Ask anyone what their favourite beat ’em up is on the Megadrive/Genesis and they will probably reply: Streets of Rage 3.
Released by Sega in 1994, Streets of Rage 3 is the jewel in the crown of a brilliant trilogy of scrolling fighting games.
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The Kung-Fu Master Jackie Chan, Arcade
This 1995 arcade beat ’em up from Kaneko is an obscure Mortal Kombat clone, with digitised pictures of Jackie Chan and his stunt team playing a set of fairly weird fighting characters.
“But is it any good?” you ask. “Not bad,” is my reply.
Mortal Kombat, Arcade
Mortal Kombat is a legendary arcade fighting game, created and manufactured by Midway in 1992.
The game is infamous for a number of reasons.
Diner, Intellivision
Diner is an unofficial/official sequel to BurgerTime, created by Mattel Electronics exclusively for the Intellivision in 1987. ‘Unofficial’ because it’s not really counted as canon, and ‘official’ because Mattel at least got permission from Data East before releasing it.
Jackie Chan Stuntmaster, PlayStation
Jackie Chan himself was involved in the making of this Canadian PlayStation game, and not just in terms of lending his voice talents.
Bruce Lee, Atari 8-bit
Ron J. Fortier‘s and Kelly Day‘s classic Bruce Lee is part platform game, part beat ’em up.
In it you assume the role of Bruce, fighting his way through a number of simple puzzles. The basic aim is to collect the lanterns so that they open up new exits.
International Karate, Atari 8-bit
International Karate was released in 1986 by System 3 Software.
It was written by Archer MacLean and was one of the first beat ’em ups – ever – to actually feel like a decent game to play and not a ridiculous slug-fest.
Godzilla: Battle Legends, PC Engine
Hudson Soft developed Godzilla: Battle Legends on the PC Engine, for Japanese movie studio Toho in 1993. It is an energetic 2D beat ’em up with characters featured from the infamous series of monster films.
Sensible Soccer, Atari ST
The Atari ST version of Sensible Soccer is just as good as its Amiga parent, to all intents and purposes. Even the scrolling is smooth, which is quite rare on the ST!
International Karate Plus, Atari ST
Programmed by Archer MacLean himself (the man behind the original Commodore 64 version), and published by System 3 in 1988, the Atari ST conversion of the classic International Karate Plus is pretty much flawless, and is also arguably the best beat ’em up on the entire system.
The King of Grabs 