8 Video Game Heroes Who Doomed THEMSELVES

Albert Einstein is one of the most awesome human beings who has ever lived - a true real-life hero, right?

Well, he's also a hero in the Command & Conquer franchise, albeit one who was ultimately felled by his own ambitious creation.

In the original Command & Conquer: Red Alert, Einstein uses his experimental time travel machine to head back to 1924 and straight-up disintegrate a young Adult Hitler with a handshake.

While on paper that might sound like a net good for humanity - eliminating a tyrant and preventing Nazi Germany rising to power - the Butterfly Effect being a real pain in the arse, it has majorly unintended consequences.

First and foremost, it leads to Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union effectively growing totally unchallenged, resulting in a considerably more brutal and deadly version of World War II.

Beyond making things worse for humanity as a whole, Einstein also ends up plotting the course for his own demise, as in Red Alert 3 the pesky Ruskies develop their own time machine and end up doing to Einstein exactly what he did to Hitler.

Just as the Soviets are on the verge of losing World War II, they head back to 1927 and turn Einstein to dust with another trusty time-travelling handshake.

This in turn causes nuclear weapons to never be invented, leading to World War III, with Japan - who never surrendered in WWII due to the U.S. not dropping atomic bombs on them - joining the party for a triple threat match with Russia and the U.S.

What a mess you caused, Alby.