4. Doom
It's a sign of how far we've come - not necessarily in a good way - that it feels quaint to think of the original Doom as somehow controversial, but by the standards of the early 1990s, this cartoonish first-person shooter where you slay demons was pretty extreme. You can blast a demon's head off with a shotgun or use chainsaws to carve people up, and as a result the game drew unwanted attention from concerned parents and legislators.
However, the controversy around Doom reached new heights in the wake of the Columbine High School massacre in 1999, when Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris killed 13 people before taking their own lives. The two killers were fans of Doom, as well as id Software's previous game Wolfenstein 3D and rival series Duke Nukem, and Harris had created his own custom levels for Doom. As people looked for answers to their actions in the aftermath, id Software and its games came under the microscope in a way that few other games ever have.
3. Manhunt
Another controversial series from Rockstar Games. Manhunt received a decent amount of attention, both good and bad, by delivering plenty of cringe-inducing carnage and mayhem. In the game you portray James Earl Cash, a death row prisoner offered a grim choice – clean house on a deadly gang, or return to prison. Cash chooses the former, and finds himself dealing with an unseen figure named The Director, who orders the deaths of gang members in the bloodiest ways possible - sneaking up behind someone and suffocating them with a plastic bag being a relatively mild example.
Manhunt was banned in several countries, and its sequel drew similar controversy, but the series was fairly successful regardless, and considered a bit smarter in hindsight than its gratuitous framing suggested at the time.
