Within five years time, beat ‘em up videogames like Double Dragon and Final Fight grew in both the number of gameplay features and also in popularity. Players on both consoles and at arcades loved kicking lots of ass and more importantly to the success of the genre, they loved doing it as a team.

By now the definition of the genre would take shape: A Player(or players) would fight waves of enemies in either unarmed or melee combat and would have to defeat them before moving on to the next section of the level. Usually at the end of a level would be a boss, or master enemy, that must be defeated before going onto the next level.

Beat ‘em ups were popular for the ability for friends to play together, but they were also simple to learn. Almost every game in the genre as the eighties transitioned into the nineties would only have two or three buttons, usually two attack buttons and a jump button. Anyone could figure out how to play them!

Konami’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was the most popular game in arcades for at least two years after it was released. Because of this, all sorts of developers and publishers cried out “me too!” and started pumping out more beat ‘em up games than ever.

So everything would be okay, right?

The success of Turtles meant that a whole lot of licensed properties would be re-imagined as beat ‘em ups. Just about every cartoon and comic book that was hugely popular with American kids from 1989 to 1993 would have an arcade and/or console game designed much like Final Fight, from special attacks that drained player health to player re-spawns knocking down all enemies on screen.

In the eighties, almost each new beat ‘em up brought in more than several new gameplay innovations to the genre. By the time it was 1991, games only offered one or two new things if anything at all. Remember when I said that every Konami arcade beat ‘em up played exactly like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?

1991 would be the last big year for the genre, with The Simpsons, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time, Double Dragon III: The Sacred Stones, Battletoads, The King of Dragons, and Knights of the Round being some of the biggest releases. All games, except Double Dragon III, were indeed fun.

Capcom’s The King of Dragons gave players the ability to earn experience points for both defeating enemies and collecting gold that would be used to level up, giving players a longer health meter. You could also collect items that would increase the strength of your sword and shield. Now you could defend in these games!

In The King of Dragons, if you move back on your joystick at the right time, you could defend with your shield. Knights of the Round made it easier by having the player press attack and then go back on the joystick and the SNES port gave block it’s own button! This was awesome because now you had an option besides hit and run tactics.

There is one game from 1991 I did not mention yet. Around this time the Super Nintendo was about to come to America. The Sega Genesis had already been release but had no had a big hit game yet. Final Fight was a huge deal in arcades and the SNES was getting an exclusive port for it, thus firing off one of the first shots of the legendary 16-bit console war.

In order for Genesis to succeed, they were going to need a game like that on their console. And what they gave gamers was…

Streets of Rage was essentially a copy-paste of Final Fight for the Sega Genesis. You had a big and strong character, a small and fast character, and a character who was average in size and skill. They each had a special attack that would knock down enemies while reducing their own health. Similarly, they would fight street gangs and pick up and eat meat off of the streets for health.

However, this worked because the SNES port of Final Fight was a disaster. Not only was it missing a character from the arcade version, it was also only single player which by this point is unacceptable and should be considered a crime. This, along with other games, would fuel the fire in Sega’s favor and would lead to the marketing slogan “Sega does what Nintendon’t.”

There were three things about Streets of Rage that would stand out. The first one would be the ability to summon help as a special attack. You could call for police back-up and the game would pan to the far left to show a police vehicle pull up and fire explosives that would kill all enemies surrounding the players. This “striker” character attack would show up from time to time in beat ‘em ups, including some of the games based on Marvel comic book characters.

Second would be the ending. There are three ways this would work. You meet Mr. X(no relation to Mr. X in Kung-Fu Master) and he makes an offer for you to join his syndicate. If you say no(and your partner says no as well) then you must fight and beat him to get the happy ending. If you are solo and say “yes” or if both players say “yes,” then Mr. X throws them down a trap door and they have to go up the building again.

However- and this is the kicker -if one player agrees to join Mr. X and the other does not, then they must fight each other TO THE DEATH! If the player who said “yes” wins, then Mr. X will make him a final offer. You must say “no” in order to fight Mr. X and beat him in order to take his title as crime boss. The ending will show your character sitting in the boss’s chair with a wine glass with the words “BAD END” displayed on the screen.

Finally, and while this has nothing to do with game mechanics, I must point out the excellent work that Yuzo Koshiro did on the game’s soundtrack. It was pretty impressive to get dance/techno music similar to what would be heard at late eighties and early nineties dance clubs out of a console that was not known for having a great sound chip. The Streets of Rage games are sometimes more fondly remembered for their music as opposed to their gameplay.

In 1991, the amount of beat ‘em up games increased exponentially. There was a flavor for everyone. The genre was at the peak of its popularity but it would all come to an end as sounds of “HADOKEN! HADOKEN!” rang through arcades.

Street Fighter II: The World Warrior would usher in a new era in arcades, not where players fought together, but against each other. Perhaps the endings of games like Double Dragon and Streets of Rage planted the seeds of dissent or maybe it was because innovation in beat ‘em ups had come to a screeching halt.

Regardless, players salivated for competition in the arcades, movie theaters, and convenience stores. More fighting games would come out and beat ‘em ups found their way out of arcades, with the exception of Konami brawlers like TMNT, The Simpsons, and X-Men.

It would be a slow death to the genre. Streets of Rage 2 was the last game of the era that mattered. Konami stopped making beat ‘em ups for TEN years after 1993, Technōs Japan went out of business in 1996, and Capcom went to focus more on fighting games. It was tragic.

Years later, Sega would try their hand at making 3D beat ‘em up games. There were two Dynamite Deka games that would be brought over to America as Die Hard Arcade in 1996 and as Dynamite Cop in 1998. They added quick time events which I have negative feelings about in general, but the 3D cameras gave more variety in presentation instead of the static side view 2D beat ‘em ups stuck with.

Otherwise, they were the same old beat ‘em ups as played before, but with polygons instead of sprites. They did not control well and were a step backwards more than anything.

A majority of early 3D videogames did not play well. Core Design tried to make Streets of Rage 4 in 1997, but a dispute with Sega about multi-platform releases led for them to rename it Fighting Force and put in on the Sony Playstation and later the Nintendo 64. It controlled just as poorly as the Dynamite Deka games but Fighting Force didn’t have quicktime events, making it superior.

In 1996, the champion of hardcore gamers known as Treasure released Guardian Heroes, a 2D anime-inspired fantasy beat ‘em up with ninjas and giant robots added in. This is a proper evolution of what games like The King of Dragons and River City Ransom accomplished.

Stat building was back and you could choose which stats you wanted to add experience points to at the end of each level. This was the most direct control you could have over your character’s progress. In River City Ransom, unless you knew what each item you consumed did to your stats, you did not have any real control. Guardian Heroes takes a much simpler approach.

Guardian Heroes also has a much bigger scope in narrative than any other beat ‘em out there. To illustrate that point, it does the one thing I don’t think any other game in the genre has done: it offers multiple paths at the end of each level so players could play different levels, fight different bosses, and experience multiple endings. It was a fantastic idea that would certainly have players coming back for more! Except, it was released only on the Sega Saturn, a console hardly anyone even owned. This might be one of the top games in the genre and one of the least played.

For a while, nothing happened in the genre. People were immersed in new 3D action and platforming games and JRPGs were probably one of the most popular genres at the time. (Oh, how times have changed!) Players wanted long and immersive experiences and the simplicity and short lengths of beat ‘em up games could not offer that. So for many years, the genre rested in it’s grave until Capcom’s fighting game bubble had burst.

Out of nowhere in 2003, Capcom’s Production Studio 4- that would later be renamed Clover Studio -drops a bombshell that makes Nintendo Gamecube relevant with the hardcore gamer crowd. Viewtiful Joe is a flashy, over-the-top, super stylish 2.5D beat ‘em up that adds in time manipulation and platforming along with Japanese tokusatsu heroics to make up for everything the stale genre lacked for a decade.

Joe’s girlfriend Sylvia gets kidnapped and taken away into Movieland and Joe has to go in and rescue her. Along the way, he is able to transform into a super hero name Viewtiful Joe that command VFX powers that affect the movie he is fighting in. The powers can change the world so that Joe can accomplish super human feats and they are often used to single out weaknesses that enemies may have.

This can be done by using up a VFX meter that can be replenished over time. If you use it all up, you return to average Joe and have to wait to become Viewtiful once more so it’s important to use those powers thoughtfully. If you find film rolls in the game, they can be used to increase the length of the VFX meter, giving Joe more time to use his powers

“Slow Down” is helpful against enemies that move fast. By slowing them down, you can spot when they are vulnerable to attacks. “Mach Speed” lets Joe move around and strike all enemies on screen with his after images at a very fast speed; so fast that he generates fire off of his body which helps for solving some obstacles that require fire to complete. It also creates a shield that makes Joe immune to flame attacks.

Then there is “Zoom In” that not only increases the damage of Joe’s attacks, but will let Joe do secret attacks only available in that mode. You can also combine any two of these VFX powers for ridiculous damage which will also drain the VFX meter faster.

Along the way, Joe can earn Viewtiful points from he gains by beating up enemies, much like in River City Ransom. Moreover, you can earn more V-Points by stringing together long combos on enemies as opposed to single strikes. Using VFX powers helps out with this. With the V-Points, you can shop at the end of the level for additional weapons and moves as well as the ability to extend your lifebar.

Viewtiful Joe was the fire needed to bring beat ‘em ups back to life. It was not only a return to the definition of the genre mentioned earlier, but it brought a lot of new ideas and mechanics along with it as well. The idea to have the game look like it was being shot like an action movie was very clever. A sequel would come out the following year that would be more of the same with a couple more tricks, but Clover also decided to fix 3D beat ‘em ups as well.

Godhand is Fist of the North Star but with a guy named Gene instead of Kenshiro. Instead of Hokuto Shinken, he has a Godhand, one of two arms of a man that once defeated Demon King Angra. The Four Devas are after Gene because they want to resurrect Angra and take over the world.

In the game, you can map techniques you acquire to any of the face buttons including one that is meant to press repeatedly to string a combonation attacks. There are over 100 techniques which means there are a lot of options for how Gene will fight.

You can also bob and weave through enemy attacks and sidestep around them, making Godhand much like a 3D fighting game. The amount of viciousness of a beat down you can dish in Godhand is tremendous whether by doing God Roulette Attacks, curb stomping a pile of enemies, or dragon kicking thugs into the milkyway!

This game is frustratingly hard. So much that if you are a sissy, you might as well stay away. This is not your game. Go play Halo 3 instead. That might be more appropriate. Make sure you have your Mountain Dew ready because that is totally a HARDCORE drink!

Speaking of sissies, an inaccurate and scathing 3 out of 10 review was given by ex-IGN writer Chris Roper as he turned in his Man Card. I point this out because it’s a fine example of how pissed off gamers get when irresponsible journalists write about games they will never understand. (It is said that after Roper left IGN, that he put on a dress and lipstick and served pancakes to hipsters during late shift at Denny’s. I am not surprised.)

It’s a shame this game did not do well and that Clover was shut down by Capcom soon after. The creator of Godhand, Shinji Mikami, would express regret that he had too much freedom to direct the game just as he liked.

Listen Shinji, you made a game that I love. Sure, it didn’t sell a lot but that is not important. You know multi-million dollar generating game franchise you created that I don’t give a shit about? Resident Evil. I want you to think about what is really a more important accomplishment the next time you are banging supermodels.

Now we come full circle. Viewtiful Joe and Godhand were awesome games but they didn’t get the masses excited. It’s unfortunate but the problem with both games is that they were made for hardcore gamers. Which is fine because they love the games. However, the games were not easy to jump into and VERY over-the-top. Also too Japanese for western gamers and too badass for Japanese gamers.

What to do then? Well, imagine that groups of newer, younger game developers grew up on many of the games I have been talking about during both parts of this article and would make games with more casual appeal that also thoughtfully used many established game mechanics that were proven to make for fun experiences. You could revive beat ‘em ups for two audiences: people who haven’t play those games in years and those who have never played them at all.

The Behemoth would step up first. They are clearly influenced by Treasure since their previous game, Alien Hominid, is a homage to Gunstar Heroes. The would make a beat ‘em up called Castle Crashers, a four player beat ‘em up that is very similar to the aforementioned Guardian Heroes. Hell, they even have the same screen for increasing stats in-between levels!

So I just mentioned that Castle Crashers is four players. Well, I think we found what Viewtiful Joe and Godhand were lacking most! With this console generation, the amount of people playing games had increased, especially casual players. Not only that, every console has the ability to have multiple controllers hooked up without buying a multitap or you could play games online. Gamers are no longer into playing alone like they were when Sony’s consoles were dominating; they wanted to play games with other people.

Castle Crashers came in at the right time and in the right way. It was downloadable through the X-Box Live service(and is now available on the Playstation Store) for a very reasonably low price. At a fourth of a cost of a new retail game, it’s quite a bargain.

The game isn’t long but it is very charming and colorful and captures all the elements that made fantasy beat ‘em ups fun. There’s the ability to level up, learn new attacks, make your magic more powerful, and equip different weapons and items. You can even ride on animals like in Golden Axe! It also has online play which made many people happy but it handles death in cooperative play very well.

You only have one life in Castle Crashers and if you die that means you can no longer fight. However, one of your teammates can revive you back to life so you can keep fighting. It’s done very well too! While your healer is not being attacked, they can pumped life into you with timed button pressed. If they time the button presses to two icons lining up above them, then they will get you the most amount of health you could possibly get back.

Castle Crashers also pays homage to Double Dragon several times. When a princess is rescued, the players while fight each other to the death to determine who will get her. They even have an achievement to unlock is a player wins all of the princesses!

Only weeks ago, Ubisoft unexpectedly delivered a fantastic beat ‘em up that in not only is easy to get into, but it draws heavily from one of my favorite games ever, River City Ransom.

You can beat up enemies and take their money to buy items and food at shops that boost your stats. You can pick up enemies when they fall on the ground and use them as a weapon. As you level up, much like Castle Crashers, you will learn new moves that are pretty much Grand Slam, Acro Circus, Javelin Man, and others. Hell, they even call their bookstore “Flatiron Books,” making the connection very obvious.

River City Ransom never got a true sequel. The Japanese Kunio-kun games that came out after never did any justice. Luckily, Scott Pilgrim vs The World: The Game is well crafted and has a lot of the same spirit and changes some things up to prevent it from becoming a clone.

Castle Crashers and Scott Pilgrim do many things right. They are bight and colorful with a focus on keeping things simple enough for lots of people to get into. Both games stick to the definition of what a beat ‘em up is as they borrow the right things from many classic games.

Multiplayer is a core part of both games and they handle the consequences of losing for a modern audience that has less patience for failure by letting characters revive other characters or even share items. Being able to individually level up characters and learn new attacks are brilliant choices to have in the game and should keep many players coming back. Overall, both games are well crafted and should be downloaded by all of you immediately.

For those of you who started playing beat ‘em ups thanks to Castle Crashers and Scott Pilgrim vs The World: The Game, I hope you understand the rich history of the beat ‘em up genre and which games contributed. After you are done playing the newer games, I want you to look for some of the games mentioned in both parts of this article and give them a shot. You might find that those older games will offer something new to you.

As for the future of the genre? Like anything else, the genre will fade in and out. The interest to beat lots of ass with friends will always come back. I think if a solid beat ‘em up with strong game mechanics and and some imagination comes out once every two or three years, that will keep the genre alive for new audiences. Until then, keep that justice burning!

No, I am not telling tall tales of my bizarre adventures. Rather, I am recalling a time when some of my favorite games were fresh and prominent and were the talk of the schoolyards, arcades, and convenience stores across the country.

They are called Beat ‘Em Ups- games about players taking matters into their own hands when there was no law and destroying armies of foes in hand to hand(or weapon) combat -that ruled arcades and Nintendo in the late eighties, died off in the early nineties, and after several failed attempts, have begun to make it back into the spotlight.

Many of you may remember those golden years of gaming when real bros were going around the shady parts of town beating on punks until the girl was rescued. Therefore, you will be nodding in agreement and feel nostalgic for much of the following article. Others may have just discovered the genre through recent downloadable games like Castle Crashers and Scott Pilgrim vs The World: The Game. I’ve played through those games during the past month while sticking to many of the classics that influenced them.

For those you who have never played older beat ‘em up games, I want to let you know that there is a rich history of how the genre developed. A lot of games from several different game developers helped establish the genre and many of the core mechanics and clichés that beat ‘em ups are known for. But where did it all begin and what games would contribute something fresh to the genre as it grew?

In the Summer of 1984, Golden Harvest would release Wheels on Meals, a Hong Kong action film directed by Sammo Hung and starring Jackie Chan that would be the beginning of it all. The movie would be released in Japan as Spartan X and Irem would develop an arcade game based off the movie and release it at the end of the year.

As you have already guessed, the game was brought over to America as Kung-Fu Master. In the game, you would storm the Devil’s Temple as Jackie Chan’s character Thomas and fight off groups of martial artists before fighting the master/boss at the end of each floor. You would go up these floors and fight martial arts masters similar to Bruce Lee’s movie, The Game of Death.

At the end of the game you would fight Mr. X, who had kidnapped Thomas’ girlfriend Sylvia, in order to rescue her, thus establishing the greatest trope of the beat ‘em up genre.

Being the first beat ‘em up, Kung-Fu Master’s gameplay was very primitive. Action moved only left or right and Thomas could punch or kick while standing, jumping, or ducking. That was it! You had three lives and could get more as you scored points for beating opponents. Once you lost all three lives, the game was over and you would have to start from the very beginning. (This was a common form of punishment in eighties videogames.)

Almost a couple years had passed and with the popularity of Kung-Fu Master, it was smart business to make games similar to that. Technōs Japan would be the first to evolve the genre, all while taking the first step to becoming a company that would champion many games that gamers of the NES era fondly remember to this day.

Their first big hit would be the beginning of a cult classic franchise that would contain many beat em’ ups and action sports games: Nekketsu Kouha Kunio-kun which translates to “Hot-blooded Tough Guy Kunio.” The game, like many in the Kunio franchise, would have its graphics, character names, and cultural references changed to sell to American and European markets. In this case, the first Kunio game was sold here as Renegade.

Yoshihiso Kishimoto would direct this game and mechanics established in Kung-Fu Master would be built upon. You could now move in four directions in addition to jumping. (But you could no longer duck.) Instead of martial arts, Kunio would brawl against gangsters, hookers, and other high school delinquents. So with Renegade, the urban setting of fighting street gangs would be established and reused many times over. And yes, you would still have a girlfriend to rescue!

Kunio could dash into opponents and clothesline them and he could also get on top of fallen enemies to deliver some vicious ground and pound. In addition, he could grab an opponent by the hair and knee them in the face repeatedly or by their shirts and either choose to throw or headbutt them. After this, grappling becomes standard in almost every game in the genre.

At the end of the game, Kunio ends up having to fight the end boss who is armed with a gun. The gun tends to be used as an instant kill weapon in many beat ‘em up games that have final bosses. So being able to dodge and time attacks while not getting shot becomes very crucial.

Renegade is not really a fun game to play. It has a lot of great ideas but it controls poorly and you often have to use cheap tactics in order to survive. Not only that, something was missing. In 1987, Technōs Japan would launch a dragon kick on arcades everywhere.

Double Dragon takes place in post-apocalyptic New York. Billy and Jimmy Lee, two twin martial artists that follow the teachings of Sousetsuken, or Twin Intercepting Fists, fight the Black Warriors, a street gang whose members are named after characters from Enter the Dragon. Why? Because Billy’s girlfriend got kidnapped of course! By now, it’s pretty apparent that videogames are trying to tell us what the consequences should be if women stray too far away from the kitchen.

The Black Warriors will give the Lee brothers back Marion in exchange for the secrets of Sousetsuken. Billy and Jimmy, being nice gentlemen, decide to teach them those secrets… by using it on everyone in town until they get Billy’s whorish-looking girlfriend back!

Kishimoto takes everything about Renegade’s gameplay and refines the controls and pacing of the game so that it is actually fun to play! Back elbows are added in as means to attack enemies approaching from behind. A new innovation to the genre will be the ability to disarm enemies and use their weapons during the fights. Baseball bats, whips, throwing knives, and even dynamite are among the weapons available to use. When a group of enemies were defeated, players would be notified to advance to the next section of the level.

Did I say “players!?”

The really important part of Double Dragon is the discovery of the secret ingredient: cooperative play! That’s right, it was not as cool to whoop ass to rescue a babe on your own as opposed to having your best friend help you out! With this, Double Dragon establishes a life-long fantasy of having my hypothetical girlfriend get kidnapped by a street gang so me and my super-bro(currently designated to be Shawn Wilson) could tear through town kicking ass until we get her back!

(For the curious, Shawn wants that city to be Tallahassee because he hates the hipster douchebag scene there but I’d rather stay local because I hate Orlando so much that my hatred goes out of the bounds of hate precision and loops back into awkward, confused love. Orlando is like the Ramona Flowers of Florida.)

The amount of fun players would have playing beat ‘em ups would skyrocket since now you could jump in at anytime to help a friend in need. This was not only great for the genre but for arcade business as well.

As an added bonus, Double Dragon also featured a twist! If both brothers are victorious in their rescue mission, why should Billy get the girl at the end? What if Jimmy was the better fighter? Well, Kishimoto thought of that so if you beat the game with two players you could fight it out and prove which of the brothers is the alpha male that would get Marion! What a manly game!

The port to the Nintendo Entertainment System would not have cooperative play. The quality of the game suffered but an interesting mechanic was added: players could unlock attacks by earning specific increments of points. You would get points for the kinds of strikes you did on enemies. Usually, the less damage an attack did on an enemy, the more points it was worth. Therefore, it was a common strategy to start off NES Double Dragon using only punches for attacks so all of the special attacks were unlocked as soon as possible.

1989 would prove to be another awesome year for beat ‘em ups. Technōs Japan would make one more critically important beat ‘em up that would go down in history as one the greatest videogames ever. It’s near and dear to my heart as it’s been in my life for almost twenty years.

In Japan, Kunio and his buddy Riki would return to kick lots of ass and rescue Kunio’s girlfriend yet again, but in America, we got Ryan and Alex taking back the streets, the schools, the malls, AND Merv’s Burger Joint, out the sinister hands of the twisted villain known in a ransom letter as “Slick.” And just in time for Ryan’s kidnapped girlfriend Cyndi to finish her shopping!

River City Ransom is not only the pinnacle of the beat ‘em up genre, but- as truthfully stated before -one of the best games ever made. Directed by Mitsuhiro Yoshida(Super Dodge Ball) and Hiroyuki Sekimoto(Double Dragon II: The Revenge), a beat ‘em up was built from scratch specifically for the Famicom/NES as opposed to being an arcade port.

The game was unique for it’s time. In addition to standard beat ‘em up mechanics, elements of stat-building, earning money for beating enemies, buying food and other items from shops, wearing equipment, and the ability to choose what fighting moves you want to learn by purchasing and reading books were all big parts of the game.

The RPG elements gave reasons to keep playing the game. This would help because River City Ransom was a little bit longer than normal. Because of the length and the inventory of items you could obtain, the game had a password system so you can come back and play the game another time. Unfortunately, the game’s password system was flawed since each password was very long and one incorrectly written character means you have lost all progress.

Stat building was a nice way to handle the increasing difficulty of enemies. You could choose to do it to make the game easier or not if you want that challenge. In-between fighting sections would be malls with restaurants and stores. There, you could purchase items like food, toys, or music that would boost your character’s stats. You could even take some items to go and use whenever you want.

Speaking of stats, there are a couple notable ones. You have the standards such as punch, kick, weapon, agility, and others that are all self-explanatory. But there were two that worked well together for players to get that second wind and make a comeback in fights. The stamina stat would represent your health. Normally, if you lost it all that would be it. However, there is the willpower stat that if high enough, would cause a player to regain some stamina back after getting knocked down. It was a pretty cool way to turn things around.

This is also the first time lives and “game overs” are non-existent in a beat ‘em up. Instead of starting the game over when all stamina is completely gone, you actually lose half your money and return to the closest mall. If you don’t mind losing money, you can get your ass kicked as much as you want and still be able to move forward in the game.

I could go on forever about everything River City Ransom did that was awesome, but the goal is to cover it’s contributions to the genre. So with that, I give you a free smile so we can finish off the decade!

In the same year River City Ransom came out, other companies decided that Technōs Japan could not have all the glory to themselves. With that said, Capcom, Sega, and Konami all entered the market in a BIG way.

At some point, developers realized that perhaps the characters in these games should fight differently and have specific strengths and weaknesses. In Final Fight, designed by Akira “Nin-Nin” Nishitani and Akira “Akiman” Yasuda, we get a lot of the same old “rampage through the streets and beat a bunch of thugs up to save a girl” formula. However, this two-player game would let players select between three characters.

You could be the quick but physically weak Bushin ninja Guy, average-skilled brawler Cody, or THE MANLIEST CHARACTER TO EVER ORIGINATE FROM A VIDEOGAME, MAYOR MIKE “PILEDRIVING SHARKS” HAGGAR. It would really come down to which player could select powerhouse Haggar first. Sometimes it was settled with coin tosses, other times the dispute would have been appropriately settled with fisticuffs.

In this game, you could beat up transvestites and pick up and eat food you found on the streets and in trash cans to regain health. (No, really.) Each character also had a special move that allowed him to knock down a bunch of enemies around them at the cost of some health. It was a nice trade off and it was pretty easy for enemies to surround you for a beat down. When a character lost a life, they would re-spawn and knock all the enemies on screen down with prevented the player from getting overwhelmed right away. (It even chipped a bit of health off of enemies.) This was also the first beat ‘em up that you could see your enemies’ health as you beat down on them.

Final Fight would be the official start of the 16-bit era of beat ‘em ups. Not only did it take advantage of better technology(it was an early Capcom CPS-1 game), but it added many features that many 16-bit brawlers would use, including the elevator stage where players fought against waves of enemies that dropped from the skies as the elevator would go up.

At some point, it was time to leave the streets. Since Renegade came out, almost every beat ‘em up was an urban justice simulator and it was time to change things up a bit. Makoto Uchida, who created hack ‘n slash action game Altered Beast, made a Conan the Barbarian inspired fantasy beat ‘em up called Golden Axe. It was a Sega arcade game that would also appear on the Genesis and Master System.

Characters fight with a set weapon and they also have magic they can cast to hurt all enemies on the screen. Ax Battler uses a two handed broadsword and casts earth spells. Gilius Thunderhead fights with a battle axe and uses lightning spells. And then there is Tyris Flare, the FIRST ever playable female character in a beat ‘em up. She battles with a longsword and summons the power of fire. Each vows revenge on this villain called “Death Adder” while they go forth to rescue the King of Yuria and his daughter.

The amount of damage that a character’s magical spell will deal on enemies is dependent on how many magic bars are currently available. Players can fill those bars as they get magic potions by kicking little sprite that are found throughout the game, whether it be during the regular levels or the bonus stages in-between.

One other addition that was in Golden Axe was the ability to ride beasts like the Cockatrice seen in Altered Beast or dragons. While riding those creatures, they can attack for you and some are more powerful than others. Golden Axe did well to break from the “fighting street gangs” formula and proved that other settings could work for beat ‘em ups.

The highlight of many childhoods in the late eighties, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was a nationwide phenomenon that you could compare to something contemporary like Pokémon or Harry Potter. No. It was bigger than both combined… on their best days.

All the merchandise and tie-ins you could think of was there and an arcade game was a no-brainer. Learning from the success of Double Dragon, it was clear that players enjoyed kicking ass together. Why not up the ante and have a FOUR player beat ‘em up, where you could play as any of the turtles!? The game probably made BILLIONS.

That was actually the only major contribution this game had for beat ‘em ups. The only other thing that may be noteworthy is that when a boss is about to be defeated, they will flash orange and get really aggressive. The turtles fought with different weapons and, like Final Fight, each had a special attack that would would deplete some of their health when used successfully on enemies.

Other than that, Konami had made a hugely popular beat ‘em up that would open the floodgates for even more to come out. As a matter of fact, almost every Konami arcade beat ‘em up made after played nearly identical to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with the only difference being in audio and graphics.

The arcade experience Turtles offered could not be duplicated on consoles(the NES version only supported two players) so the coin-operated game business would boom for quite some time. Kids would flock to any place that had the game, as often as they could, and spend lots of quarters. I know because I was one of them! For two years, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles would be the most popular arcade game out there.

With Turtles as the king of arcades, so were beat ‘em ups. It looked like it could go on forever, but like all truly great things that happened in the eighties, it must all come to an end and become relevant again fifteen years later.

The day after I saw the movie Scott Pilgrim vs The World, I got the game that was based off the same comic the movie was. After playing the demo, I was convinced it would be a good game to purchase and I was right. It is a throwback to classic beat em ups like River City Ransom, Double Dragon, and the Konami games. It’s not just nostalgia factor; it takes a lot of game mechanics that worked for beat em ups and puts them into one nice package for up to four players to enjoy. (I hope to write a retrospective on the genre in the near future.)

Anyways, this post isn’t so much about the game as it is the music for the game, composed by chiptune punk band Anamanaguchi. (Man, has the definition of “punk band” mutated heavily.) Anamanaguchi makes music that sounds very similar to what you would hear while playing an NES videogame. It’s very synthesized, using a hacked NES and Game Boy to create those sounds, with live electric guitar, bass, and drums added in. It has an upbeat pop feeling to it, as you can hear it in the above piece, Another Winter, which serves as the theme for the first world of the Scott Pilgrim game.

Another World is my favorite theme in the whole game. It plays with changes in tempo and volume while you travel the streets of Toronto while beating up bros, hipsters, punks, and emos to make it to a concert in time for the boss battle. It has more variety in composition than the melodies that loop in most NES games and it also puts out this surreal feeling that you are in a familiar world yet at the same time, you are not.

The music sounds kind of like something you may hear in a Capcom NES game like Megaman or even Duck Tales, but the high pitches of the synthesizer and the addition of live instruments make Anamanaguchi’s music sound unique. It’s the same thing with the game; it feels a lot like a classic beat em up- and there are plenty of homages to many of those games -but something about the scenery and the characters you play as and fight against are not what you would be used to if you played beat em ups twenty years ago. (Of course, fashion and society has changed significantly since then!)

Another Winter may go down as one of the greatest game compositions of this generation. It’s not only has a memorable pop sound that serves the purpose of capturing nostalgic feelings for classic gaming, but it is lively, uplifting, and full of heart. It is the exact opposite of everything the movie is, which may be why I love hearing it so much.

On a whim, I decided to see Scott Pilgrim vs The World yesterday to determine whether it was the movie that defined our generation(or is it the one following me since I am now officially “old?”) as some fans have proclaimed or if it was “the most obvious exploitation of geek culture as a shallow fashion trend for posers if there ever was one” as I have stated before.

The answer is… both.

This sadly is a movie that defines a culture of twenty-somethings and high schoolers that are guided by social networking, image boards, and Hot Topic stores on what “cool” is. They grew up on videogames, superhero movies, and Cartoon Network and they kind of dig comic books, anime, and”retro” stuff as they are told to on a regular basis.

And yet, they have no real passion for any of those things. They like them on a superficial level, which is enough to be accepted by social circles that are similarly into those things more as a passing interest than anything else. They are an apathetic bunch that feel disenfranchised by a society that they never worked hard to build or change. Moreover, they ironically feel entitled for society to hand them many privileges while they give little back.

Yes, Scott Pilgrim vs The World is for those people and the morally bankrupt and always douchey Scott Pilgrim is their champion.

Despite the hype, the word of mouth, and the viral marketing, this movie bombed. Some claimed that it debutted on the wrong weekend against manly powerhouse The Expendables; however, this movie would have failed anyways.

Michael Cera should never have a lead role in a movie. He was best as a character that would show up once in a while in Arrested Development to remind Michael Bluth what a terrible father he is. Other than that, he has always been labeled as the “awkward kid” in everything he does as the way he has acted has never changed.

Character traits of Scott Pilgrim promote the Hot Topic lifestyle that have ideas like “it’s okay to be a pedophile”, “shitty, heartless indie music played by guys who look at their feet and not at the crowd is actually good!”, and “the douchier you are, the cooler you look to the people around you” running rampant.

Scott Pilgrim is a character whose chest I wanted to punch a hole through during the entire movie. Just so I could rip out his lungs and shove them back down his gullet. He was not only annoying but absolutely fake. He is the kind of prick that would go to conventions that I go to to prey on dumb, under-aged girls who don’t know any better, whether it be while dressed a Johnny Depp character, sporting a giant, fancy camera to get attention of cosplayers, or giving insincere promises of sharing booze in his hotel room with no consequences. His intentions are less than noble and he does not care whose life he ruins. Scott Pilgrim is the kind of person I would point out and say “that person is scum!”

The other thing we learned is that outside of this SMALL geek- or rather poser geek -culture that exists, nobody gives a shit about the culture this movie relates to. They do not care for the videogame references, the ironically bad music, or the terrible fashion and hair prevalent in this movie. This movie may be based on a comic book and comic book movies tend to be smash hits, but there was something missing from the Scott Pilgrim formula.

While superhero movies have dominated summer box offices year after year, it had nothing to do with comic books or the geeks that worshipped them. Rather it was because characters like Spider-Man, Batman, and Iron Man had DECADES to build themselves up as American icons that inspired millions of people to flock to theaters to see their movies.

Scott Pilgrim is no super hero. He has no concepts of self-sacrifice or justice like many heroes do. He is a character that represents the vile hipster lifestyle that only sparse numbers of people can relate to and appreciate. For that reason and because of who was playing him, this movie could never be a success.

So what was Scott Pilgrim vs The World about? It starts off with his terrible indie band, the Sex Bomb-Ombs, trying to make it big and entering a battle for the bands tournament. Scott is their 22 year old bass player and he has a new girlfriend that is a 17 year old catholic schoolgirl that thinks their band is the greatest thing ever. Nobody else is amused.

At some point, Scott meets a new girl named Ramona Flowers, who happens to be an anagram of every girl I tried to go out with in 2009. Not only is she shallow, fashionable, and the devil, but she is also vindictive, manipulative, and brings out the worst qualities in any guy that desires to be with her. He strings the naive 17 year old girl around while he tries to date and perhaps bang Ramona.

The problem is, it’s not that easy. Since Ramona is a cunt(and embodies the reasons of why I tend to not trust women anymore), she has severe baggage in the form of seven exes that are driven mad with revenge as they feel they have been wronged by her. So they from a group called League of Evil Exes that vow to crush Scott simply because he wants to date Ramona. Yeah.

In order to hook up with Ramona, Scott must defeat all of her exes. Now these fights are truly fun to watch and where the movie shines. All of a sudden, these characters are super-powered like they ripped off Dragon Ball Z and have some very visually exciting fights with over the top and creative special effects. There are uppercuts into the sky, psychic powers, beam swords, and even manifestations of mythical animals that come out of amplifiers. Good stuff that nobody else will understand!

The videogame inspiration that this movie and the comics draw from becomes very apparent. There is always a “vs” intro for each fight and multi-hit combo counters similar to fighting games. When Scott beats an evil ex, he gets points and coins appear from each destroyed body as seen in beat em ups like Double Dragon and River City Ransom. At one point, Scott gets enough points to receive a 1-UP, or extra life, that he uses as a deus ex machina in the movie’s climax to atone for his poor judgment and constant douchebaggery.

Even for little things like the playing of instruments and the ringing of phones, sound effects flow out of those objects visually to drive the point “hey, this is a comic book movie” home. It is these nice touches of cinematography that should be remembered for years to come. In spite of the fact that the rest of the movie was a nonsensical disaster, the use of visual effects in this movie should be studied as they made scenes that would have been horrible(like any musical performance) much more tolerable.

Every fight that Scott Pilgrim goes through is rather brutal. After minutes of taking retarded amounts of punishment from a vegan psychic that included being mind thrown, Scott was able to finish his opponent off with a headbutt that even The Expendables was lacking. (Not gonna lie. How the tide turns in this fight was actually pretty funny.) The battles left some critics to wonder why Scott would go through such efforts to try to win the affections of a cold-hearted bitch that would never give him the time of day.

I can answer that. I was there. Many times. They are like war stories, looking back on them. While Ramona looks like a bitch to the audience, to any guy who catches her eye, she is like an angel delivered from the heavens. She is good at telling Scott the things he wants to hear, and making little, trivial things like sharing a bed seem like an experience Scott should feel thankful for. The kind of manipulation that Ramona uses to make herself feel good works well on guys who have never known what it is like to be loved by another person.

There is one more thing though: the aesthetic of Ramona’s fashion sense. For guys who grew up in a lifestyle filled with videogames and anime, hair colors such as purple, pink, blue, green, bright red, gothic black, orange, or any combination of those colors teamed up with knee-high boots and short black skirts will increase desirability of a female tenfold and ultimately ruin such a guy’s judgment.

Yup, Scott got duped because he is unquestionably shallow and desperate and refuses to accept the reality of the situations he finds himself in. Just like the audience that admires him!

(To be honest, bad habits started to become prevalent again as I ALMOST fell in love with Ramona a couple times. Luckily, I was able to keep my wits about me and maintain my icy cold heart.)

If it wasn’t for the over the top fight scenes in this movie, Scott Pilgrim vs The World would have been a waste of time to see. They were inventive and stylish and were an interesting contrast to a bland love story that was never believable. At the end of the movie, Scott does indeed get Ramona but their relationship has as much depth as a hookup at an anime convention. Neither of these people are good for each other, nor are they even good people.

Was this movie supposed to teach us that it’s okay to be a douche if it gets you a terrible woman in the end? I don’t know. Were the characters intentionally ugly and unlikable on the inside to show how ultimately repulsive the poser geek culture is? There are times that this movie feels more like a social commentary than it does entertainment since half the movie is painful to sit through, as I have seen some of these events transpire in one form or another.

Unfortunately, there is no resolution to this movie and there is nothing that inspires the audience to do anything after. What the hell was the point to this movie? Years from now, when everyone wearing Legend of Zelda sweaters with their skinny jeans moves onto something else, we will know the real answer.

It was announced today that one of my favorite anime directors, Satoshi Kon has passed away at the age of 46. He directed several anime movies that were all critically acclaimed. Not one movie he made was ever mediocre or worse. The first one he directed was also one of the first anime movies I had seen, Perfect Blue.

It was so crazy at the time. It wasn’t about robots, or magical girls, or super powered martial artists with spiky hair. It was about this pop singer, whose poor career was devoted to captivating small groups of lonely nerds throughout Japan, deciding to move onto acting.

During that transistion, she has to deal with a rabid fan boy who stalks her and murders people around her, an obsessed manager who lives vicariously through her(to the point that her manager tries to BE her), and then the dark world of breaking into mainstream entertainment. There is a lot of surreal imagery in that movie and it launched Satoshi Kon as a director.

From there, he directed Millenium Actress, Tokyo Godfathers, and Paprika. All are beautiful films that challenge the mind and ideas about society. He also directed Paranoia Agent, which I have yet to see but it was on Adult Swim many years ago. (Here is hoping for a re-release.)

Satoshi Kon was working on a movie called Yume-Miru Kikai, which was supposed to come out this year, but who knows now. It was to be his first effort at making a family film which has a lot of people interested considering all his movies have been psychological affairs for adults.

His death could have not have come at a worse time for the anime industry. This is a time where anime’s “cool factor” has cooled off greatly in America as the industry struggles both financially and creatively in Japan. Whenever a new Satoshi Kon movie came out, it always gave a boost of attention to anime, especially from critics who are not really anime fans. His movies are that important.

You were great at what you did, Satoshi Kon, and you will be missed!

For ten years, never has there been a more important weekend to decide the fate of America through movie theaters than this most recent one. We had a chick flick based on a book Oprah liked, a movie starring Micheal Cera that I’m supposed to like becuase I get all the videogame references, and then- OH MAN -the manliest movie of the year.

The Expendables: #1 Box Office grosser this past weekend getting more revenue than that chick flick and awkward kid movie COMBINED. That is REAL JUSTICE, America. I am proud of all the men who stepped up this weekend and went to the movie theaters and all the women that happily seduced them afterwards.

We let Hollywood know this weekend that we want movies with REAL MEN kicking ass and not some dork kids who sparkle in the sunlight!

With that said, what was this movie about? There was no real plot. Something terrible is happening in a third world country and muscle-bound men step in with BIG guns and BIGGER explosions to wipe them out in red-blooded American fashion! If this movie had aliens to kill, you could have called it Contra: The Movie. But more importantly, there was a message here.

The majority of these actors starring in this movie were older than 40, with some in their fifties. What does that say? It says that there are NO new action stars in Hollywood. All these old farts that excited us during the 80s had to come back again to show the world how it’s done! Yes, their age shows. This movie is by no means perfect. But dammit, it was way more awesome than any action movie in the past five years.

Like I said, there are no new top-tier action stars. The most recent would be Jason Statham, who did an excellent job of playing Lee Christmas in this movie. But he’s not new to action flicks. So we defintely need new action stars and Seth Rogen as The Green Hornet is not going to cut it.

This movie had explosions. This movie had LOTS of killing. This movie had lots of excellent knife fights. This movie had Dolph Lundgren fighting Jet Li! This movie had Terry Crews annihilating an army with his AA-12. FUCK YEAH! This movie excellently showed how True Man Law #2 should be enforced; not once, but TWICE! And that arm bar takedown that Barney Ross(Sylvester Stallone) did on Dan Paine(Steve Austin)? FANTASTIC!

If these things do not excite you then I want you to put on an apron, get in the kitchen, and fix me a sandwich Nancy cause you surely ain’t no man! Yeah, that’s how it’s gonna be! If you’re new to my blog you should know right now that I am not a nice guy.

But this movie has flaws. First of all, there is not enough killing. There are about thirty minutes where nobody dies. During that time, Jason Statham beats up a bunch of bros(that probably play Halo 3 while having circle jerk sessions) and Dolph Lundgren curb stomps a douchebag’s face in and calls him an insect. But still, no killing.

Then, there were no headbutts. WHAT THE FUCK THAT IS IMPORTANT! There were many hand to hand fight sequences that a headbutt could have fit right in. What the hell happened here? Somebody dropped the ball on this.

Last but not least, Terry Crews’ character, Hale Ceasar, makes a big deal about this bullet that has a warhead in it but I never saw him fire it in the movie. I paid extra attention the second time I watched The Expendables just to make sure I didn’t miss it because the director thought is was a great idea to film the last 30 minutes of the movie in the dark, making it hard for people like me to follow what the hell was going on. But I am positive that Hale Caesar never fires that bullet. Talk about blue balling. Perhaps that will be a deleted scene that will show up in the video release.

Despite those flaws, this movie was a lot of fun. Word is that a sequel will happen. I hope so. This movie was lacking Kurt Russell with an eyepatch and I’d love to see him in the next one.

Not only that, I hope this movie, that was clearly a celebration of REAL masculinity, will inspire more action movies like this. And new action stars that have arms bigger than mine. Because dammit, we needed this. The truth is, movies affect the views and perceptions of the masses and we need the right ones out there doing the job they are supposed to. The Expendables is a step in the right direction because it reminds America what men of the cinema used to be and need to be again.

The event starts at 4pm at Wall Street Plaza in downtown Orlando with registration starting at 2pm! Please give me as much support as you can so I can run with everything I have!

It’s time MEN. The wait is over. The MANLIEST movie of the decade is finally out in theaters at midnight tonight. Will you be seeing it this weekend? Yes you will, if you dare call yourself a REAL MAN.

This weekend is a big deal because THE EXPENDABLES- starring Sylvester Stallone, Dolph Lundgren, Jet Li, Terry Crews, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, Jason Statham, Gary Daniels, Randy Couture, Mickey Rourke, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Bruce Willis -goes up against a chick flick starring Julia Roberts and Scott Pilgrim vs The World, the most obvious exploitation of geek culture as a shallow fashion trend for posers if there ever was one, featuring the always awkward Micheal Cera. (There’s also a Studio Ghibli film coming out but only myself and ten other people care.)

MEN, we are taking back theaters this weekend. This is not something we bootleg. This is something we pay to see. In a fucking theater. Where VIOLENCE belongs.

Whether it be at midnight tonight or anytime throughout the weekend, you MUST see this movie. There is NO excuse. You have a date with a lady doing something else? Dump her. Have kids to watch? Tie them up and throw them in the closet. (Cheaper than hiring a babysitter.) Boss made you come in to work? TOSS HIM THROUGH A WINDOW!

This is where we stand as TRUE MEN and let Hollywood know that TRUE MEN still watch movies.