Violent Video Games: A Visual History

by Terrence O'Brien on June 18, 2007 at 04:31 PM

Forbes takes a bruised and bloodied limp down memory lane with a slideshow it's compiled of history's most violent and shocking video games. Kicking off the party is 1976's 'Death Race 2000' for Atari -- the game that's credited with introducing violence into video games because it let you run over pedestrians in a car. More accurately, it let you steer a couple of blocky pixels into some other pixels.

'Death Race' is followed by such modern classics as 'Mortal Kombat,' 'GTA,' 'Doom' and 'Manhunt' (a Switched.com favorite). The truly despicable 'Cluster's Revenge' for Atari is also mentioned thanks to its what-the-hell-were-they-thinking scenes in which the main character rapes a Native American woman.

But while all of the games above were mainstream titles released by big companies on the major consoles of their day –- even 'Cluster's Revenge,' believe it or not –- the rest of the list is populated with heinous, albeit minor league fringe titles. Games like 'Ethnic Cleansing,' which was developed by a neo-Nazi record label. Or, games such as 'Super Columbine RPG' and 'V-Tech Rampage,' both of which re-enacted horrible episodes of campus slayings, but both of which were obviously made by guys living in Mom's basement with way too much time on their hands. We agree that these titles are horrible, but it's not really fair to include them as major milestones in an article entitled, 'A History of Virtual Violence.' In fact, doing so gives them more credit than they deserve.

From Forbes

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Tags: shocking, slide show, SlideShow, video games, VideoGames, violence

Comments

RamoneNov 1st 2007 4:45PM

Neutral

Did you even play Super Columbine RPG? How was it "were obviously made by guys living in Mom's basement with way too much time on their hands"? The game was about showing that the tormentors and the killers were wrong in their own way. The tormentors were wrong for treating people like they were sub-human and the killers were wrong for not finding another way to solve their problems. It also shows that what kind of music, movies and games you play ultimately won't affect you, crazy people are just that, crazy.

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SeeLifeInCodeNov 2nd 2007 9:38AM

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Correction: It's "Custer's Revenge" (not Cluster's)

Also there were many more adult titles for the Atari 2600 from a company called Mystique, including Beat'em and Eat'em, may be the most disgusting game of all time.

This article's history seems pretty...abridged. Of course it includes the obligatory Doom and Mortal Kombat, and it should as they are influential, but there other games before them that they were influenced by, and there have been may games since then influenced by them.

Including these homebrew titles, such as V-Tech rampage, kind of makes them the Paris Hilton's of gaming (undeserved celebrity) because while they are available to anyone, they are not well known commercial games. Anyone who sits down with a game and takes an hour or two to learn how to use a level editor can make their own violent fan fiction game too, so it's not that these games are remarkable or unique. They are just in incredibly bad taste.

I have to agree with Ramone, though, on SC RPG. It's an interestng concept and it doesn't rely on gratuitous violence and gore to achieve it's goals.

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friedemannNov 2nd 2007 11:19AM

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to say that video games don't effect the average joe is a blatant lie. How many DRIVE their car like it was a video? You see it all the time. So to say that the violent ones cannot be an influence...

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