There are video games that are fun to lull through. The relaxers. Journey. Flower.

These are not those games. These are the spinning augers of competition that slap you awake and demand your attention with a crackling cattle prod. There's no napping on these titles. If you're feeling sleepy or need to get fired up, throw in one of these guys (or gals) and you'll be raring to go:

 9. F-Zero GX is the thrill of leaning on a deactivated electric fence.

Faster and angrier than your colon forcing through black coffee and Taco Bell, F-Zero GX is a GameCube hover-racer that is relentless, challenging, and always leaves you verging on grim death. Its music is Red Bull to your ears. The AI's ruthlessness is baffling. It will spark the spirit of competition in you, even if that competition has no soul, cannot feel, and is a video game. For more words on F-Zero GX read our review.

8. Super Hexagon is a trendy, molecular reconstruction of "fun" at a hip video game bar.

Survive for five seconds. Die. Try to survive longer. You might last even less time. It's kind of the feeling of trying to close the porn on your computer now, now, right now! In short, Super Hexagon is "dodge the walls as they collapse in on you." Set to house music. While standing on a bongo board. And this all takes place inside a ride that has been pimped by Xzibit in 2005.

7. Greed and arrogance manifests in all of us in Resident Evil 4 Mercenaries mode.

Resident Evil 4 has a timeless campaign, true, but the Mercenaries minigame that unlocks at the end is a beautiful manifestation of greed versus logical thinking. You're in a contained environment. You get points for kills. The clock is counting down and you want to score more points before it hits zero, but if you grab that extra 60 second power up, adding time, you might not live to tell about it, then you'll get nothing.

It's beautiful bait. It's a shot in the arm.

6. God Hand is a violent, video game bachelor party.

Punch that guy! Barrel kick that guy! Grab that guy's weapon! Shit, throw that red barrel at that fat guy!

Oh, balls, that one guy you beat the tar out of spawned an extra-murderous demon. Duck, dip, fuck it, run! Eat fruit! Never mind why! Super meter is full, turn the tables, kick that demon into space! Fight a guy in a gorilla suit at a carnival! Spank a pirate!

God Hand.

5. Smoking cigarettes and activating your rocket-dash are done with the same button in Vanquish.

Another Shinji Mikami game, how about that? Vanquish, logically, is the spawn of Resident Evil 4 + God Hand, and it goes from fast to slow like that unsafe ride at the country fair operated by some dust-head. You can rocket-slide, go into slow-mo dive rolls, and smoke cigarettes. There ain't no cooler way to kill robots in space. Read our review for a more detailed explanation.

4. Ninja Gaiden Sigma hates you, and it'll keep you awake at night how much you hate it back.

The best version of the best Ninja Gaiden game. At times, the smaller brawls are like fist-fights, and your footing is very careful, and you wait for the unforgiving AI to show an opening to strike with Ninja accuracy. Other times, it's like a fist-fight with an unfrozen yeti-sloth in Blackwater's training yard, and they're graduating a class of mentally-unhinged fellows that sleep with knives. Fight back. Fight hard. Or die.

3. If you grew up with a friend that your parents didn't like, Bulletstorm would be that friend.

The better you get at Bulletstorm, the harder you are on yourself, because this is a shooter that requires morbid creativity to inflict extra-death on space pirates to get more points. Creativity with the tools at your disposal. Shooting a guy in the balls is okay. Shooting an explosive bola around a guy's neck, attaching a Roman candle to him, and then kicking him into a neon sign that explodes him and four of his buds into molten steel is double fuck-yeah a-okay.

Especially if you did it on purpose. Which you almost certainly did not.

2. You might forget that you've woken up if you play Bayonetta early in the morning.

The most gonzo game on the list, Bayonetta will have you chainsawing cherubs in your first battle and punching God into the sun in the finale, all while wearing stilettos with guns for heels. It's all so... Japanese. As nonsense as devoting an entire chapter to surfing on the top of a missile is, and as trashy as the story is, Bayonetta's vendetta against the angels is so turbocharged and her character is so misanthropic and bizarre, that you can't look away.

Also, it ends with a dance number.

1. Ferocity and Zen intersect at Super Mario Kart.

Speaking of vendettas. The SNES original, and probably the best, Mario Kart, requires pure skill and unerring precision. Five laps, sticky as blu-tak handling, minimal items, it's magic that hasn't been replicated in almost twenty years and many iterations and imitations.

If you want a rush akin to waking up face-to-face with an electric dentist drill, work your way to the Special Cup 150cc finale on Rainbow Road and drive wheels off your kart, or die trying.

But, hey, those are just the games that jolt me awake. Are there any glaring omissions?

-- @Alex Crumb (originally published 1/23/13)