Narc

Narc was released in 1988 by Williams as a gritty top-down action shooter in which the player, as an anti-drug agent, fights their way through streets full of dealers and gangsters. The main weapon is a rocket launcher capable of literally tearing enemies apart, which at the time of release was a shocking degree of graphic violence, quickly earning the game a reputation as one of the most controversial arcade titles of its era and making it a target of criticism from parental and social organizations.

Besides street shootouts, the game also included brief interludes in which the player arrests dealers and destroys confiscated drugs, at least formally trying to frame its violence as a fight against crime. In terms of gameplay it's a fairly straightforward run-and-gun with collectible weapons and bonuses, in which the player moves through the city from one shootout to the next, but it was precisely the raw graphics and dark street atmosphere that made it a standout on arcade machines, always drawing a crowd of onlookers.

Narc comes from the studio of Eugene Jarvis, creator of Defender and Robotron, who returned with it to fast, uncompromising action, this time set in a contemporary big city instead of sci-fi surroundings. It's precisely this contrast between his earlier abstract space shooters and Narc's raw realism that still sparks discussion about the genre's development today. Due to its content, the game is clearly intended for an adult audience.

Why play it: Narc is a reminder of how far arcade games were willing to go in the rawness of both theme and graphics, even before violence in video games became a widely debated topic.