do you hate the most? Did I miss someone incredibly, egregiously awful? Can you even think about those questions through the headache these characters have probably caused you? Tell me in the comments below, then maybe go have a lie down.

Want to hear about some bearable characters after all that frustration? Check out .