The Game: Gladiator Deathmatch
Developer: The Romans
Release date: 80 AD
Genre: Action
Number of players: Multi
Rating: Rated M for being the most brutal, violent, and inhumane form of entertainment ever.

There was a lot of public concern about how a casual twitch of the thumb could kill a virtual cop in Grand Theft Auto. But in ancient Rome, citizens flooded giant amphitheaters to watch the most brutal, violent, and inhumane form of entertainment ever, the gladiatorial games. Whether or not a defeated gladiator lived or died in these public shows was often determined by the audience with the turn of a thumb.

Pre-show events whet the audience's appetite for more violence by starting things off with animal-on-animal deathmatches, hunts, and public executions. The emperor, Nero was known to have penned plays specifically for these introductory executions. Prisoners sentenced to death in these sadistic tales were cast to play characters that were killed at the plot's climax. How's that for intense performance art?

Above: Are you interested in gore, orgies, slavery, and rape? You don’t need to play an M-rated videogame. Just go to your public library and get some bloody books. Some even have pictures like this and the librarian won’t even check your ID

Simulated violence

So are games really more violent today? Neutering someone with a pair of clippers in Manhunt 2 and Mortal Kombat's bloody Fatalities look pretty gruesome. But these simulated acts of violence are always confined to the virtual reality of the videogame. Aren't more graphic representations of ultra-violent acts preferable to real-life games of life and death?

Check out the blood soaked montages of videogame violence below and decide for yourself.

Below: 231 Mortal Kombat Fatalities



Below: Gears of Wars’ bloodiest kills


Below: See Manhunt 2 uncensored and raw