Need a good venting game. Suggestions?

[Alorxico]

My husband and I have a little problem. We find ourselves coming home from work stressed out and wanting to vent our frustrations on unsuspecting computer generated baddies, but none of our games allow for that. They are all "please sneak here", "kill this target", "wait your turn", "that area is only unlocked after you complete Quest X", "Oh, you can't use that talent until you have leveled up", "you can't have that gun until you have leveled up" type of games.

We just need / want a game where you can sit down, choose a level, maybe tweak some stats (are you invincible, what guns do you have, what guns don't your enemies don't have) then go on a killing spree. No plot to complete, no level blocks, no 13 year old kid who has spent the last few weeks playing the game rather than going to school calling you a c***; just a game controller, a stupid AI and endless bullets.

Anyone have any suggestions?

~~ Al

 

[Vegosiux]

Orcs must die 2.

Okay, it does have levels, and takes about half an hour before you get the cool traps, but you get to shoot at orcs walking into traps you set for them. And it's a 2-player co-op (or singleplayer if you want)!

I do recommend it for venting.

 

[aozgolo]

Just Cause 2 is a pretty good game for this I think. It's open world, and the ways you can kill baddies is just plain fun. You have a grappling hook you can use to yank enemies off buildings, attach them to a ceiling to play pinata with them, or drag them behind your vehicle screaming. Tons of guns, most require ammo which is plentiful, or you can just rip up a machine gun and tote it around for endless rounds of destruction. Tons of vehicles, tons of things to blow up. The story is easy to ignore if you don't care to bother with it. The Side Missions are pretty basic stuff but allow plenty of opportunities to just kill baddies en masse.

It's a single player game however the PC version does have a multiplayer mod for it which lets you play with others if you are so inclined.

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

Ah, in that case you might want to look into the Serious Sam series.

They're elegant in their simplicity. It's just you, hordes of enemies charging at you and an arsenal of weapons to unload into them. Serious Sam First Encounter and Second Encounter are arguably the best ones and both have HD versions. Painkiller, Hard Reset and Shadow Warrior (2013 version) have very similar gameplay, but I don't find them as fun to play. Still good mind you, but less so.

And if you don't mind having to do some light puzzling and exploring, any old school fps will do: Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, Shadow Warrior (1997 version), Quake, Unreal,...

 

[ShinyCharizard]

Are you playing on a console (if so which one) or PC?

 

[Mekanicum]

Saints Row IV. If the thought of blowing away hordes of aliens with a gun that fires weaponized dub-step, then following it up by dive bombing off the top of a skyscraper so hard you cause a nuclear explosion DOESN'T instantly fill you with joy then you're just empty inside.

 

[Darks63]

If you have a console (xbox360 or ps3) Other than the obvious saints row series and GTA series you can try the Prototype games and the Infamous game. If you have a 360 another great open world game is the 2 crackdown games.

 

[Exhuminator]

OP, this is the game you want:

http://www.gog.com/game/postal_2_complete

There is no better "venting" game in existence.

 

[Foolery]

Dynasty Warriors. Or maybe Sengoku Basara Samurai Heroes. Or Dynasty Warriors Gundam 3. It's mindless fun. You just beat up hordes of enemies, get combos, and take down bosses to win maps. Very easy to pick up and play.

 

[Sack of Cheese]

Bulletstorm sounds like your kind of thing! It's fun, fast and super violent!
Also: Burnout revenge and Fight night/UFC Undisputed. Burnout revenge is all about crashing cars into walls, it's arcade-ish, you can just pick a level and blow it up. Set Fight night Round 4/Champion and UFC Undisputed's AI on easy and punch away, very satisfying.

 

[Alcamonic]

Prototype 1 and 2. While it does feature some unlocks, I'm sure you can use cheats to get by that easily.

What better way to vent than to eat, kill, maim and crash a damn helicopter into the chanceless military?

GTA is also a great series with plenty of cheat codes for your amusement. Low gravity for vehicles that makes a 10 ton tank fly when you fire it? Go for it!

 

[romanator0]

I would recommend torchlight 2. The combat is pretty meaty and you can kill enemies (and make them explode into chunks) fairly quickly and new gear that will most likely be an upgrade to what you have drops pretty regularly. Being an RPG it does have levels but they go by pretty quickly, I found that it only takes around 30 minutes to level up when I was around level 50 of 100.

I do recommend that you download a mod that removes the ability for enemies to crit you because they can occasionally cause damage spikes that will take you out instantly.

 

[Eve Charm]

Hmm I guess Left 4 dead would be pretty good choices for this.

I'd say a few more like the killing floor would be pretty good but it does have a leveling system that you'd have to more choose to ignore going for to play it mindless like you want.

 

[Andy of Comix Inc]

I've been playing Metal Gear Rising and it's fantastic at making you feel like the biggest badass in the world without actually really doing anything. It has a ridiculously low barrier to entry... though at the same time it has a stupidly high skill ceiling. It's really easy to do really cool things, though. It's super-brutal and super-fast and super-cathartic. Check it out.

Bulletstorm sounds like your kind of thing! It's fun, fast and super violent!

If I may offer a second opinion: Bulletstorm sucks. It's Call of Duty in space. I'd recommend instead, by the same studio (but different people), Painkiller. And by a different studio (but same people), the recent Shadow Warrior reboot. You could also go back and just play DOOM, or the spiritual successors DOOM 3 forgot to be with the Serious Sam games.

 

[Sonicron]

I've been playing Metal Gear Rising and it's fantastic at making you feel like the biggest badass in the world without actually really doing anything. It has a ridiculously low barrier to entry... though at the same time it has a stupidly high skill ceiling. It's really easy to do really cool things, though. It's super-brutal and super-fast and super-cathartic. Check it out.

I very much second this recommendation. There's still Metal Gear's habit of frequently hitting you with drawn-out cutscenes, but the gameplay is catharsis heaven. In combat you're basically a multi-limbed blender, and blade mode (the unique feature) allows for anything between bisecting your enemies and turning them into red mist. It's all so wonderfully over-the-top, and I loved every minute of it.

Also, if you want practically zero story and all fast-paced gun combat, I'm pretty sure the Serious Sam games should be right up your alley, as should Painkiller.

 

[Yopaz]

Bulletstorm sounds like your kind of thing! It's fun, fast and super violent!

If I may offer a second opinion: Bulletstorm sucks. It's Call of Duty in space. I'd recommend instead, by the same studio (but different people), Painkiller. And by a different studio (but same people), the recent Shadow Warrior reboot. You could also go back and just play DOOM, or the spiritual successors DOOM 3 forgot to be with the Serious Sam games.

Terrible game, but it does fit the description.

OT: As others have already said Saints Row 4 and Prototype are great for this kind. Saints Row 2 is good if you want some grounded merciless killing where the story also reflects your desire to kill which could be considered a bonus. I would think that as Andy recommended Metal Gear Rising is a good one too.

Killing Floor if you've got a PC. You can rack up kills like crazy in that game.

 

[svenjl]

My suggestion would be Vanquish, an often overlooked TPS that involves constant mayhem, chaos and lots of incredible robot destroying action - it was highly rated by critics and fans but never sold that well. It's crazy fun and very cheap nowadays. I would also recommend, as others have done, Just Cause 2, Saints Row and Bulletstorm. The Gears of War series is a great co-op experience if you enjoy playing together, as are the Halo games. Hope you both have fun!

 

[SHIFTYMACO]

Left for Dead, GTA and my all time favorite DOOM II,
Crank the 'ammo' and the 'walk through walls' cheats and run about blasting unsuspecting monsters and zombies into pixels.

 

[Kyrian007]

Just Cause 2 is a pretty good game for this I think. It's open world, and the ways you can kill baddies is just plain fun. You have a grappling hook you can use to yank enemies off buildings, attach them to a ceiling to play pinata with them, or drag them behind your vehicle screaming. Tons of guns, most require ammo which is plentiful, or you can just rip up a machine gun and tote it around for endless rounds of destruction. Tons of vehicles, tons of things to blow up. The story is easy to ignore if you don't care to bother with it. The Side Missions are pretty basic stuff but allow plenty of opportunities to just kill baddies en masse.

It's a single player game however the PC version does have a multiplayer mod for it which lets you play with others if you are so inclined.

I would really agree with Just Cause 2. I am still finding new ways to cause carnage and destruction in JC2 and I've owned it for over a year. Sandbox destruction games are just good for that kind of venting. Mercenaries, and even runs and sprees in GTA and Saints Row, all work well. I used to like pro wrestling games for that purpose too, nothing relieves tension like smashing a guy's head open with a brainbuster suplex or ddt from the top rope onto a ring bell over and over until you can take a bathroom break without hitting pause and he's still down when you come back. More recent wrestling games have been pretty terrible, the last good one I can remember was back during the original Xbox era and before that the N64.

I also liked vehicle combat for that purpose, but nothing recent has really been that good either. Nothing like the N64 and PS1 era and games like Twisted Metal 2, Rogue Trip, and Vigilante 8.

My favorite (and it's just me) is Trapt though. I think something may be really wrong with me, but as opposed to epic sandbox destruction Tecmo's Deception series is as close to premeditated serial murder as a videogame actually gets. There is nothing that calms me and makes me laugh more than designing and executing a more than 1 minute long, slow motion, juggling and flying through the air, multi-hit, death-combo with a series of traps that makes Acme labs pretty jealous.