5. Manhunt - Executions & The Death of Piggsy
Onto one of the most frequent top-spot-takers for these kinds of lists is the Manhunt franchise, and if we were going off sheer depictions of violence, youd be right to change the order accordingly. However by this stage in their career Rockstar were free to dabble in whatever genre they saw fit. Already the bad boys of the gaming media, rarely doing press-interviews or advanced previews, Manhunt emerged as some dark, tightly-kept secret. The artwork for the game only exemplified this, and as it came to be that one of the main staples of the game would be hunting gang members and killing them in the most gruesome ways possible, again getting the spotlight back on Rockstar in the only way they know how. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGuhX5AmjuA Featuring a system where you would hold down a button to go through three stages of setting up a kill, a targeting reticule would go from gray, to yellow, to red, thereby releasing said button would let one of three animations for a variety of weapons play out. Anything from brutally suffocating someone with a plastic bag to taking a hammer to the underside of their chin, to lopping heads off with a machete were all regular occurrences by games end, but for such a decidedly disgusting game, there had to be a satisfyingly twisted denouement waiting at the end. Enter Piggsy. Throughout the game it was made known that you were a character in a movie where Brian Coxs The Director wanted you to kill people in the worst ways possible so he could sell the film on to equally disturbed individuals. However the other star of this dark world? Piggsy, a naked overweight man who wore a decaying pig mask, and brandished a rusty chainsaw. The following end-game fight with him takes place in a darkened room with Piggsy in all his naked glory, alternately charging at you cat-and-mouse style. It was terrifying, until the tables eventually turn and youre able to get a hold of his signature weapon, something you use to great effect when circumstances find Pigsy clinging onto the side of a ledge for dear life. Your character James Earl Cash, then grabs the chainsaw and slices straight through Pigsys arms, sending him plummeting towards the ground in a stream of blood and squeals. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQMFjijzbFU