Before purchasing Black Belt, the only games I had played were on the memorable Sega Cards…
beat-em-up
Chuck Norris SuperKicks
Oh I really, really want to like this game, I really, really do- any game starring the hardest man that ever there was and that there ever will be, surely has got to be good, right? The answer is no…
Bust A Groove
I have never been one for mainstream or normal gaming, which is most likely why this particular and quite bizarre hybrid game drew me in.
Kung Fu Master
Based on the 1984 Jackie Chan film Wheels on Meals (no, I havn’t seen it either) Kung Fu Master is considered by many to be the world’s first side-scrolling beat-em-up video game…
Ehrgeiz: God Bless The Ring
As far as random Squaresoft games go, this one is pretty high up there…
Streets Of Rage
Right I know this is cheating doing a review on SOR when it has already been done…
Teleroboxer
One of the better uses of the VB's 3D – Teleroboxer is a 1 on 1 fighting game akin to Punchout…
Avatar: The Last Airbender – The Burning Earth
Yes its not retro yet but I'am confident that it will become a future classic with its slick gameplay and its great level design…
Mortal Kombat Trilogy
MORTAL KOMBAT!!!
I can still remember the old adverts for when the original was released onto consoles and I was suitably excited…
Battletoads
1991 was the last great year for releases on the Famicom/NES…
Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers
Despite a growing number of parents concerned with their children emulating what they saw on television, the mid-to-late 90s had a slew of great cartoons and shows becoming video games…
X-men 2: Clone Wars
One of the few games I can honestly say has brought something completely unique to the sidescrolling beat em up style that the x-men games have used…
Virtual Pro Wrestling 2: Ōdō Keishō
The Nintendo 64 revolutionised (and near perfected) gaming in various genres…
After The War
There has been a nuclear war and it’s your role as Jonathon Rogers to make your way across a devastated New York City and escape to the outer colonies.
Fatal Fury Special
Fatal Fury Special, released one year after Fatal Fury 2 is more or less just an update rather than a sequel…
Iron Horse
Adventure. Excitement. A cowboy craves all of these things. Fortunately for Konami’s Iron Horse, you get to take advantage of both of these things.
Robocop
Movies that are turned into games are notorious for failing miserably during translation…
The Way Of The Tiger
Released in the mid 80's when Bruce Lee and Karate Kid films had us all wanting to be like our movie heroes, i went for the lazy option…
Street Fighter
Street Fighter
Released in the arcade around 1987, Street Fighter established the one on one fighting formula that would later be the fad of the 90‘s…
Mortal Kombat II
Mortal Kombat II had many releases across various systems in the mid-1990s, and the biggest debate was which version was superior…
Double Dragon
Reprogram by Accolade in 1992 as an unlicensed Genesis cartridge…
Trojan
Developed by Capcom in 1986, Trojan or Tatakai No Banka is a 2D horizontal beat em up action game taking place in a fictional post apocalyptic world…
Mutation Nation
Hooray, it’s yet another scrolling fighter from SNK. Is it any good though?
Ninja Warriors Again
The Ninja Warriors is a 2D horizontal beat em up action game from Taito…
Buster Fight
I wanted to kick this retro profile off saying that Buster Fight was one of the few one-on-one beat'em ups made especially for the GameGear…
Double Dragon 3: the arcade game
I'm not going to devote much time to this game as, quite frankly, it does not deserve it…
Double Dragon 2
Now this is an interesting one…
Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story
The master system has no shortage of scrolling beat ‘em ups from the sublime; Streets of Rage I & II, Kung Fu Kid, Blackbelt, etc, to the god awful; My Hero, Running Battle and so on and so forth (sorry to anyone who actually like them but my opinion will never change)…
Wu Tang Taste the Pain
Originally named Wu Tang: Shaolin Style, when released in PAL format the game adapted the cool sounding 'Taste the Pain' title…
Splatterhouse
With a reboot of the series just around the corner it seems quite timely that a review of the granddaddy of gore appears here in the hallowed halls of Retro Gamer, that game is of course Splatterhouse…
Fatal Fury Special
Fatal Fury Special was SNK’s answer to Street Fighter 2: Champion Edition.
Nastar
AKA: Nastar Warrior or Rastan Saga II depending on where you’re playing it is a strange old bag of tricks indeed…
Double Dragon
When Street Fighter 2 exploded onto the scene in the early nineties, the popularity of one-on-one fighters skyrocketed.
The Ninja Kids
I've been playing through my Taito Legends and Taito Legends 2 compilations on PS2 (again) and I have to say that I dig part 2 far more…
Violent Storm
Technically the third and final instalment in Konami's ace "Crime Fighters" trilogy, Violent Storm hit the arcades in 1993 in a whirlwind of colour, superb cartoony graphics and bone crunching…
Avenger
In the sequel to The Way of the Tiger, Yaemon the Grand Master of Flame is the villain of the piece…
Eternal Champions: Challenge from the Darkside
When the original Eternal Champions hit Sega's Megadrive back in the early 90's, many were riding high on the wave of anticipation that the game would be Street Fighter 2's successor, and even though the game itself wasn't as polished as Capcom's classic brawler, it still garnered a place in many a gamer's heart as a solid and fun beat 'em up…
Battletoads
Or, Teenage Mutant Battling Toads, as Rare probably wanted to call them…
Green Beret
Green Beret (or Rush’n Attack in the U.S.) is a port of the Arcade game made by Konami. It was ported by Imagine for the C64 in 1986.
X2: Wolverine's Revenge
As a comic book and video game fan, you want the best of both worlds when you play a comic book video game…