No, it’s not any of the Assassin’s Creed Games, Call of Duty, Halo, Metal Gear Solid, or anything like that. The manliest video game of all time (and I’ve been researching this since the age of 5) is and always will be Altered Beast. It was first released in 1988 for Arcade and Sega Genesis by designer Makoto Ushida (Golden Axe) and can still be found today for Nintendo Wii’s Virtual Console, Playstation 3’s Playstation Network, and Xbox 360’s Xbox Live Arcade. It’s an old game, but it’s one that people are still playing because everything about it is badass.
You play as a nameless Centurion brought back from the dead by Zeus to rescue his daughter, Athena from the demon god, Neff. The game starts with the voice of Zeus bellowing “rise from your grave!”
Then a coffin rises up out of the ground, explodes and out walks this Maximus-from-Gladiator-type dude who came to fuck shit up. So, now you’re this undead Centurion fighting your way through the graveyard against an assortment of zombies and winged yellow demons. You come across a group of three dogs as you go. Kill the blue dog and a blue orb floats up. If you catch the orb you power up, i.e. become more buff and intimidating. Two power ups basically turn you into Terry Crews, three power ups turn you into an altered beast and they’re different in each level.
The first altered beast you get to be is a werewolf, that’s right, a fucking werewolf. He can cut across the screen super fast and shoot fireballs from his fists. At the end of each level, you fight Neff in different forms. As the wolf in the first level, you have to fight Neff manifested as Aggar, a big red monster who’s face kind of looks like Burgess Meredith’s. He is primarily made up of earth and rotting corpses and has endlessly spawning heads which he rips off and throws at you. If you can dodge the heads and defeat Neff, you’re power ups are taken away and you follow Neff to the Underworld where you’re faced with giant leeches, Chinese Dragon-headed rattlesnakes (Yes, you read that correctly. That’s what they are.), and these mean chicken stinger things that whip their tails at you to knock you down. It’s tough going until you power up to your altered beast which in this level is (dramatic pause) a fucking dragon. You become a dragon that spits lightning bolts and can create an electric field around it. You use these powers to defeat Neff in the form of Octeyes, a plant-like creature that attacks by dispersing lots of poisonous spores in the shape of eyeballs.
It gets even crazier in the Cavern of Souls where you fight through legions of giant ants, snail/turtle creatures, and bigger, tougher zombies to become a big bad werebear that can turn enemies into wood-carved statues and jump and roll into a ball smashing enemies in its path. With the Werebear, you fight Mouldy Snail that is part snail and part salamander. It’s got a long spike coming from its shell and it attacks with streams of green fireballs.
Yes! So far, we’ve got ancient Greek mythology, a warrior brought back from the dead, demons, zombies, and all manner of freaky monsters. The game is super tough and you can’t save or pick up health. Victory is only awarded to those manly enough to stick it out to the end and persevere.
The next level is Neff’s place where you fight past zombies and flying demons with croquet mallets to become a weretiger to fight Neff as Crocodile Worm. Crocodile Worm is one of the toughest bosses. It’s a crocodile-headed monster that can breathe fire and summon small fire dragons. Only a weretiger can handle that. The last level is the most badass (also the most difficult) point in the game where you fight against goat men, boar men, saw fish, and purple unicorn men to power up to a Golden Werewolf. Yeah, a fucking Golden Werewolf fighting demons from hell!
This is the City of Dis, the final level where Neff shows up as an armored rhinoceros creature who does not play games. In my field research I have found that the rhinoceros is the manliest of creatures. It’s a big brute that charges at random and loses its temper easily. That’s us in a nutshell, not all the time, but a lot of the time.
This game really channels your inner man. I wouldn’t recommend playing it for six hours on end, but play it for a while. It’s challenging and brutal, the way video games should be and you get to play as Russell Crowe in Gladiator transforming into beasts to fight badass, evil creatures. It’s fantastic and “out there” but at the same time simple and down to earth. It’s imaginative, yet masculine like. It’s the manliest video game of all time.
Article By: Thomas S. Henry
