
However, Hatred isn't the first video game that's gone all-out to shock, like a sweary, stomping, pubescent in a Wotsit-stained Skrillex t-shirt. Here are five equally desperate games whose intention was to seemingly outrage the delicate sensibilities of the "general" public, and/or their parents.
Chiller was a 1986 light gun thing which presented players with a series of grisly scenes, set in torture chambers and "bumzones" (note: there were no "bumzones" in Chiller). From what we can gather, the aim was to end the suffering of the on-screen victims as quickly as possible, by shooting them to death <scribbles down idea for game: Wounded Animal Mercy Killing Simulator 2016>.
Alas, simple head shots were never quite enough - the game encouraging you to blast away chunks of bone and flesh and organs, as the screen gradually became more and more blood-caked. Alternatively, precisely shooting the torture devices littered around the screens would often cause a swifter demise, with the added bonus of extra points.
Other levels included a graveyard, complete with a monk who would wheel a trolley of corpses back and forth, like he'd gotten lost and confused en route to the municipal mass grave.
Alas, Chiller was something of a flop: arcade owners generally refused to feature it, due to the content. However, we've just read that the game was reportedly a hit in third world countries, for some inexplicable reason that we couldn't really be bothered to look into further.
The console follow-up to the late-80s arcade hit ramped up the splatter of the title, assaulting players with a succession of needlessly revolting images. Perhaps the most iconic of these were the screaming foetuses that hung from nooses in a charnel house. Like all the fleshy, organic enemies in the game, the player's on-screen avatar - a hockey mask-wearing gym bunny - would make swift work of the slime-blooded scream-o-foets with his chainsaw.
We wonder what the Pro-Life lobby made of all that.
Though the game's publisher, Exidy, insisted the figures were "gremlins" and not - as might have been assumed - innocent pedestrians, it was enough to result in the first ever TV investigation into the psychological impact of video games. Conclusion: UNRECORDED...
A mixture of terrible, E.T.-style gameplay, and controversy over the supposedly violent gameplay - players assumed the role of chainsaw killer Leatherface (albeit without a drop of on-screen blood) - left Wizard Games too vulnerable to prevent it being swallowed up by the video games crash of the early-80s.
It probably didn't help that the game's interpretation of the iconic Leatherface was apparently a big-headed goon in a blue jumpsuit, wielding a length of blue plumbing.
Finished?
Well done. You just successfully imagined the ironically-titled Soft and Cuddly. This late-generation Spectrum platformer had players attempting to recover the dismembered parts of their android mother, and return them to a refrigerator (where the player's father was also stored). Yes, we've all been there...
This required navigating a surreal - ahem - "hellscape", full of wannabe nightmarish visuals, such as people being stretched apart on racks, or crushed by giant thumbscrews, or that four-headed skinbaby thing above, and "Quo Vagon". Though reviews described the game as "sick", it failed to generate the sort of controversy that results in booming sales. Ha ha.
Also: "Ha ha".
FROM THE ARCHIVE: