4. Prototype
The Prototype series was built from the ground-up to be a crimson-coloured over-indulgence in any mad power-fantasy you could think of. Playing as lab-experiment-gone-wrong Alex Mercer, you gained the ability to fashion various weapons out of a monstrous infection that permeated every part of your body. As Alex got more powerful he was able to create a giant two-handed blade that sliced government troops in half like butter, alongside 'Critical Mass' attacks that acted like smart-bombs, taking out entire streets of people in one go. Although Prototype 2 did almost nothing to iterate on the first game mechanically, and instead felt more like glorified downloadable content, it did flesh out the almost theatrical displays of gore on show. New-protagonist James Heller could fire off multiple tendrils that would rip swathes of opponents apart limb-from-limb, leaving a Christmas-tree-display of torsos and severed limbs dangling between lampposts.