Video Games

Release date: 1991 Systems: Arcade, SNES, Playstation, PS2, PSP, Xbox Captain Commando came out two years prior to Cadillacs & Dinosaurs and, in many ways, feels like practice run. A lot of the things that C&D does well are already present in this title, which builds upon everything Capcom had learned in Final Fight and … Read more

Release date: 1993 Systems: Arcade Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I believe Capcom’s Cadillacs and Dinosaurs is one of the best 3D sidescrolling beat em ups ever released. Today, I will present you with incontrovertible proof of its badassery – indeed, so convincing will my evidence be, please have an inverted hat or similar … Read more

Release date: 1991 Systems: Arcade, SNES Hey faithful companions. It’s another in my series of posts plodding through the history of the beat em up. As I wrote in December, they’re probably going to remain less than weekly as writing commitments pile up, but I will see it through to the end. Just want to … Read more

Release date: 1991 Systems: Arcade, Commodore 64 Remember when The Simpsons was edgy and impossibly funny and we all liked it? Remember how we laughed at the escapades of the titular dysfunctional family as they fought to save their youngest daughter Maggie from cackling master criminal Smithers? (and check out the canonical age of Homer … Read more

Release date: 1991 Systems: Arcade Hovering at the fringes of the beat em up genre is the slash em up – a (usually Conan-flavoured) romp through pseudo-medieval Fantasyland, slaying goblins, kobolds (I’m normally pretty good when it comes to bestiaries but if anyone can tell me the difference between a goblin and a kobold I’d … Read more

Release date: 1991 Systems: Arcade, SNES Most gamers of a certain age are familiar with the 4-player arcade title Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. As the 80s rolled into the glorious technicolor 90s, pretty much every amusements in the UK had a Turtles machine. Contrasted to the dual screen, 6-player X-Men cabinet, Vendetta, or even The … Read more

It’s been a long road since we started our history of beat em ups way back in May, but I think we might just about be hitting the halfway mark. Cor! Over the coming weeks, we’ll be looking at all the major 3D sidescrollers before moving onto player v player beat em ups. That means … Read more

Release date: 1990 Systems: Arcade, SNES, Virtual Console O Combatribes! Renegade‘s poor forgotten scion! There are a lot of beat em ups neither you nor I remember, and most of them deserve their indefinite detention in the dank oubliette of abandonware obscurity. Because they are f’awful. But Combatribes dares to ascend to the vertiginous heights … Read more

Release date: 1991 Systems: Arcade Released in Asia as Crime Fighters 2, Vendetta was Konami’s follow-up to crappy 1989 title Crime Fighters, a sub-par version of Final Fight with one of my coin-op pet hates – a numerical energy meter that decreases over time, regardless of whether you take damage. It’s a cheap way of … Read more

Release date: 1987 Systems: Arcade Over the last few months, in our ongoing history of video games beat em ups, we’ve been looking at the 2D sidescroller: a game where the player character walks along a single plane – usually left to right – punching and kicking waves of marauding goons. It’s a genre that … Read more

Release date: 1991 Systems: Arcade, Sega Megadrive In the distant future of 2010, New York is rocked by ‘nuclear explosions of unknown origin’. 20 years later, the clean-up operation has barely begun when a mutant gang full of mean dudes, calling themselves ‘Big Valley’ (I can’t read that name without immediately substituting early 90s cheese-reggae … Read more

Release date: 1988 Systems: Arcade, Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Apple II, Atari ST, Commodore 64, DOS, NES, ZX Spectrum A ‘dude’ used to be a sort of metropolitan dandy, but the word underwent some totally badass semantic drift and, during the 80s and 90s, generally referred to any guy who was really, really cool. Now it … Read more