| Best Fighting
/ Beat'em-up
River
City Ransom
Though undoubtedly
under-appreciated in its time, River City Ransom has achieved a cult-like
status among NES aficionados. The reason we love it is two-fold: RCR not
only has simple yet complex gameplay, but it's accompanied by a quirky
sense of humor. Anyone can jump right into the game and start beating up
thugs, and it's easy to figure out how to use the various weapons and objects
you find lying around. RCR adds to this the ability to shop around in malls,
buy food to heal yourself and raise RPG-like stats for your character.
Where do you get the money to buy all this stuff? Well, that's where the
game's sense of humor comes in; in an amusing twist of fate, you beat up
the bullies and take their money. Combine that with a plot that has your
girlfriend being kidnapped and held hostage in a high school by evil twins,
and bad guys that say "BARF!" when they die, and you've got barrels of
funny in every butt you kick.
Runners up:
Double
Dragon II
 The
Double Dragon series shied away from the zany sense of humor of our winner,
and perhaps that's why it was beaten out in our poll. It replaces that
wacky attitude with street punks, butch chain-wielding dominatrixes and
acrobatic (perhaps even alcoholic?) ninjas. The fighting engine itself
is a bit more sophisticated, allowing for a fairly high number of moves
with only two buttons. Jump kicks, flying knees, over-the-shoulder throws...and
who could forget those knee-butts? Ouch. Strangely enough, the game has
the same basic plot; one or two guys are going after their girlfriend,
who was kidnapped by thugs. Honestly. Wouldn't it be easier just to dump
her?
Teenage
Mutant Ninja Turtles II:
The
Arcade Game
 Yet
again, we find a girl kidnapped by an evil gang -- not a girlfriend, though,
since it's unlikely that any human female would put out for a gang of mutant
amphibians. TMNT 2 is not actually a sequel to TMNT, but rather, a port
of the first TMNT arcade game. It has a fairly unsophisticated fighting
engine, but we still loved it. Why? Well, probably because it was part
of the marketing juggernaut designed to have children buy as many TMNT
toys as possible--there is serious product placement going on in the game,
and we're not just talking about the Pizza Hut signs that are strangely
littering the halls of an apartment building.
|
