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 .

Sometimes we all get stuck browsing the interwebs, reading random articles, watching YouTube videos, and shopping for things that we just don't need. That last one is actually quite the black hole of distraction and procrastination. But rather than help by trying to pull you out of it for the sake of productivity, I'm going to drag you down with me into the pit of unessential online shopping.

It probably began with my fascination with lightsaber replicas, but I always get caught up contemplating the finer points of geeky replicas. There are some pretty badass props out there. From gaming heroes' swords to iconic hand cannons, there's a ton of items to add to that useless, wall-mounted weapon rack full of fake weapons. Buy hey, they're awesome to look at right? Here are some of the most accurate, amazing, and tempting props to fill your home (and mine).

The Portal Gun is probably one of the most unique weapons in gaming - if you could even call it a weapon. It's able to shoot portals into solid surfaces, creating an instant doorway and an excellent gameplay mechanic for a first-person puzzler.

I don't even and I still want this thing. It looks so much like its in-game counterpart that it's crazy. Apart from actually shooting physics-tearing portals, it has it all: lights, sounds, stickers. Now you're playing with portals.

Half-Life 2 is definitely one of the greatest shooters ever. Heck, it's one of the , period. To earn its title as king among shooters, it had to have some awesome weaponry right? Well, yes. The zero point energy field manipulator, better known as the gravity gun, gives players control over the world's physics like no other weapon in games had done before or since. Who knew it would be so fun to throw garbage at people's heads with extreme force?

How sweet would it be to have the gravity gun sitting on your coffee table. Just about everyone knows what Half-Life 2 is. Even guests who don't call themselves gamers might pick this thing up and start pretending to levitate your couch with it. Video game weapons don't get much more iconic than Gordon Freeman's gravity gun, so what's better than actually owning it?

The Mass Effect series has a ton of futuristic weaponry to pull from. There are guns with unlimited ammo, rocket launchers, and even black hole emitters. But for a personal, technologically advanced gun collection, sometimes simple is best.

If you played a Biotic class in the Mass Effect series, the M6 Carnifex was most likely your bread and butter. This replica is massive, weighs seven pounds, and even plays the sound effects so you don't have to make the "pew pew" noises yourself. Pair this with a replica Omni Tool, and you're set.

Forget hanging Grandpa's old hunting rifle over the fireplace, you know what will really get people's attention? A fully-automatic rifle with a chainsaw sticking out from underneath the barrel.

Gears of War's Lancer became one of the most recognisable gaming weapons when the first title hit the store shelves. It became so iconic, Epic started selling full-size, limited edition replicas at the launch of the first sequel. You can get one now for a couple hundred bucks. It might not have an actual spinning bayonet blade, but it's still super fucking awesome.

The is probably one of the most interesting items you can get in a shooter. It's like a hand held roller coaster car. Not only does it give you the thrill of flying across an environment mid-gunfight, its one of the most brutal killing machines in the game. And I want it in my collection. The replica linked below actually spins the hooks when you pull the trigger, though I wouldn't recommend trying to get it to work in real life. Hanging from a wire using a prop is ill advised. But having a Skyhook on display alongside the rest of these crazy weapons would make any collection feel more complete.

Like the Boy Scouts say, "Always be prepared." And if you want to be prepared for everything, you're going to need a space-aged just in case an infestation of undead necromorphs crops up in your neighborhood (or if you decide to mine space rocks). Isaac Clark's limb-severing plasma cutter is hard to mistake and makes a pretty sweet addition to a display case.

In Dead Space, the plasma cutter's blade shifts from horizontal to vertical slicing modes, allowing Isaac to get a perfect chop on an approaching necromorph. The replica does the same, and even lights up the blue green laser lights when you pull the trigger. Looks legit.

What kind of video game weapon collection would be complete without a few iconic swords? WarCraft's .

How could you not want to own the sword that corrupted the golden boy prince Arthas, causing him to betray his friends, kill his father, and take the place of the Lich King on top the Frozen Throne. You can't even possess this sword in the digital world of WoW, but for a pretty penny, you can own it in the real one.

The isn't much of a sword, more like an oddly shaped mace with a few nasty looking prongs. But hey, with a weapon as recognisable as the Keyblade, it's tough to pass up a full-size replica - especially because the real-life versions aren't very expensive compared to the other weapons on this list.

Sora's Keyblade is like the Excalibur of the Kingdom Hearts universe, coming only to people worthy of wielding it. I'm not going to get into the entire lore of keyblades, their wielders, and why their shaped like that (find that in our article). But if you need a totally awesome video game replica, the Keyblade is a classic.

Kratos' are probably the most insane hand-to-hand weapons ever imagined. They're two monstrous knives attached to ten foot long chains, which are fused to a human being's forearms. And how do you kill things with them? Why, you swing them over your head and around your body creating a cyclone of spinning, razor-sharp blades, of course. On second thought, maybe I shouldn't recommend that readers bring these things into their homes.

Well, luckily the real life replicas of these death knives on chains aren't nearly as dangerous - unless you attach the chains to your arms and start swinging them around (please don't do that). When displayed on their stands (and not being swung around your head) the Blades of Chaos make pretty sweet decorations.

You can't talk about collecting video game weapons without mentioning the Master Sword from The Legend of Zelda series. This is the ultimate hero's sword. It's the blade of evil's bane, the birthright of every green-garbed hero, and heck, one of the coolest sword designs ever conceived.

It's pretty easy to find a replica of the Master Sword, but honestly, some of them have pretty shoddy craftsmanship. Sometimes the shape isn't quite right, the paint jobs are questionable, and the steel just looks cheap. A legendary blade such as this deserves better. There have been some amazing Master Sword replicas out there as well, but this ain't bad.

Well, hopefully this article didn't derail you into a video game weapon shopping spree spanning the vast world wide web. But if it did, did you come across any particularly awesome video game replicas? What would you add to the list? How many game weapons do you have in your collection? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

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