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WARNING There was a time when making a video game meant little more than having a basic understanding of a programming language and a day or two to work on it. When I was in grades three to five, I was making really crappy commodore 64 games in my bedroom. At the time, I think the difference between me and some people who actually made games for a living was simply that they had money, contacts, and persistence enough to get their games published.
At some point in history, games stopped being made by a handful of people in a basement and started being made by big companies. As such, most games these days have a certain amount of sense. Companies have marketing divisions and will usually be able to tell that a game where you hunt down aliens with hi-tech weaponry will strike more of a chord with players than a game where you control a shirtless kung fu master that beats up ninjas and green sumo wrestlers in a brightly coloured arena full of conveyor belts.
I theorize that there was a point in which two friends could get stoned in their basement, fire up their computer, and program whatever messed up thoughts passed into the remaining portion of their mind. They could make it into a video game and it would end up on store shelves, a feat which just isn\'t as possible today.
I think that point ended in 1996, which is the year that Mario 64 came out.

Most of the games pictured and depicted here came out before 1996 and are often the results of strange cultural differences (particularly from Japan), and/or what I think may have been some extremely potent illegal substances. What you are about to witness may shock or disturb you, and maybe make you laugh. Prolonged exposure to these games may cause strain on a single eyebrow from repeated raising and lowering. In some cases you may be unable to stop uttering "What the hell?" for several hours after you leave this page.

You have been warned.
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