Beautiful and busty babes in video games have always been one of the biggest fantasies of any hardcore gamer. From the inception of Lara Croft's... magnums in Tomb Raider to many of today's digitized vixens, they provide a lot of much needed fan service while playing our favorite games.

The December issue of Playboy magazine proudly brings to us its top picks of today's most vivacious women in video games. The feature article "Playing Rough" is actually the fourth annual tribute the world renowned men's magazine has published for gamers to drool over.

Read the list of luscious women from Playboy's picks right after the jump!

While this list isn't exactly the most original of its kind, we wanted to offer our take on which mamas are the hottest in the virtual world. Everything here is subjective and any list is as good as ours. So without remorse, this is our top 10 hottest game babes to date:

10. Maria Renard (Castlevania: Symphony of the Night)- The blonde hottie from Alucard's big night out may not have been seen in 3D glory and all, but the portrait was convincing enough. With her perfect complexion, killer brown eyebrows and the wavy, golden hair, she was a perfect leading lady to match with the vampiric charm of Dracula's son.

9. Mai Shiranui (King of Fighters)- Mai first appeared in the first half of the 90's in Fatal Fury 2. She immediately became one of the stars of the game for obvious reasons: She had the moves and the physique to match. Where rival bear 'em up Street Fighter II featured more conservative lady brawlers, SNK showed Mai's assets off with an innovative twist: Bouncing jubblies! Now imagine the testosterone levels in the old-school arcades more than a decade ago.

8. Aerith Gainsborough (Final Fantasy VII)- The gorgeous good girl of the legendary RPG Final Fantasy VII may have led a short and sweet character lifespan, but the fact remains that she's still one of the most beloved females in the business to date. Okay, the clothes she wore may not exactly be revealing, but we have to understand that it's how she was meant to be packaged in the first place. Imagine if she was a bit more fashion-trendy: She would have given the DoA girls a run for their money.

7. Morrigan Aensland (Dark Stalkers)- The naughty night warrior does that succubus lineage proud. She looked fantastic in 2D and had the ferocity to match. The anime spin-off of Capcom's popular Halloween fighter did her justice as she was just as charming there. Call her costume weird, but that only strengthens the convictions of her appeal. You gotta admit, not a lot of girls will look sexy in that!

More ladies follow at the full article.

For those not in the know, Playboy has been running a yearly nude (or sometimes semi-nude) portfolio of hot video game characters for three years now. According to Scott Alexander, Playboy's Senior Editor, this is their way of injecting the video game culture into the magazine (read: getting the geeky hardcore gamers into buying Playboys).

Now, this year's Playboy Women of Gaming photo spread features nude female characters from different games gracing the front of the Playboy Mansion. Included in the list of virtual hotness are the following characters:

• Sarah Morrison from Tabula Rasa
• Jessica McRae from Scarface: The World Is Yours
• Lida and Persephone from God of War II
  
• Alica Claus from Bullet Witch
  
• Dr. Jasmine Lin from TimeShift
  
• Enrica Villablanca from Splinter Cell: Double Agent (Wii, PC, Xbox360)
  

Sorry to disappoint you guys, but we don't have pictures of this year's photo spread. And the one pic we got (see image above) was cut out from the neck up, which, I really don't think we even have to explain to you why it was cut that way. Alexander explains further that good old Hef (Hugh Hefner, THE Playboy guru himself, for those who don't speak Playboy lingo) has always been a hardcore gamer. Hmmm...interesting. We've always known the man as a player, but as a gamer?

Apparently, Hefner even has a high-profile, real techy game room in the mansion which has everything from pinball machines down to the latest gaming whatnots (we wonder if he already has a PS3 and Wii in there?). Alexander says that combining video games and Playboy is the perfect move for the magazine because "the demographics for video games are a good match with the average Playboy reader..." and that "...tech is a huge part of men’s lives. The constituency of gaming and Playboy are almost exact."

So if you've got the hots for sizzling virtual babes (and you are of mature age, and it's not illegal in your state, and yada yada), you can check out Playboy's Women of Gaming photo spread and satiate those voyeuristic cravings of yours. A shame though, Samus didn't make it to this year's spread. Maybe next year?