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10 video games sure to horrify parents

In case you've been living under a dusty 'ol Super Nintendo Entertainment System over the past few years, the video game industry has matured from jumping over barrels to rescue a damsel in distress, or chomping dots on a maze while avoiding ghosts.

In fact, with the average age of a video game player today at 37 years old — yes, that's the average age, says the Entertainment Software Association — perhaps it's no surprise we're seeing more mature content than ever before. The just-released Mass Effect 3, for example, includes a heated love-making scene -- including same-sex relationships, if you prefer. In the recent NeverDead, your body is ripped apart by demons and you must hop and roll around to collect your limbs as you continue the fight. Good times.

Most games are still family friendly interactive entertainment offerings, but high-tech parenting expert Scott Steinberg reminds parents to read the game's ESRB ratings on the box as not all games are appropriate for young eyes.

Steinberg has just launched new book series, The Modern Parent's Guide, covering all aspects of connected family life, and companion video show Family Tech: Technology for Parents and Kids. You can download first volume for free, dubbed The Modern Parent's Guide to Kids and Video Games.

To help commemorate the free book, Steinberg and colleague Nadia Oxford have compiled a list of the ten most controversial video games in history. "These offensive games had parents' and politicians' panties in a bunch at one point or another — and, as a general rule, aren't indicative of the industry's actual approach to publishing," assures Steinberg.

Nevertheless, we thought it would be an eye-opener to look at these particularly racy games and how they pushed the 'ol proverbial envelope.

Carmageddon (1997 — PlayStation, N64, Game Boy Colour, PC, Mac)

In Carmageddon, players raced against computer-controlled cars through various settings. It seemed harmless enough at a quick glance, but when word got out that players could gain bonuses or even win challenges by bulldozing over pedestrians, politicians frizzed up, leading to censorship of its graphical content. Interestingly, Carmageddon was inspired by Death Race 2000, a brutal cult movie about a deadly road race. The 1976 arcade game that was born from the movie was one of the first video games to come under fire for its violence, even though players ran over monochromatic "gremlins" instead of people. Nevertheless, the media freaked.

Thrill Kill (1998 — PlayStation)

Thrill Kill was on track to be published by EA for the PlayStation, but the game's pre-release notoriety struck it dead before it saw the shelves. No surprise there: Despite its tantalizing four-player feature, Thrill Kill also boasted a great deal of violent and sexual content, including dismemberment and special moves with clever names like "Bitch Slap" and "Swallow This." Worth noting, however: Thrill Kill has a claim to fame beyond its hyper-violence, however. Since the title was pretty much completed when EA pulled the plug, the developers who had worked on the game released the game into the wild, where it spread quickly via bootlegs and downloads. It still remains one of the most widely-distributed unreleased games of all time. Curiously, the same engine built for it powers hip-hop fighting title Wu-Tang: Shaolin Style.

RapeLay (2006 — PC)

RapeLay, a Japanese release, is best described as repulsive. It was a game built solely around malice and sexual violence, as players took the role of a stalker who kidnapped and raped three women. The game attracted outrage from around the world, though it never got far beyond Japan's borders. Eventually, the game was banned in its home country, too — and, not soon enough, according to mortified parents, politicians and law enforcement figures.

Postal (1997 — PC, Mac, Linux)

Postal was a top-down arcade-style rampage about a dude who goes, well, postal. The object of the game was to kill a certain percentage of non-player characters before advancing. Postal's story was pretty ambiguous. It has been suggested in-game and via supporting literature that the game's main character believed his town had been infected by a "madness plague," and was actually locked up in a mental institution. Either way, the most offensive aspect of Postal wasn't even its graphic violence, the ability to gun down innocents or later sequels (transformed into first-person shooters) starring Osama bin Laden and Gary Coleman. It's the fact the infamous director Uwe Boll saw fit to afflict us with a movie based on the game.

Night Trap (1992 — Sega CD)

Night Trap was a super-cheesy full-motion video game that featured a plot about badly-dressed vampires trying to drain blood from a bunch of girls having a sleepover party in an isolated cabin. Other features included Dana Plato as the main character, a wardrobe that never left the '80s, and an inexplicable karaoke number. In retrospect, Night Trap wasn't an offensive game at all. However, it came under heavy fire from politicians when worries about "hyper-realistic" game violence worked up into an outright fever in the early '90s. Whereas people who actually played the game saw a bad (and largely bloodless) take on old horror movies, politicians saw graphic depictions of women being mutilated and killed. Night Trap is a solemn and grainy reminder that the severity of game violence is truly in the eye of the beholder.

Custer's Revenge (1982, Atari 2600)

What can you say about a pornographic Atari 2600 game, aside from "Why did they even try?" The 2600 wasn't even capable of formulating Pac-Man's maze successfully, let alone anything like an erotic adventure. Nevertheless, the human will triumphed, and the game company Mystique developed and released several raunchy Atari adventures. The most infamous entry in Mystique's schmutzy library was Custer's Revenge, a game about General Custer making his so-called last stand with a naked Native American lady standing against (or tied to) a cactus. Custer, likewise in his birthday suit, had to dodge a shower of arrows in order to reach the maiden, and then -- well, you can guess.

Manhunt 2 (2007 — PlayStation 2, Wii, PSP, PC)

Grand Theft Auto maker Rockstar Games practically exists to push boundaries, and the intense violence in some of its games is generally backed up by innovative gameplay, quality storytelling, and decent characters. However, though 2007′s Manhunt 2 flicked the media's Rage and Paranoia Meter into the red, the shoddy gameplay and uninteresting story made the game even worse for coming off as a noisy farce that was bloody for the sake of garnering empty attention. Worse still, Rockstar censored the game (still essentially a snuff film simulator) so that it could squeak away with an M rating by the ESRB instead of the dreaded Adults Only (AO) classification that would make Manhunt 2 impossible to sell at retail.

BMX XXX (2002 — GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox)

Bicycles and nudity…why didn't we think of that? Two great tastes that don't necessarily taste great together, this gonzo hybrid combined topless thrills and cameos by stripped with action sports mechanics to create an unlikely spin-off. Ironically, despite generating major controversy (and prompting what we hear was an intriguing press junket to New York's infamous Scores gentleman's club), retail sales failed to deliver. Needless to say, whoever came up with the concept must feel like quite the, ahem, boob.

Chiller (1986, Arcade, NES)

Chiller, a shoot-'em-up light gun game, is one heck of a gory curiosity. For starters, most violent games are violent specifically because you, as the player, must defend yourself against a menace. But in Chiller, nothing fights back. The game is obviously styled after a cheesy carnival shooting gallery, but in two of the levels, you score points by shooting the body parts off men and women who are bound to torture devices. You don't know why they're there, but they are assuredly alive, at least until you knee-cap 'em and hear their shrieks of pain. Oddly, there was an unlicensed NES adaptation of the game released in 1990. Needless to say, it did not bear the Official Nintendo Seal of Quality.

Beat 'Em and Eat 'Em (1982, Atari 2600)

The success of Mystique's Atari porn line (as in, it was successful enough for several titles to be published) makes a depressing statement about the human condition. There is some small consolation in the fact that, unlike Custer's Revenge, Beat 'Em and Eat 'Em did not involve rape. No, the two women who ran around on the sidewalk with their heads tilted up to catch the droplets of stuff being dripped downwards by a naked man on a skyscraper seemed very willing to be in that place, at that time. That's not enough to prevent us from uttering a deep, deep sigh, however. To give Mystique some credit (we're feeling generous), it developed a version of the game for gals and called it Philly Flasher. In Philly Flasher, you controlled two open-mouthed men who tried to catch droplets of breast milk from a lactating witch. Why a witch? Why Philadelphia? Like all of life's great mysteries, who the hell knows!