Pets are adorable and we love them, but their true purpose is hard to define. They eat our food, take our money and time, and look at us with deep sorrow in their eyes while we eat dinner. It doesn't matter though, because we love them anyway.
On today, National Pet Day, we're considering some of video games' most pointless pets that we still love to have around.
Lamarr from Half-Life 2
Lamarr is Isaac Kleiner's debeaked pet
headcrab in Half-Life 2. Typically, headcrabs are terrifying creatures
that want to turn everyone into zombies, but Lamarr is harmless. Despite
his former life (which is likely full of unforgivable acts of
aggression), and the fact that it's his fault Gordon accidentally gets
teleported away from Kleiner's lab, there is something loveable about
Lamarr.
Magikarp & Trubbish from Pokémon
It's hard to pick just
one useless Pokémon – which is exactly why I picked two. Magikarp is
widely considered to be the weakest and most powerless of Pokémon. According to Bulbapedia, "Even in the heat of battle it will do nothing but flop around," making
the fish Pokémon only useful for taking up a slot in your inventory.
Trubbish makes this list because he's a trash Pokémon, which is not an insult to Trubbish. He looks like a bag trash. I believe The Lonely Island wrote a song about him, which you can hear here.
Regardless of how pointless they are, you need them if you want to catch them all.
Poochy from Yoshi's Island
It's not that Poochy
is useless. He's actually pretty useful with his speed and his ability
to walk on lava. The reason he makes this list is because compared to
the other pet in in Yoshi's Island – Yoshi – he really comes up short.
Yoshi carries his master, baby Mario, through countless dangers
defending him from everyone and everything that attempts to steal him.
Poochy is a fair-weather pet that only shows up every now and then and
only when it benefits him. He is very excited to see you, though, when
your paths do periodically cross, and it's hard not to feel the same way.
Nintendogs from Nintendogs
What are the point of
Nintendogs, exactly? Does anyone know? Sure, they're adorable, they
demand a lot of your time, they will run away if you ignore them, and
they show up to knock you out of the ring in Super Smash Bros. every now
and then, but – I still haven't figured it out. They sure are cute
though.
Fish from Mass Effect
You have a lot of responsibilities in
Mass Effect, saving the universe and all, but if you want to add one
more, you can get some fish. If you don't feed them, they will die (if
you need more burdens to rest on your conscience), but you can get Kelly
Chambers to feed them for you if you take her out to dinner. Or you can buy an auto-feeder.