10 of the most delightfully violent video games of all time
Jason Epstein
Playing violent video games; it’s one of the finest pastimes there is. But did you know it also provides an outlet for real-life aggression and acts as a stress reliever? So again, hooray for violence in video games! In the spirit of that I’d like to comment on some of the most ridiculously brutal games that produce the most visceral results when said violence is lovingly applied.
10 Soldier of Fortune Games
How Violent is it?
This was one of the first games that had character models that were designed for dismemberment. I’ll never forget using a knife to hack off a mercenary’s arm and wondering (a) how the hell a knife was able to do that and (b) where violence in video games could possibly go from there.
Violence Rating: 6 out of 10 Bloodbaths
9 Serious Sam Games
How Violent is it?
Serious Sam isn’t so much about blood and guts as it is about killing the shit out of shit as fast and efficiently as you can so that you don’t get overwhelmed by wave after wave of more incoming shit. Why am I referring to the enemies as shit? Because you’ll find yourself saying “oh, shit!” more than you can imagine as your screen fills up with anywhere from a dozen to a hundred enemies at a time.
Violence Rating: 6 out of 10 Bloodbaths
8 Grand Theft Auto Games
How Violent is it?
To some people banging a hooker in a stolen car and then killing her in public and driving off is just another Saturday night. But that became commonplace (albeit, virtually) thanks to the antics you can get yourself in in the world of Grand Theft Auto. Add random civilian killing sprees, intentional police showdowns and the collateral damage that ensues and you’ve got yourself a fiendishly good time.
Violence Rating: 7 out of 10 Bloodbaths
7 Limbo
How Violent is it?
A game with a grey scale color palette about a little cartoon boy making his way through the woods doesn’t sound like it would be so violent, but this one really is. Most of this brutality is achieved with such crunchy, visceral audio that the shadowy visuals are more than enough to represent what’s happening. See if you can keep from cringing when you’re electrocuted or shuddering when you’ve been impaled by the enormous spider that stalks you throughout the unforgiving forest.
Violence Rating: 7 out of 10 Bloodbaths
6 Turok: Dinosaur Hunter Games
How Violent is it?
Wasn’t there a gun in this game where the ammo drilled itself into your enemy’s brain and then exploded from within their skull? Oh yeah, it was called the CEREBRAL BORE. That ferocious nomenclature is enough to boil the blood of any gamer.
Violence Rating: 8 out of 10 Bloodbaths
5 Painkiller
How Violent is it?
The default weapon has three functions: you can use its spinning blade as a way to trim the hell spawn into manageable portions, or shoot the blade out to massacre your enemies. What about the third? Oh, well that would be the laser that trails the projectile, slicing and burning any bad guy that happens to be in the blade’s trajectory. Again, that is the DEFAULT weapon. It just gets more awesome from there.
Violence Rating: 8 out of 10 Bloodbaths
4 Dead Space Games
How Violent is it?
Here’s a game where stomping bodies into a bloody pulp with your steel space boots nets you whatever item they were holding onto (or had somehow ingested?). You can’t go five minutes without either tearing an enemy limb-from-limb (literally) with your makeshift space engineer weapons or being maimed by an airlock shaft as you’re in the process of being catapulted out of it into the frigid void of space.
Violence Rating: 10 out of 10 Bloodbaths
3 Original Doom Games
How Violent is it?
These are some of the goriest games of all time, which makes them fascinating to this day despite their reliance on 90s era sprite-based graphics. For those who don’t remember, there’s actually an enemy that once killed collapses into its exposed and broken insides as it emits a sound not unlike a tentacle slapping wildly against wet gravel. Disgawstsome.
Violence Rating: 10 out of 10 Bloodbaths
2 God of War 3
How Violent is it?
The main character, Kratos, wears the ashes of his dead family’s bodies on his skin as a mark of his pain and suffering. Woe to the enemies that stand in his way. With titles like the Nemesis Whip, Blades of Exile and Claws of Hades his weapons sound savage enough on their own without even taking into account what they’re capable of. There’s a scene where having bested Hercules, Kratos pilfers his weapons (an enormous, lion-faced pair of gauntlets) and uses them to beat face directly into skull. There’s also a particularly brutal death scene that shows a close up of the sun God Helios as Kratos literally pulls his head off his body.
Violence Rating: 10 out of 10 bloodbaths
1 Manhunt Games
How Violent is it?
Manhunt is one of the most gleeful yet somber (that could only make sense to those who have played the games) experiences of violence achieved via controller by anyone aside from sociopaths who have access to military remote controlled weaponry. In this third-person stealth game, the object is often to sneak up behind your enemies and choose how terrible you want their deaths to be based on long you hold down the attack button. Piano wire, plastic bags and shards of glass aren’t standard weapons in video games and that’s mostly because they are truly the stuff that nightmares are made of.
Violence Rating: 10 out of 10 Bloodbaths
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