Over the years, several of the creations from game developers have sparkled numerous controversies due to their extremely brutal scenes. While the label of mature content was applied to these games, the truth is that it is mostly an indicator for the loudness, violent and obscene content they include. In short, it has nothing to do with the maturity of the player. The obvious target audience comprises of almost exclusively teens and pre-teens. Let me present a list of the ten video games that definitely fit in this category, but don’t get me wrong, I am not encouraging you to try them!
1. Mortal Kombat
The original Mortal Kombat was released back in ’92 and it is essentially a combat game in which the player can test his skills against the computer AI or a live opponent. So far so good, right? After all, there were numerous other versions of this concept already on the market, out of which Street Fighter springs to mind in a heartbeat. However, unlike the cartoonish design of Street Fighter, Midway developers went out of their way to ensure that all elements are very realistic, but also incredibly brutal and gory. The fatalities, which are the moves used by the player to finish his adversary, range from simple decapitations to setting the opponent on fire, from pulling out his spine to freezing and then shattering him, so on and so forth.
2. Carmageddon
You can expect this one to be violent from the moment you lay your eyes on the title, which is a wordplay consisting in the combination of Car and Armageddon. And the game does not ‘disappoint’, as the main objective is to win the car race; not through conventional driving, but rather by taking out the other players one by one. In addition, you can score extra points by running over every innocent passerby and gain even more bonuses for combo kills.
3. GTA (San Andreas, Vice City, Liberty City)
While the concept of the GTA series is pretty similar to the aforementioned Carmageddon game, this one incorporates several other elements, which give the players a lot more opportunities for destruction. Centered around driving, robbing, shooting as well as beating – in other words making your badass reputation known – GTA has also been blessed with an excellent game engine that can realistically simulate the effects of players attack on the bodies of his victims.
4. Manhunt
Manhunt was also developed by RockStar – the creators of the GTA series – and benefits from the same powerful game engine. The game permits you to play the part of a murderer who participates in a sadistic game of cat and mouse organized by the prison warden for entertainment purposes. The player has numerous ways to end the life of his opponents, ranging from brutally beating them to death with a baseball bat to suffocating them with a plastic bag. Extra points can be earned for utilizing more subtle and refined ways to kill, if there is such a thing. The popularity of the game grew immensely when mass-media correlated Manhunt to murder that presented certain similarities, saving RockStar millions of dollars on advertisement and marketing.
5. The Punisher
Playing the role of a comic book character who’s out for revenge, this game has definitely earned a place on the list of extremely brutal games. Simply because this Marvel character is a vigilante, you can imagine anything goes. You will be able to electrocute NPCs with high voltage wires making their heads burst into flames, throw them into swimming pools along with a couple of electric eels, push their heads into the blades of an exhaust fan, cremate them alive, etc. And this is only the beginning!
6. Dead Space (1 and 2)
A third person action game that incorporates some RPG elements, the two Dead Space games practically rewrite the book on how to blend unnecessary violence with the storyline in a seamless manner. Dead Space is certainly a good game overall and it does bring innovations to the genre, but absolutely every aspect is unbelievably gory. From aliens that burst out from the bodies of the NPCs transforming them into deformed monstrosities to gruesomely smashing the bodies of the victims in order to collect the loot, from the spikes utilized in impaling adversaries to the shockingly bloody cutscenes, Dead Space is not for the faint of heart.
7. Bulletstorm
Recently released, Bulletstorm appears to be another mediocre first person shooter with a predictable scenario at first glance. However, once you get a bit more into the action, you will notice that your character (Grayson Hunt, a drunken space pirate who used to be on the side of good) gains very brutal abilities and weapons, the most interesting one being the whip. With the whip and the kick, enemies can be pulled and sent flying through the air, explosives can be manipulated and redirected towards the opponents, environmental elements like electric fences and cacti can be used to complete the kill.
8. Condemned: Criminal Origins
Condemned encourages the player to enter the killing mood with every step he takes, binding all the factors to create a claustrophobic and dark environment that seems to tell you death is just around the corner. The trump card of this game is its incredible ability to simulate realistic hand to hand combat from the first person point of view. Monolith imbues every punch, every kick and every swing of the axe with high quality sound effects that really give you the sensation of realism.
9. Gears of War
In all honesty, the principle reason why this game made it to the top list of violent creations resides in the fact that it promotes one of the most brutal gestures of all time, the curb stomp depicted in the movie American History X. The curb stomp is also the main element that most people remember from this film, as the romanticized story showing a racist neo-Nazi learning the error of his ways is generally forgotten.
10. Hitman
Hitman can be considered the more refined version of Manhunt, where you play the role of an assassin. While players have the ability to complete the missions in Hitman without killing a single soul or going in all guns blazing, they can also find innovative methods of assassinating NPCs and disposing of the bodies in a clever manner as not to alert the guards or get caught. From piano wires to Berettas, take your pick if you are in a killing mood.
Oh, thanks for this post! Now I know what to restrict my son from playing!