Games that give you an adrenaline rush

[WhiteNachos]

I love a game that can give a reliable adrenaline rush, and it's a topic I haven't seen discussed much so I thought I'd make one. What are games that give you an adrenaline rush and why.

For me the two big contenders are Hotline Miami and Burnout 3 and I'll get into why.

Hotline Miami does everything it can to keep the pace at a breakneck speed (except for that one hospital level). You go from room to room killing people, but you die instantly from any mistake and you can restart instantly. As Yahtzee put it "I'd call it "trial and error" but the pacing is way too fast for a whole two syllable word. It's more like "trial and err- Restart, try again!"". The music helps a lot too. So you get this flow going of "ok kill this guy over here, now shoot this guy over there, fuck I died, ok now let's kill that guy again, take his pipe, and Holy Shit where did that guy come from? Die Die Die." Attempts blur into the next, with the music keeping a frantic pace till you're flailing and shooting at everything in sight and your failures remind you that the game will not go easy on you.

Burnout 3 is a racing game that encourages you to drive like a maniac (like say driving in the oncoming lane) and ram your opponents off the road or into traffic by giving you more turbo boost for doing so. It's a much slower build to the adrenaline rushe than Miami but it's still probably my favorite game ever. The game's really good at making you feel like you're driving really fast, and when you are driving really fast pedestrian traffic becomes much harder to avoid. A couple times I'll get really far behind and the only way to catch up is to constantly drive in oncoming traffic so that I can keep turbo boosting the whole way through. And when you do this, the distant blur representing a pedestrian car becomes a solid object you have to avoid hitting in less than a second. Now when you do reach the opponents you have to spend effort trying to ram them off the road why they try to ram you off the road all while you're going at high speeds and you still have to keep an eye on traffic. It's great fun and I'd find myself shouting "come on mother fuckers, I'll take you on I'll take you ALL on" as I violently ram into them as hard as I can as often as I can while speeding down a highway.

So what games do you like for the adrenaline kick?

 

[Zontar]

Payday 2, a heist game. I'm pretty much always playing it with friends while we skype, and the thrill of almost getting the alarm set off always gets the blood pumping, because it can always go bad and then things get really interesting as we shoot our way out. Best moment in the game was taking out a guard that, while a friend was answering his pager, a civi spotted us and I had to yell him down. When another friend was tying HIM up so we could move him out of the way, another civi spotted us and this one started to run, and I had to shoot him. I had a silenced pistol, but that still left two more civies out in the open detect the action, which had me need to yell both of them down, tie them up, and move them into an out of the way spot. Now that was a rush.

Also Eve Online of all things. Whenever I hear something locking onto my ship it gets real. One example of this was an attempt by a ganker to get me while in a mining barge. Guy started to target me way too soon, by by the time he got a couple of shots off I was damaged but already gone. It was a low sec system, and that was what I had been waiting for. The station I docked with held a battlecruiser, so imagine his surprise when I smashed his destroyer with it. Didn't even get my shields depleted, his build was around maximizing DPS, he had no tank. Best moment in the game for me.

 

[aozgolo]

I don't usually get "actual" Adrenaline Rushes from video games, usually just a case of the "Sweaty Hands" but there's a few moments that make me go edge of my seat.


I think Shadow of the Colossus is the best example of a game I've played that really makes me be extra careful to not F* it up, having to climb back up onto a Colossus after falling off can be devastating.

 

[Frezzato]

HELL YES Burnout 3. Nothing comes close, other than some of the follow-up Burnout games. Such an experience, the ending is something I wish I could experience again, for the first time. I played it for some marathon sessions, so much that my right index finger (throttle) started to hurt so much I thought it would break. Driving in real life after playing Burnout was a strange, scary experience. I was jittery and overly careful. I think it was the first and only time a game made me feel like I was on something. As far as endings go, my first playthrough was perfect because the song Congratulations Smack and Katy [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9CNSbJ-PLg] came on just as the credits started rolling.

Another game that gave me a rush was the first time I played Far Cry: Instincts. It was right after you literally become a monster. Bad guys would run from you for a change. And you really begin to feel like an animal.

 

[Maximum Bert]

Games have given me an adrenaline rush in certain situations but there is no game I can point to that is certain or even likely to do that. I suppose a fighter is most likely to give me anything close to an adrenaline rush, its just not something that games have ever really provided me with though.

 

[Lufia Erim]

Guilty gear xrd. Well fighting games in general. There is nothing like going one on one with a fighting game. Just yesterday i was playing a couple of matches my Elphelt vs areally good Zato=1, and i swear if i kelt going i would have had a heart attack.

 

[The Wykydtron]

I suppose fighting games and sometimes MOBA games depending on who i'm playing, good luck getting a rush if you're playing Nasus and are doing Nasus things for 50 minutes.

Makoto in BlazBlue is awesome for rushes because she can do nothing but rush people down and fucking punch them with superpowered brass knuckles, that's what she's designed for. My main girl Mu-12 can be chill though, when I manage the zoning potential correctly. Like the one time I beat a Tager online was a double perfect after losing the first round. I was cold as ice just summoning guns in the optimal places and he just had nowhere to go.

How can I get hype over a Tager? He's disgusting as hell.

Also Labrys in Persona 4 Ultimax, her new autocombo is the swaggiest thing ever. Also I once managed to close a fullscreen gap on a Naoto when I was on one single hit from anything and beat her when she was on half. The hypest obstacle course of block/dash/jump/block was real, P4 is a good game in that chip damage can never kill you, just put you on 1HP. Keeping a perfect defence actually works in that game.

Finally I suppose playing Yasuo in League is pretty hype, even if literally 90% of all mid characters counter him. His level 1 is good though,if you're not bad and take Q first because E is the gimmick that no longer works. That contextual ultimate is up there in terms of satisfying ult animations, I almost hate to use other people's knockups to ult, it feels so cheap. With your own tornado it has a cool period of anticipation, at least if you don't use the unmissable dash circle version. Yeah i'm not one of those Yasuo players who expect everyone to pick knockups around him, get good scrub, hit your own shit. Even the most standard Yasuo play looks like the coolest thing ever. Yasuo is probably the only person where Flashing away, throwing the empowered Q back behind him then immediately ulting back onto that enemy makes any sense whatsoever. Once I actually needed to do that cuz apparently Yasuo can't tank tower shots.

*3 man knockup, 100HP Yasuo ults back in*

I immediately regret my decision. Too much bravery.

 

[jhoroz]

Fighting and defeating bosses in Souls games always gets my blood pumping. The earlier parkour sections of Mirror's Edge are also very visceral and breath taking (especially the one where you're sliding down a building while a helicopter is shooting at you). I'm not a huge fan of VR, but that is definitely a game I'd like to play with an Occulus Rift.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

The boss fights in Bayonetta always did it for me. Also, "escorting" Liberty Prime to the purifier in Fallout 3.

Solve puzzle; fire + brim stone.

 

[Poetic Nova]

I gett it everytime when I play as my main in BL2, playing on OP8 (lvl80 enemies, gear but a lvl72 character) gives alot of moments where you have to react fast just not to fall in Fight For Your Life mode (FFYL gives you 15 seconds to gett back up on your feet, otherwise you respawn, which has a bigger impact on the Mechromancer than the other 5 characters).

Already had alot of close calls, but I love it.

 

[Dizchu]

Doom and Unreal Tournament.

Crank up that difficulty and you're in for a wild ride. It gets exhausting because it's constant action but damn, it's really, really good action.

 

[SoreWristed]

Any Wipeout game.

Wipeout, lately playing Wipeout HD/Fury, is a game that you need to train at. Because it get's ridiculous. You also can't leave it alone for a time because you'll lose the skills somehow.

The faster leagues keep you on the edge of your seat continuously. Playing zone mode (continually speeding up untill you eventually crash) get's my blood pumping, especially since I want to complete them to perfection.

It also has the one of my personal favourite soundtracks.

 

[WhiteNachos]

Payday 2, a heist game. I'm pretty much always playing it with friends while we skype, and the thrill of almost getting the alarm set off always gets the blood pumping, because it can always go bad and then things get really interesting as we shoot our way out. Best moment in the game was taking out a guard that, while a friend was answering his pager, a civi spotted us and I had to yell him down. When another friend was tying HIM up so we could move him out of the way, another civi spotted us and this one started to run, and I had to shoot him. I had a silenced pistol, but that still left two more civies out in the open detect the action, which had me need to yell both of them down, tie them up, and move them into an out of the way spot. Now that was a rush.

Interesting, I've only ever played Payday 2 with random people online, and every time someone goes for stealth someone accidentally trips the alarm (sometimes me). So I always just expect it to happen. Perhaps if there was more co-ordination it'd be different.

 

[Pikey Mikey]

I don't know about Adrenaline Rush, but "Excessive sweating" is something I get very easily from Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance and (worse) from Lethal League (playing with some friends. Always starts out fun and games but as the match goes on it becomes serious time). When I'm done, I almost always take a shower because I need to =P

 

[King of Asgaard]

Most recently: Dark Souls, Metal Gear Rising, and Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate have all given me that sense of blood pumping, especially during the more key boss fights; their feeling of the great stakes are unparalleled.

 

[Aeshi]

For me it's World of Tanks, probably owing to my habit of favouring the faster Scouting & Flanking tanks (the Pz.I C in particular)

Whether it's hiding in cover, spotting enemy tanks for my team, knowing that any moment I might be spotted myself and ending up having to run from a hailstorm of shells...

...Or charging out of cover, gunning down an enemy tank, drifting behind a 2nd one, watching said 2nd enemy lose half his health from friendly fire from his over-eager allies, finishing the job and then racing back out of sight before they can reposition.

Sometimes after a particularly intense match I have to just quit the game and relax a bit because I feel like any more excitement would make my heart burst through my ribcage.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Nethack, finally making an ascension run after 10s or 100s of perma-deaths is guaranteed to get my heart beating faster.

 

[Pyrian]

Mirror's Edge. ...Maybe it's just because I'm scared of heights, lol...

 

[Zontar]

Payday 2, a heist game. I'm pretty much always playing it with friends while we skype, and the thrill of almost getting the alarm set off always gets the blood pumping, because it can always go bad and then things get really interesting as we shoot our way out. Best moment in the game was taking out a guard that, while a friend was answering his pager, a civi spotted us and I had to yell him down. When another friend was tying HIM up so we could move him out of the way, another civi spotted us and this one started to run, and I had to shoot him. I had a silenced pistol, but that still left two more civies out in the open detect the action, which had me need to yell both of them down, tie them up, and move them into an out of the way spot. Now that was a rush.

Interesting, I've only ever played Payday 2 with random people online, and every time someone goes for stealth someone accidentally trips the alarm (sometimes me). So I always just expect it to happen. Perhaps if there was more co-ordination it'd be different.

That could possibly end up happening. In most of the matches that don't have the police automatically start attacking me and my buddies usually manage. Oh course the thrill comes from the fact that sometimes we do in fact screw up.

 

[Bad Jim]

Why not try out a bullet hell shmup? Such as Crimson Clover: World Ignition


There's actually a number of decent shmups on Steam, other notable ones I've played being Jamestown and Ikaruga, although Ikaruga is a love it or hate it thing, it's (puts on shades) a bit polarising.