Don’t be fooled by the key art depicting the game’s protagonist as some sort of Indiana Jones inspired bad ass. You won’t be raiding tombs and seeking treasure but instead taking out poachers and freeing captured animals. Basically the human equivalent of Sonic the Hedgehog. Lest you get hippy notions of peace and happiness and […]Growl
Don’t be fooled by the key art depicting the game’s protagonist as some sort of Indiana Jones inspired bad ass. You won’t be raiding tombs and seeking treasure but instead taking out poachers and freeing captured animals. Basically the human equivalent of Sonic the Hedgehog. Lest you get hippy notions of peace and happiness and […]
What the hell happened here? How could Kaneko mess up a simple port of DJ boy so badly? Let’s be clear, I’m not holding up DJ boy as some paragon of the genre. It was simply an enjoyable brawler with a unique aesthetic and well within the Genesis’ capabilities. This sad home port loses most […]
I joined the 32-bit generation a little bit late and so had to make due with my Super Nintendo and Genesis until 1997. While I certainly had nothing to complain about as the later years for both consoles produced some true classics it did start to sting as the more advanced arcade games were no […]
When you think of the Lord of the Rings you think of an epic adventure. I certainly wouldn’t begrudge anyone from assuming that the games that would accompany the three Peter Jackson movies would probably be action RPGs but kudos to Electronic Arts for defying expectations and creating some of the best beat em ups […]
It’s no exaggeration to say that by the end of the 16-bit era the beat em up genre was a bit long in the tooth. At least on console. Even with that in mind it was a bit sad to see the genre all but disappear during the 32-bit days outside of a few really […]
Sengoku was one of those Neo Geo games I always wanted to play in the arcade but because it occupied a spot in a four slot MVS unit that had Samurai Shodown it almost never happened. The one or two times I finally did get to play it I found a pretty good brawler that […]
The Adventures of Bayou Billy should have been a great game. And in fact it is in its original Japanese form as Mad City. But someone decided to screw with the game’s balance for…..reasons and ruined what should have been another feather in Konami’s cap. Bayou Billy is an aggravating game not just because it […]
For the longest time I ignored Rollergames. In my mind I associated it with that corny TV show from 1989 that my mom probably watched and assumed that the game would be more of the same tripe. Well to a certain extent it is. But! Leave it to Konami to take such a simple premise […]
Side scrolling beat em ups were at the height of their popularity in the early 90s with every console not named the Turbo Grafx-16 receiving their fair share. While the SNES had a solid lineup of brawlers some of its best were left behind in Japan such as Undercover Cops and Iron Commando. Melfand Stories […]
I have to say, as much as I loved side scrolling beat em ups by the mid-90s I was already growing tired of the genre. While we all praised Capcom and Final Fight for laying a foundation that the majority of games would follow we really were not prepared for the glut of crap to […]
For as much as I associate Irem with shooters and R-Type specifically they released many arcade gems that I so desperately hoped would receive home ports. Blade Master, Gunforce 2, and especially Undercover Cops were all games that I loved in the arcade and the prospect of a SNES or Genesis port for any of […]
With the onslaught of Batman Returns video games I found it surprising that they bothered to create an NES edition although looking back it should have been common sense. One of the biggest movies of the previous year would of course hit the biggest platform of the time (in terms of install base) even […]
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery or so they say. But what about an imitation of an imitation? There’s no question that Final Fight more or less established the modern take beat em up genre with everyone keen to cash in on its success. Sega’s Streets of Rage was one of the better takes […]
It’s funny, for as much as they are generic I still can’t help but like the Rival Turf/Rushing Beat series. While the first game was generic as all get out Brawl Brothers had a few features I genuinely liked and if it weren’t for the repetition and collision issues I would have rated it […]
The 32-bit generation saw a renaissance within many genres as they moved to 3d, most specifically sports, racing, and 3d platformers. But it also many take a step back or disappear altogether. The scrolling shoot em up all but disappeared from America and the other mainstay of the 16-bit days, the beat em up was […]
For many Streets of Rage 2 is a perfect beat em up, one that successfully expanded on the foundation laid down by Final Fight. It stole the crown from that venerable series to become the standard by which all future brawlers would be judged. And so anticipation ran high when Streets of Rage 3 was […]
I freely admit to getting caught up in the hype leading to Batman Returns release in theaters. For anyone that grew up reading comic books 1989’s Batman may as well have been the second coming of Christ. It took certain liberties here and there but those were forgiven as we just wanted to see the […]
Every genre has to start somewhere and in many cases it is fun to examine those early titles and break them down, seeing which parts would set the standard for all future titles that would follow. The side scrolling platformer began with Pitfall and Super Mario Bros., two superlative games that are still fun to […]
As much as I liked to peruse the selection of arcade titles on display at the mall in my youth there were still the deluxe cabinets that remained tantalizingly out of my grasp, be it due to lack of availability or because they were so expensive. I remember seeing photos of the massive G-Loc cabinet […]
When Street Fighter 2 was successfully ported to the SNES in 1992 it was a phenomenon that is rarely seen in the industry. This was the hottest arcade game of the time, possibly ever, now available for the newest console on the market and more or less arcade perfect to our untrained eyes. Needless to […]
By late 1994 fighting games were about to undergo another renaissance due to 3-d technology. Sega’s Virtua Fighter would pave the way and would soon be followed by Namco’s Tekken and a slew of others. But while fighting games would increase in popularity again the beat em up was on the wane. A few stand […]
1993 proved to be a huge year for the side scrolling beat em up as the genre seemed to flourish both in the arcade and on home consoles. SNK’s Sengoku 2, Konami’s lesser known Gaiaopolis, and more importantly Capcom’s the Punisher and Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom were either kick ass games or brought […]
I think we can all agree that Bad Dudes was an average game overall. Despite the game’s cheesy premise the game play was strictly average at best. But we were able to overlook that for some gold old fashioned beat em up fun, at least for about 30 minutes. Take away the cornball story and […]
By the mid-90s beat ‘em ups had run their course in terms of popularity. The once popular side scrolling brawler could not bear the burden of mediocrity that had infected the genre on the 16-bit platforms. Most of these games were content to implement the bare minimum in terms of play mechanics with no innovation […]
As much as gamers loved Final Fight in the arcade we all somehow knew it wasn’t possible to stuff into an NES cartridge. I was far from being aware of any technical details but accepted it as fact. Maybe it was seeing all of the compromises Konami made with the TMNT arcade game, despite it […]
After the disappointment of Final Fight’s SNES release it seemed as though gamers would have to stick to pumping an arcade unit with quarters if they wanted an unfettered experience. The SNES version was a highly anticipated release and even in spite of its flaws most of us were able to overlook it because the […]
Coming of the success of Tomb Raider Core Design and Eidos could do no wrong. Flush with Lara Croft money they began an aggressive marketing campaign for nearly all of their games supposedly based on “character” when in reality it was mostly tits and ass. Badly shaped polygonal asses at that that; look up any […]
I remember the Punisher arcade game as a bad ass beat em up that fully captured the essence of the character’s brutal war on crime. It was one of the few arcade games I actually managed to finish before the inevitable home port, a feat that sticks out in my mind considering most coin ops […]
1995 was an interesting transition year for the gaming industry. The PlayStation, Saturn, and (supposedly) N64 were all set to be released in the fourth quarter meanwhile the SNES and Genesis were still trucking along. That’s not even counting the 3DO, Jaguar, and CDi although all 3 were pretty much irrelevant by that point. While […]
By now I suppose everyone is familiar with Captain Commando through his cameo appearances in the Marvel vs. Capcom series. But I doubt many are familiar with his original arcade and console debut. Captain Commando’s appearances have been so sparse he might as well have been a new character by 1999. So in the face […]
In the mass exodus to 3d one genre that was oddly left behind was the side scrolling beat em up. Once as prolific as the shmup outside of a few notable exceptions such as Guardian Heroes and Fighting Force no one seemed interested in exploring its conventions outside of Sega. As they had done previously […]
Robocop vs. Terminator. Freddy vs. Jason. These things go together like Chocolate and Peanut Butter. All of these smashups not only seemed like good ideas but were also inevitable. At the end of Predator 2 when an alien skull was counted among the Predator’s trophies fans knew; it was on. So when the first slate […]
Ah yes, the Battletoads. Initially written off as a lame Ninja Turtles rip off based on the first advertisements any gamer who took the time to sample its greatness found that not only was that misconception far from the truth it might actually be a better game period. Now legendary for its insane difficulty the […]
It’s an understatement to say that Capcom disappointed everyone with the SNES port of Final Fight. The missing 2 player coop, levels, and character smacked of a rushed product. And then they did it all over again with Final Fight Guy, which instead of adding him to the game removed Cody in his place. The […]
It’s funny how our minds work. Nostalgia can cloud our memories and we’ll remember something fondly when in actuality we never liked it to begin with. In this particular instance I recall fond recollections of playing Bad Dudes in coop mode and loving every second of it. The reality is anything but nice. Bad Dudes […]
In the early years of the Genesis life Sega did not have it easy providing a steady stream of content. Because of Nintendo’s strong arm tactics third party support was non-existent at first so in addition to their original home games Sega fell back on their arcade ports. One such port was Alien Storm, which […]
It’s not a stretch to say that Final Fight did to the arcade beat em up what Street Fighter 2 did for fighting games. It was electrifying. There had been plenty of exemplary games prior to it but none that exhibited the level of production values and polish of Capcom’s classic. So when it was […]
This is truly, truly terrible. Double Dragon 3 in all of its various incarnations is a bad game and somehow this Genesis port of the arcade game is the worst of all of them. My mind is boggled at how any decent human being could release this in the state it’s in. As much as […]
In the early 90s licensed beat em ups were all the rage in the arcade. Capcom, Konami, and a host of other third parties spun gold out of such obscure licenses such as Buck O’ Hare and Asterix. In 1991 Data East dropped the bombshell that was Captain America and the Avengers in the arcade […]
Creating a sequel is a tricky proposition. You want to retain the elements that fans loved and made the original popular while adding new components that bring them back. Many times this tends to back fire and can kill a series. It’s a balancing act that not too many developers get right. But there is […]
I never really thought about it but Sega owners back in the day must have been envious of Nintendo players when it came to Turtlemania. Konami wasted no time exploiting that license in a wide range of products, exclusively for Nintendo. This was a bitter pill to swallow, as the TMNT arcade games especially […]
Well what do we have here? The Rival Turf trilogy of games overall were pretty decent. While they didn’t reinvent the genre they still provided awesome beat em up action in the same vein as Final Fight or Streets of Rage. The first in the series, however, is not a good game. I mean […]
If you look around the internet you’ll read various horror stories of Battletoads, the game that ruined childhoods across the globe. With its technically proficient graphics and engaging gameplay it stood poised to be a phenomenon like the Ninja Turtles except for one fatal flaw: it was too fucking hard. I can guarantee 90% of […]
Ah Turtles in Time. It’s a bit of an understatement when I say I spent illegal amounts of time playing it back in the day. The original Turtles arcade game was awesome, and in my mind that meant this would be too. I wasn’t fortunate enough to have an arcade or mom and pop store […]
Man oh man where do I even begin? The Double Dragon games have always been enjoyable beat em ups despite the problems each game had. In some circles it is looked at as one of the classic franchises of the 80s. Double Dragon 3 in all its forms was a wretched game, and while the […]
It was pretty common during the NES era for ports of arcade games to differ drastically from the source material due to the hardware’s constraints. It wasn’t very often though that the home game was superior to the arcade but in the case of Double Dragon 2 it is very true. In the arcade Double […]
For anyone that has played a game by Technos Japan their style is unmistakable. From the graphics and art style used to the sound programming you can instantly identify any game they’ve created just by using one of those criteria. Most American’s first exposure to their works would start with the Double Dragon series, the […]
It isn’t very often that a sequel makes such a dramatic leap in quality over its predecessor. Super Mario Brothers 3 stands as one of the greatest examples of such. The original Streets of Rage was quite good for what it was: a first attempt at cloning a popular arcade game, in this case Final […]
When Final Fight hit arcades it hit big. The beat em up genre existed long before it but Final Fight dragged it kicking and screaming into the modern age. Renegade may have started the genre and Double Dragon popularized it but Final Fight took the baton and ran with it. Every publisher wanted a piece […]
