The Best Ultraviolent Spectacle in Gaming

Video games and excessive violence go together like cheese and crackers. Laurel and Hardy. Beer and nuts. Bacon and, er, rolls. Playstation exclusives and the concept of mediocrity. We love simulated violence here at VG247, but not the real stuff, so when it came to the task of deciding which notably ultraviolent game is the best one of all we decided to solve our differences via the medium of a weekly panel show format that goes out on all the major podcast platforms and YouTube. Conveniently, we already had one, which is this show: The Best Games Ever Podcast, which you’re probably listening to now if you’re reading this.

Whether you’re ripping out spines in Mortal Kombat 1 or doing cool nut shots in Sniper Elite 5, there’s a flavour of violence out there for every palate. Fancy trying your hand at police brutality? There’s a video game for that. Want to control the apparatus of an oppressive government regime, fashion it into a metaphorical heel, and place it on the throats of a downtrodden populace? That’s kinda weird, but there’s a video game for that. Want to crawl the streets in a banged up sedan and murder sex workers? Ok that’s, hmm, that’s awful, but there’s a video game for that too.

But which are the very best games that feature violence not as any kind of commentary or allegory, but as pure art? Violence for the sake of violence, dialled up to the max and allowed to liberally spray viscera all over your screen in a fountainous ballet of gloopy death? To find out you’ll have to watch or listen to this podcast here, which is handily available below.