People love top 10 lists! I read it on the internet! In the spirit of such discovery, we’re proud to present a list of our top 10 most intense games ever. Games that make a pulse pound, often keep a ridiculous pace, and never fail to remind you how fucked you are.
Honorable Mentions, because we’re whores: Roguelikes, as a genre, deserve mention. Games where you can be wiped out by bad luck alone or the severe early ignorance you’ll have keep you on your toes, even if they tend to be turn based. Nobody has ever had a relaxed game of Nethack or Elona, especially when it turns out that ring you put on was a cursed ring of polymorph, and you are now a fish surrounded by dragons, dwarves, and/or jaguars.
Shadow of the Colossus almost made the list, but there are plenty of open relaxed areas when you’re not in the middle of a fight. Riding around the world hunting lizards and fruit is beautiful, but then a giant angry thing shows up which is both boss battle and puzzle. Climbing the beard of a giant or riding a flying stone bird is nothing less than gripping, and frankly not a single battle in the game disappoints, but that’s what happens when everything is a stunningly well crafted boss battle.
And now, the real top ten!
10 ) Serious Sam-Serious Sam, First and Second encounters, didn’t need AI. They just needed big guns, explosions, and enemies that will fuck you up en masse. Headless guys running at you with bombs, or bombs for heads, aliens that disappear from sight, skeleton horse things that constantly attack at range and in melee. Oh, and let’s not forget that the very beginning of the game sets you up against some of the game’s toughest common enemies with nothing but starting pistols if you pick up a hidden powerup. Giant red mechs with laser cannons, versus you, with pistols. It’s not fair, but Serious Sam never is, and is known to constantly spring demon closets and monster pits on players. And think twice about picking up the super helpful backpack of ammo and big big bonus health pack you see, because Sam never gives freely. Rest assured, seeing something useful just means you’re about to be in a world of hurt, either in the next section or for picking up the items at all.
Don’t worry too much though. Sure, early game bosses end up as standard common enemies later, but you get a cannon that may have just been ripped off a gigantic pirate ship which fires cannonballs that plow through anything ground level.
9 ) Crazy Taxi-It’s not exactly a complicated game, but it may be the most ridiculously fast paced game on the list. There is no stop, there are, for most purposes, no brakes. There are a ton of ramps, freeways, passengers and destinations. The clock never stops moving, and neither can you if you want to make it more than 60 seconds. Aided by a soundtrack with Offspring and Bad Religion, attitude drips from the game and sweat drips from palms (not to mention the steering wheel).
8 ) Ninja Gaiden-Any of the series could fit here, but let’s go with Ninja Gaiden Black. Even easy mode was fairly deadly, but in normal mode there wasn’t a single enemy that couldn’t be fatal in an encounter. Every damn grunt, every single one could kill you, and they could come for you at any time. The weakest enemies in the start of the game? Deadly. People died once in a while due to bats, which swarm and cause tiny bits of damage but enough to finish a player off, or distract while ninjas are around. Ninjas, soldiers, and demons appear constantly from closets, trap doors, or just teleport in, and WILL fuck you up. Then the tanks and greater fiends show up, and oh boy, shit’s bad now.
7 ) Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back-Ever see someone take down an AT-AT with blasters alone? Yeah, we didn’t think so. But in this Atari 2600 classic, that’s what you’re doing. AT-ATs are marching toward the shield generator; you don’t have a damn tail gunner in your speeder, and no tow cable for that matter. So what’s left to do but blast them mercilessly? AT-ATs can and will absorb massive amounts of fire before going down, launching missile both dumbfire and smart, and of course, being rather large and sturdy. Flying into the body results in your demise, but flying through the legs is entirely allowed. Occasionally a weak spot shows up, a glimmering shine on the AT-AT which results in instant destruction if you can manage to make the shot, which is much easier said than done. Go at it long enough and get a short period of invincibility, but in the end, the game always ends one of two ways. You get shot down repeatedly, or the AT-ATs reach the generator and blow it the fuck up. There is no win, but there’s a fight to the bitter end.
6 ) Ico-You’re damn right, there’s a puzzle game on this list. Most of the time, puzzle games are a slow, personal contemplative affair. Once in a while a timed puzzle comes into play with an adventure title, but oh how rare that is. Ico takes that and throws it right out. There is no safe, there is no time for quiet contemplation. There you are, with a stick in hand and horn on your head, leading around a blind princess or something who only speaks in wingdings. Wingdings I tell you! That itself would be alright, excepting for the fact shadow demons are constantly chasing after her and you’ve only got that stick to beat them off with as you try to solve the puzzles so inconveniently left to you by whoever built that damn temple in the first place. Go ahead and push that giant block, but be ready to chase down the guys carrying off your blind princess if you don’t stick near her.
5 ) Defender-One of the hardest games ever made, not aided by a complex five buttoned arcade control scheme. Even the Atari 2600 port was brutal, though made easier by the lack of button options. Defender forced players to really expand by having significant events happening off-screen, only suggested by the radar in the middle, informing you that you needed to move move move and save the human being picked up by a UFO. Because if that human hit the top of the screen, he became a mutant, a rapid, deadly enemy that closed in and wrecked your ship in a heartbeat. If that wasn’t enough, enemy ships were dropping mines in mid-air, firing missiles, or splitting up into faster, deadlier enemies upon being hit. Wave after wave of constant assault and breakneck racing back and forth to protect humans will cause hands to shake well after finishing the game.
4 ) Robotron 2084-If you can play this game for more than 90 seconds on one quarter, you have the reflexes of a god. Robotron inspired Smash TV, another intense game, and it’s easy to see in the two 8-way joysticks. Robotron leaves players surrounded on all sides in a desperate rush to avoid fire from robots and save the pitiful humans from destruction. Surrounded is no exaggeration here, players are dropped in the middle of a massive crowd of densely packed robots, some of them quite indestructible. Bouncing enemy projectiles just add to the pain, and many, many players go out in a blaze of glory spinning the attack stick all around in a desperate last stand.
3 ) Gunstar Heroes-This was the perfection of the run and gun genre. Players moved forward nearly constantly, only stopping when a large, nasty boss got in the way, blasting countless goons and traversing quite a few interesting landscapes. Forest, desert, giant board game, all deadly. The game featured a very creative weapon creation system, allowing players to customize their assaults. Weapon style orbs were dropped often, in the styles of force, flame, lightning, and chaser. Players could use two of a style, resulting in a highly charged version of one, or mix them up. Auto-targetting flamethrowers, laser swords, explosive energy blasts, 14 total weapons were available and each could devastate when used properly. To add a bit more to the arsenal, slide kicks were prominent as was the ability to lift and throw most enemies.
Unlike most games at the time, there was a life meter for the players. It took a lot of damage to kill a player, but that was it, it was restarting a level once that happened, and bosses were very effective at dealing that damage. Patterns often weren’t, safe spots were absent, and only some fast reflexes and good aim got you through the game.
2 ) Sinistar-Four repeating stages of space flight don’t sound too bad. Then you hear “BEWARE, I LIVE” coming from the speakers in a voice that clearly wants nothing more than to devour your soul as it screams “RUN, COWARD.” Sinistar has been built, and you’re in trouble now. Sinistar’s tension comes primarily from the dread of facing the title character, a big mean space station that, in its own words, HUNGERS. And you’re made of whatever it eats, it turns out.
The only way to stop it is to blow it up with Sinibombs, built using crystals mined from asteroids. Crystals can be blasted loose by the player, or stolen from the worker robots. Of course, those crystals are used to build Sinistar, so whenever you knock one loose, a miner just may pick it up when a warrior chases you away. The beginning of a level is an arms race, looking to get crystals as workers and warriors mine asteroids and attempt to kick your ass long enough to build Sinistar. Once he’s built, it’s a desperate flight to not get slammed and eaten by him, shot by warriors, smashed by a planetoid, and to keep grabbing crystals to attack with. The ship can hold 20 Sinibombs, and 13 will destroy Sinistar, but they can and will be blocked by workers, planetoids, warriors, and even taken out by warrior shots. 7 shots of 20 can be misses without having to search for more ammo. It doesn’t sound too bad, but in later levels when there are almost no crystals to be found, countless workers, and one of you, it’s a real feat of skill and luck to have even the necessary 13 Sinibombs before the real enemy comes to life.
1 ) Berzerk-Old, simple, doesn’t look like a lot on the surface, but increasingly complex mazes with electric walls or floors or whatever they are, combined with robots that shoot relentlessly and show no fear heading for the player start to get heavy. And then, if you don’t escape an area fast enough, Evil Otto, a giant bouncing head who just can’t be killed, comes for you, bouncing right through walls and onto your grave. Robots vocalize quite well in the game. “Get the humanoid!” “Intruder alert!” “Chicken! Fight like a robot!” “Attack!” “Kill!” They let you know their goal fast, but they’re not too bright. Good players think on their feet, make robots hit walls and each other, taking themselves out.
There are faster paced games, there are harder games, and there are games that top Berzerk in quite a few ways. But it’s not the speech, the pace, or the challenge that make this the most intense game of all time, though a solid ability to twitch and trick robots is critical.
No, it’s because Berzerk is the first game to actually kill the player. And it killed two of them. Jeff Dailey and Peter Burkowski died right after getting significantly high scores in the game, in 1981 and 1982 respectively, at the ages of 19 and 18. They both died of heart attacks. Yes, heart attacks. How intense is Berzerk? So intense that Evil Otto, the game’s true villain, has crossed from digital murder right into reality. It’s a no brainer that this one takes the number one spot.
July 22nd, 2008 at 3:57 pm
But UT2003..
I recall a LAN game with my brother on the figure-8 map. Instagib, 1st to 100 kills..
Damn..