Viewtiful Joe

Viewtiful Joe was the first game produced by Clover Studios, and the only one so far to have spawned a sequel that was actually produced by the original company. The second game is widely considered something of a letdown, but the original was generation-defining, setting the tone for all action games that came after it, easily offering up a legitimate challenge to Devil May Cry as the best action game released at the time. The game hasn't really aged, either - a distinctive visual style and solid, rock hard 2-D combat that focused on the manipulation of time and perspective still earns this game its due respect whenever it is mentioned.

Metacritic: 93
VGChartz Score: N/A

God Hand

God Hand is actually the last of Clover's games, a swan song for the company brought to you by Shinji Mikami, the man behind Resident Evil and a whole lot of other stuff. It follows in the tradition of Viewtiful Joe in that's it's brutally hard but very fair, but stands out from every other game in this list in that this difficulty carries over into every single difficulty setting: this game will whip your ass on Easy unless you learn how to fight. The game was subject to mixed reception by critics (who can forget the IGN scoring debacle surrounding this game?) but has formed a cult following unlike any other action game on the market. The game's mantra and motto are examples of what the genre are about: "God Hand. It's hard - very hard - but it's fair."

Metacritic Score: 73
VGChartz Score: 7.8

Bayonetta

The newest game on our list, Bayonetta, comes to you by way of Platinum Games and directed by Team Little Angels, headed by Hideki Kamiya, the man who gave us Devil May Cry and Viewtiful Joe. It is a game in the school of Devil May Cry, taken to a logical extreme: combat is balls-to-the-wall hard, the setpieces are so extreme that they outclass anything else released so far this generation, and the combat system is more dependen on rhythm than pretty much any other game you'll play. Bayonetta's first impression is one of sex appeal, but it's the game's humor, combat, and sense of style that have made it into an instant classic of the genre.

Metacritic Score: 90
VGChartz Score: 9.1

MadWorld

The first game released by Platinum Games made a splash on the internet through virtue of violence so extreme that it made No More Heroes look like a sharing-focused episode of the Muppet Babies. MadWorld is different from the other games on this list in that the spectacle of its gameplay is kind of the whole point; the experience of the game is summed up in the boss fights, wherein one may (hypothetically) make a man eat a chainsaw and then poop it out. I'm not saying that happens. I'm saying that, in the contex of the game, it wouldn't be that weird. MadWorld is memorable if for no other reason than as a parody of tropes of the genre, a giant bloody middle finger to all the Ninja Gaidens and God of Wars in the world, and a reminder that action games don't have to take themselves seriously.

Metacritic Score: 81
VGChartz Score: 8.7

Those are all very good scores and a fair vote

I think I lean toward God Hand myself, but I'll need to play Bayonetta on Hard (or maybe Infinite Climax Mode or whatever it's called) to get a true measure of it.