Tuesday, January 22, 2008

The Great Game Throw Down: Fighters

Over the next several weeks, two of my fellow friends and bloggers from LastBestAngryMan and The Philosophy of Time Travel will be listing our top 5 all time favorite games in a variety of categories.

Games on any type of platform are acceptable. I will also be using the blog space to rip their selections to pieces when they don't agree with mine.

To get the ball rolling, here are the Top 5 Fighting Games:

5 - Dead or Alive 4 (Xbox 360)

So the first game I'm going to mention here is a game I have never actually played. However, judging by the almost anatomically impossible females in this game (a quick search of "Dead or Alive" in Google Images will explain) you know that this game must be awesome. The girls are so popular to drooling teenage geeks everywhere that they even made a volleyball game featuring the Dead or Alive girls in tiny bikinis.

Incidentally a movie was also made based on this series, and it netted a whole $270k or so at the box office before being yanked from the theaters and relegated to bargain bins everywhere.

4 - Mortal Kombat 4 (Arcade)

This makes the list because my friends and I used to play it all the time in college under the name of "The Kick-Punch Game", since mostly all we did was mash buttons and never bothered to learn to many of the moves.

One move we DID learn, however, is the most hilarious fatality in Mortal Kombat history:



3 - Super Smash Bros. (N64)

Playing this game is like trying to pull a pack of rabid squirrels off of you while running from an angry swarm of bees. You really don't have much idea where you're going or what you're doing because you're too busy just trying to survive.

I do however have fond memories of getting pummeled repeatedly over the holidays by my younger brothers in this game.

2 - Street Fighter 2 Turbo (Arcade/SNES)

Probably one of the best, most balanced fighting games ever (by reputation, I really have no clue) and certainly one of the best ports to the SNES. I spent a ton of time playing this game, even conducting tournaments with all of the characters with my brothers. I don't know that I ever really got any good at it but it was an awesome game.

Sadly, the last film the great Raul Julia ever appeared in was the movie version of "Street Fighter", which was just a terrible shame.

1 - Mortal Kombat 2 (Arcade/SNES)

This was the only fighting game I ever played obsessively in the arcade mall when I was a lad. I got good enough at the game that I could often hang out at the mall for an hour or so just on fifty cents, as the rules of the arcade floor made it so that you were forced to queue up against the jerk who was winning and knock him off the machine before another could step up.

With Mortal Kombat 2, I was that jerk.

Worst Ever - Shaq Fu

If you have never heard of this game before, nothing can prepare you for the horror.



The LastBestAngryMan's top fighter here.

The Philosophy of Time Travel's top fighters here.

2 comments:

Andy said...

Wow, I forgot about Shaq-Fu. Yeah, that game looks terrible. I wonder if that game ever sold any copies, or if it was exclusively rented to drunk college guys in the 90s...

Where is the Original Mortal Kombat on your list? The game that defined the violent genre!?!?! At least Dan made a single selection based solely on sex! I see MK2. I see MK4. No homage to the creator?

You chose Mortal Kombat 2 (decidedly not as good as either SF2 or the original MK) based on your prowess and the fun you had playing it. Same reason I chose Killer Instinct.

Iron and Blood rules!!! Have you ever played it? I will promptly download it and chase people around with a giant honking axe!!!

You just wait until I drop the Rune bomb...

Unknown said...

Ah the wonderful days of pounding Mr. Yeager at Super Smash Bros. Now I can just randomly choose any game I'd like to get that satisfaction.

To whoever put KI in the equation, that game, more than any other fighting game, is the definition of wildly mash buttons and see how high the combo streak gets. Terrible game... that I own... for some reason...