Editorials
King of the Consoles: 7 of the Best ‘Godzilla’ Games
Godzilla has managed to remain relevant for 65 years, and not even Matthew Broderick could destroy the giant walking nuke. It’s stomped to a run of more than 30 feature films in that time. Naturally, a giant monster destroying things and battling other giant monsters is well suited to video games, so Godzilla has had quite a few of those to its name too, and with Godzilla: King of the Monsters arriving in cinemas soon, we thought it would be a fine time to list some of the best Godzilla games ever made.
Much like the films, there’s good, bad, and pretty ugly ones over the years (2014’s Godzilla game was certainly all three). The best Godzilla games captured the spirit of the radioactive behemoth to some degree, even if they weren’t exactly ‘great’ games.
So here you go, seven of the best Godzilla games, without a Godzooky in sight.
City Shrouded in Shadow (2017) PS4 -Japan Only
Granzella, created of the extremely undervalued Disaster Report series, survival horror, but against natural disaster rather than monsters or ghosts. Here it took that formula to the next level with City Shrouded in Shadow.
Rather than playing as the monsters, you play as human characters. You must try to escape the carnage caused by the many legendary monsters trashing the place. Godzilla’s roster of behemoths is bolstered by characters from other prominent series including Ultraman and Neon Genesis Evangelion.
To play as a human witnessing the destruction Godzilla is causing firsthand is a fairly unique twist among the Godzilla games made over the years. While the game is a tad clunky, it works well at replicating the peril of escaping city-smashing giants.
Sadly, the game has yet to see the light of day outside Japan. So importing and winging it on the Japanese text is currently your best and only option.
Godzilla: Monster of Monsters (1988) NES, Famicom
Monster of Monsters is debatably the first genuinely good Godzilla game, and while it hasn’t aged too well in gameplay terms, it does still look the business for an 8-bit title.
A 2D side-scroller, Monster of Monsters allowed players to control Godzilla and Mothra as they team up to fight back against alien invaders who have roped a bunch of other Toho monsters into fighting on their behalf, (a surprisingly) common theme in the Godzilla film series. The hub resembles a chess board, which Godzilla and Mothra must clear by finishing their attached levels and defeating the monsters on them.
Godzilla’s name may be on the marquee, but this game featured monsters from a whole host of Japanese sci-fi films, including The Mysterians, Frankenstein Conquers the World, and Space Amoeba.
Godzilla (2014) PS3, PS4
Given this is the newest on this list of the best Godzilla games, surely it’s the ultimate Godzilla game? Alas, it’s a disaster. It looks a generation behind visually speaking, and doesn’t balance the rather treacly combat with fair threats. But importantly, it often feels like a celebration of the franchise and surprisingly true to the battles of the Toho films. You can trash cities and fight monsters as not only Godzilla in several of his designs, but also Rodan, Battra, King Ghidorah, Gian, Mothra, and more.
It also features online multiplayer, which is honestly an absolute hoot.
If you can find it cheap, there’s some joy to it. Unfortunately for those in need of that catharsis, you can’t kick the shit out of Roland Emmerich’s Godzilla.
Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee (2002) Gamecube, Xbox
Arguably, Pipeworks Software made the best Godzilla games. Destroy All Monsters Melee is often cited as the proof alongside the follow-up Save the Earth.
This was a brawler-style game where you fight other monsters in order to release them from the control of evil alien race the Vortaak. They have enslaved the kaiju in order to take control of Earth. Eleven classic monsters from the Godzilla series were playable including the first-ever monster rival to Godzilla, Anguirus, and Godzilla 2000‘s Orga.
Godzilla: Save the Earth (2004) PS2, Xbox
The follow-up to Destroy All Monsters Melee takes place a couple of years after the events of that game. It builds on all it did right with new modes, and mechanics. It also adds Mothra, Jet Jaguar, and Battra to the roster.
It’s not a huge leap from Destroy All Monsters Melee. It does smooth many of its rougher edges.
Super Godzilla (1993) SNES
As with the 2014 Godzilla game, Super Godzilla had plenty for the hardcore. As a game, it’s a bit less enthralling. You simply aim a dot around a rather basic map, while animated images of Godzilla appear above that reflect your actions. Mercifully when it came to fighting other monsters you get a 2D fighter template.
For the time, the game captured the sound design of the movies. That was pretty much unprecedented at that point. The story is utterly bonkers too. Aliens give powers to monsters and Godzilla having to go on a quest to become strong enough to best the threat of Mecha-King Ghidorah and later, Bagan.
Godzilla: The Series (1999) Gameboy Color
If one good thing came out of 1998’s infamous Godzilla movie, then it was the animated series that followed it. It brought back the redesigned King of the Monsters and let him fight other Kaiju in a largely unrelated plot to the film. It just makes sense really. There’s a licensed video game of course, because it was still the 90s. While basic, this side-scrolling fighter lets you wallop monster and machine alike as Godzilla in portable form.
What do you think are the best Godzilla games? Let us know in the comments!
Comics
‘Spider-Noir’ Comic Changes Explained: How the TV Series Reinvents Marvel’s Darkest Spider-Man
A little while back, I wrote an article chronicling the Hellraiser franchise’s affinity for Film Noir and touched on how that genre has, historically, always been connected to horror.
This connection can be observed in everything from the cannibalistic serial killers of Frank Miller’s Sin City to the disturbing criminal plots fueling neo-noir thrillers like Stuart Gordon’s underrated King of the Ants. That’s why it came as no surprise when I finally sat down to watch all eight episodes of Prime Video’s recently released Spider-Noir series and was confronted with plenty of classic horror tropes.
What did come as a surprise, however, was how showrunners Oren Uziel and Steve Lightfoot approached these horror elements when compared to the 2009 comic book that the show is based on. From the heavily altered rogue’s gallery to an equally terrifying yet completely different origin story for Nicolas Cage’s take on the webslinger, there are plenty of changes here that I feel might be of interest to genre fans.
With that in mind, I’d like to invite readers to take a closer look at all the adjustments that Spider-Noir made to the story in order to bring this incarnation of Spider-Man to life in all of its monochromatic glory (unless you watched the True-Hue color version of the show, in which case you’ll be treated to a surprisingly comic-booky palette that you don’t usually see on television).
The Dark Origins of Marvel’s Spider-Man Noir
Our first order of business should be to examine the origins of the Noir comics themselves. Originally published as part of the Marvel Noir alternate universe that reimagined several characters as hard-boiled crime-fighters, Spider-Man Noir became the most successful book in the entire run. This highly politicized story about Peter Parker coming to terms with the capitalist evils of the Great Depression seemed to have struck a nerve with audiences looking for a darker take on the wall-crawler, which is likely why we’d soon see several sequel stories as well as a video game adaptation of the character in 2010’s underrated Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions.
Of course, it wasn’t just Spider-Man’s darker disposition that made this version of the character a hit, as 1930s New York City was depicted as being much more hostile than what we generally see in the standard Marvel Universe. From Peter’s powers coming from an Eldritch Spider God that spawns man-eating arachnids to Vulture being an ex-Freak-Show Gimp with a taste for human flesh, you can definitely understand why this Web-Head isn’t pulling his punches.
Unfortunately, this alternate universe was a little too popular for its own good, with each subsequent sequel/adaptation further diluting the political anger and classic horror influences that fueled the original comic-book run in order to appeal to a wider audience. Spider-Man Noir was nearly unrecognizable once we got to the Spider-Verse crossover that turned the character into a household name, though this would at least lead to an interesting adaptation in 2018.
The Classic Horror Influences Hidden Throughout Spider-Noir
Jack Huston as Sandman in ‘Spider-Noir’
When Phil Lord and Chris Miller finally translated Spider-Man Noir to the big screen, with Nicolas Cage bringing the character to life in an unexpected case of pitch-perfect casting, he was still mostly relegated to comic relief as his nazi-punching antics and over-the-top edginess were played for laughs. However, while this version of the character had little to do with the comics that spawned him, Spider-Noir’s newfound popularity eventually resulted in the announcement of a darker live-action spin-off – a spin-off that I was cautiously optimistic about.
While the showrunners ultimately decided to go in a completely different direction than the 2009 comic, the new team of writers appeared to understand Noir as a genre in ways that even the folks at Marvel Noir couldn’t quite grasp. That’s likely why 2026’s Spider-Noir boasts plenty of horror elements, just not in ways we’ve seen them before.
The series is obviously borrowing tropes and aesthetics from period-accurate monster movies, with Universal’s 1930s output being a particularly big influence. From the re-imagining of Sandman and Tombstone as tragic figures to The Spider even being operated on by a mad scientist with hilariously antiquated techniques, this bizarre collection of super-powered freaks could have easily shown up in a classic creature feature.
The scares aren’t all retro, however, as the showrunners also injected plenty of body-horror into the mix during their attempt at unifying the origin stories for all these larger-than-life characters. Hell, the Spider himself is now revealed to have gained his powers after being bitten by a half-mutated Man-Spider during World War I, and the aforementioned mad scientist keeps a disturbing collection of failed experiments in her basement, proving that not all of her patients were lucky enough to simply gain superpowers after being experimented on.
Nicolas Cage Reinvents Spider-Man Noir for Television
Ben Reilly/Spiderman (Nicolas Cage) in SPIDER-NOIR
Photo: Aaron Epstein/Prime
© Amazon Content Services LLC
I also really appreciate how Cage insists on depicting Ben Reilly as an arachnid trapped inside of a human body, with his uncanny physical performance and classic Hollywood impressions keeping your eyes glued to the screen while also providing some of the show’s funniest moments.
I still think it’s a shame that the character is no longer politically motivated, and I miss the detail about Uncle Ben having been cannibalized by Vulture after his social activism ruffled too many feathers, but at least this time our protagonist actually feels like someone who could have been written by Raymond Chandler if he were a fan of Superheroes.
In fact, the writers nailed the snappy back-and-forth that Noir authors like Dashiel Hammett used to refer to as the “riposte”, and it’s fun to see supervillains being depicted as horrific movie monsters instead of specialized henchmen – with The Spider feeling like just as much of a Freak Show attraction as the rest of them. Purists might be put off by the lack of reverence for the source material, but I think that’s a small price to pay when even the show’s most clichéd moments intentionally harken back to the golden age of Hollywood.
That’s why I’d argue that Amazon’s Spider-Noir isn’t really an adaptation, but rather an equally valid take on the same premise that inspired Marvel back in 2009. And in a world filled with recycled storylines that only serve to advertise future releases, I’d rather have two completely different visions of the same character than a straight-up retelling of the same handful of ideas.
At the end of the day, there’s enough space inside this comic fan’s heart for both man-eating Vultures and a Cronenberg-inspired Man-Spider. And if you’re also a fan of nostalgic creature features with comic book flair, I’d highly recommend this street-level superhero story with a spooky twist.
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