1. Doom
1995 ID Software While
Doom will forever be known as the game which popularized the first person shooter, it was just as groundbreaking for its gore. For many it remains one of the earliest instances of being both impressed and sickened by such a high level of violence in a video game. I must have been about 8 years old when I first saw Doom in action - the hellish world and its bloody and gruesome visuals were a tad different from
Sonic The Hedgehog. It was this visceral violence which made the game an immediate target, especially in the wake of 1999s Columbine School Massacre. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the two perpetrators of the mass killing were huge fans of IDs seminal shooter, with home tapes and recordings alluding to the game and stating that their atrocious school shooting would be like fucking Doom. The media immediately jumped at Doom along with anything that could offer a reason for the carnage, rather than facing the sad truth that Harris and Klebold were psychologically tormented long before they started playing violent video games. Just
this week, Doom was finally released in Germany after being banned for 17 years due to its "drastic portrayals of violence directed against human or human-like beings". It's hard to believe its taken this long, but it goes to show just how controversial and shocking Doom was back in the day. http://youtu.be/yr-lQZzevwA