In Praise Of Beat 'Em Ups

[Neon Ignition]

I have fond memories of Captain Commando, The Simpsons and Turtles. It's pretty much all tied to whatever I experienced the most in arcades during the 90's. I've always struggled playing them at home as from a gameplay sense they're shallow as a puddle.

[Jay]

Agree about The Simpsons and Turtles, but Captain Commando still remains super playable for me. I prefer it to Final Fight definitely. Lovely game.

[SUMIRE]

I always loved Burning Fight on the Neo Geo. A total Final Fight Rip off, but I actually preferred it.

[Atticus]

It's tough to choose a fave between FF & SOR. On one hand I have very fond memories of playing Final Fight with a mate in the arcades, and on the other the original SOR was the game that converted me to a console gamer. Either way it's great to play such lovingly presented verions on the 360 ... though my first play of FF on XBLA was a mixed bag; without being used to where the buttons were mapped I dived into a multi-player game and kept accidentally clipping the other player, he was fuming

[Nu-Eclipse]

I'll always have a place in my gaming affections for Final Fight (one of the very first coin-op games that I ever played), but it's been ported to death at this point.

Never really warmed to the Streets of Rage/Bare Knuckle trilogy, tbh. Always felt like it was trying too hard to have a personality (especially SoR 2 & 3), although Yuzo Koshiro's music is superb.

[eastyy]

i remember this megadrive game (think it was a arcade game to ) called growl i found that pretty good

few other games i remember and enjoyed playing

armoured warriors
asterix
cadillacs and dinosaurs
cyborg justice
gekido ( only played the psone game though)

[Baseley09]

Growl is a cool game, called Runark in some territories (or the arcade version?!), has a save the animals theme vs Indiana Jones vibe right.

[eastyy]

yep and seem to recall a lot of weapons to pick up to

[Nu-Eclipse]

Growl is a cool game, called Runark in some territories (or the arcade version?!), has a save the animals theme vs Indiana Jones vibe right.

Runark is the Japanese name for Growl.

Quality beat-em-up, too. Got a couple of home ports (MD amongst them, iirc).

[Blaiz0r]

I've loved all these games, I also cut my teeth on Renegade then Target Renegade on the Spectrum, definitely my favourite genre of game for such a long time, I noticed that the games often followed similar patterns though and didn't offer much innovation.

One game I want to point out that hasn't been mentioned yet that impressed me was Super Double Dragon on the SNES, it offered a really cool blocking and countering mechanic that I hadn't noticed in other games, it wasn't difficult to master and when you pulled off the counters it made the game play something special, it added flair to the way you played and that made the game more fun.

Check out a video of this happening here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27Ukz-L-MXU

I would love to see this happening in a modern game, the only one I can think of where they tried to bring the genre on was Shank, but that's more of a platformer with fighter mechanics.

[Nu-Eclipse]

One game I want to point out that hasn't been mentioned yet that impressed me was Super Double Dragon on the SNES, it offered a really cool blocking and countering mechanic that I hadn't noticed in other games, it wasn't difficult to master and when you pulled off the counters it made the game play something special, it added flair to the way you played and that made the game more fun.

Check out a video of this happening here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27Ukz-L-MXU

Excellent, excellent shout.

The amount of moves that Billy/Jimmy could pull off was seriously impressive.

One could arguably put this up there with Double Dragon Advance on GBA as being the pick of the franchise.

[Skull Commander]

If any PS2/Xbox owners want to play a legit copy of Growl it's on Taito Legends 2.

Cadillacs and Dinosaurs is another corker, and it's a real shame that due to licencing it seems to be stuck in some sort of limbo where it will never be released. Having said that they said the same about the Marvel vs Capcom games...

[acidbearboy]

I played Growl recently on Taito Legends 2 - it was good but I seemed to get overwhelmed with enemies pretty early on. Will have to try it with Mame for infinite credits. The graphical style was a really nice break from the norm I thought.

Had another play through of Final Fight on XBLA this week after all the mentions it's had. It's a solid scroller with decent graphics but I have to wonder if everybody has a nostalgic soft spot for it as it doesn't seem special to me (as somebody who missed it originally in arcades). Plus, the music was gash. Are the SNES sequels any cop?

Also, I briefly mentioned Super Double Dragon in post #24, albeit in its Japanese guise - The Return of Double Dragon. Excellent game indeed.

[Nu-Eclipse]

Cadillacs and Dinosaurs is another corker, and it's a real shame that due to licencing it seems to be stuck in some sort of limbo where it will never be released.

Same with Alien vs Predator.

[lonewolf2877]

I love the old beat-em ups so much that a few years ago I started working on my own called Lone Wolf it's in it's early stages still but you can see it's heavily influenced by Streets of Rage 2, Altered Beast, River City Ransom, Final Fight, and Dungeons and Dragons Shadow of Mystara. I've played many more in addition to this so I am sure you'll see other beat-em up mechanics in it borrowed from other games, among my favorites were Aliens Vs. Predator, The Punisher, Warriors of Fate, Cadillacs and Dinosaurs, TMNT, The Simpsons, X-Men and many many more of the late 80's early 90's. I also am happy to see that so many people still enjoy this genre so much, Castle Crashers and Scott Pilgrim made it a slight comeback, I hope my game can be added to that list soon.

All the characters are hand drawn and animated in 2D and the environments are all in 3D, this is about as much praise as I can give to the genre, hope you enjoy it as well!

Check out some of the game here:





or at http://www.lonewolfgame.com

Thanks, all feedback is welcome! Long live the beat-em up!