Hell is meant to be eternal punishment for the souls of sinners. Suffering. Torment. Demons. Screaming. All things like that - nasty horrible things. Because the concept of Hell has been perpetuated over thousands of years and is well established as somewhere not nice, it’s always a popular environment choice for game developers as it’s such universally recognised shorthand for ‘you don’t want to be here’. At least that’s the idea.

While plenty of games have given us traditional, evil fire world depictions of Hell, there are some instances where the Devil’s dominion bucks the trend by being decidedly free from everlasting damnation and--as Hell goes--really isn’t so bad after all...

Hell is... a Pac-Man clone made by Shigeru Miyamoto

An early NES curio from important Nintendo man Shigeru Miyamoto (and the equally important but not so well known Takashi Tezuka) shows that even the perpetually smiling Miyamoto’s dark side is only slightly less cheerful than a rainbow.

The titular ‘Devil World’ (which we’ll conveniently assume is Hell), is a labyrinthine arrangement of corridors occupied by not very terrifying one-eyed demons that are pink. The game’s hero, a cutesy winged dragon called Tamagon, wanders the maze eating dots and ice cream, avoiding the pink minions of Beelzebub, and collecting religious iconography, which there seems to be a curious abundance of considering it’s the Devil World and everything.

Also, the Devil in this Hell is particularly ineffectual. He has the comical appearance of a dwarfish, out-of-shape Mexican wrestler, and the extent of his power seems to be pointing his fingers. He'd be better at directing traffic than being Lord of Darkness.

Hell is... designed to accommodate the demands of the modern skater

A secret area which becomes accessible by doing a bunch of nonsense and travelling through a series of portals, THUG 2’s version of Hell is an irresistible playground of opportunity for skaters. Do a tricky trick on the ribcage. Invert your goofy over the river of lava. This Hell is for skating--presumably for all eternity--so go wild.

If you do get bored playing on your wheeled plank and fancy a change of pace, you can always join the Devil for a dance. He can be found in the lounge area (yes this Hell has a lounge area) wearing a smoking jacket and reclining on a luxuriant chaise lounge. For all his faults, the insatiable red-faced consumer of souls clearly has good taste in music, with Frank Sinatra’s ‘That’s Life’ and ‘Ring of Fire’ by Johnny Cash both on the play list. He can’t be all bad then, surely?

Hell is... Where the good guy lives

Look at that screenshot. Does anthropomorphic chicken discharge Dizzy look terrified to be in Hades? He does not. He is smiling. He has discovered the bad afterlife of suffering and damnation isn’t that bad. It’s only one screen big and is also a source of valuable minerals. The most hellish thing in this Hell is the colour scheme.

But what about Satan – surely the Bible bad guy, defiler of godliness, peddler of sin, and the very personification of evil, boils Dizzy like an, er, egg in the scorching flames of his dominion? Actually he doesn’t because it turns out the Devil’s not so bad either. In fact, he’s a good guy - he helps Dizzy defeat the evil wizard Zax and then transports Dizzy and all his egg friends home. Thanks Devil.

Hell is... a noisy guitar version of the Charlie Daniels Band’s good ol’ country tune ‘The Devil Went Down to Georgia’

After being unwittingly signed and managed by the Devil (aka Lou aka Lucifer), an attempt to renege on contractual obligations leads the player to an almighty rock duel in Lou’s Inferno, located somewhere in Hell, against an axe-wielding Horn Lord.

As a heavy metal approximation of the Underworld, this isn’t so much a purgatorial holding pen for tortured souls, but more a paradise for tabard-wearing music enthusiasts with an appreciation for loud guitar-based noise. As a venue, Hell is equipped with an impressive speaker array, smoke machines, a wide variety of stage lighting and pyrotechnics, and dancing lady demons.

And all you have to do to get away is out-guitar the Devil--once beaten he plunges into the depths of Hell (which we don’t really understand but whatever)--and everyone escapes on winged motorbikes.

Hell is... an eternity of fantasy erotica

We’re not going to try and explain precisely how or why or what, but take our word for it that an optimum ending to this unusual game concludes with protagonist Vincent being sent to Hell, where he exists in a perpetual male fantasy surrounded by perpetually aroused succubi who want to pleasure him perpetually. And persistently. While perspiring. Probably.

But the perpetually aroused succubi are mere distractions from Vincent’s beautiful wife--the daughter of the Plenipotentiary of the Netherworld i.e. the Devil--who is herself also in a constant state of near indefatigable arousal. As if all that wasn’t enough, Vincent and his lady friends get a big comfy sofa to languish their bodies upon while in the lubricant throes of pleasurement - a big comfy sofa that is actually the aforementioned Plenipotentiary of the Netherworld. We know. It’s weird, but as Hell goes, not entirely unappealing.

Are there more gaming Hells which fail to live up to the biblical billing and are actually not too bad when you stop and consider the alternatives? We’d like to hear about those Hells. Please tell us about them.

And if you’re looking for more, check out The Top 7... Evil Clones and Deeply Disturbing Deaths from Retro Games.