The Year? 1989. The place? Southern Ontario. The person? 8 year old me. After moving from the bitter cold of Northern Manitoba, Ontario seemed like a wonderland. Gone was the 7 inches of snow. Here was Satellite Television. And best of all? No more losing G.I. Joe figures in the snow after performing mock funerals. Yep Ontario seemed to have it all...but nothing would prepare me for what happened next.

On a trip to buy furniture for our new home I discovered "Beat 'Em Ups".

I can describe it like it happened yesterday. Accompanying my parents into the Zellers through the glass entrance way, you could see the far end of the store and everything within the immediate vacinity of these two way, automatic doors. Upon entering however, a machine caught my eye to the far right exit. It was an Arcade machine, and upon the side of said machine were three figures, carrying weaponry the like I had never seen before. An amazon gripping a sword, boobage clear as day....calling my name. Another guy, gripping an Axe, bare chest gleaming in the light as he struck a pose of supreme bad-assery. Lastly was a Dwarf, beard as Golden as the Axe that protruded from his stubby fingers. Nay, I had not come upon some kind of weird erotic porno.....I had discovered the game that would change my nostalgia feelers forever.....I was formerly introduced to Golden Axe.



I turned to my mother as I finished gazing upon this wonderous beauty of mankinds making and began to beg and beg and beg until I got some money. Damnit, 8 year old me wanted to play some fucking Golden Axe. Would you have done differently? Of course the parents used this Golden Axe cabinet as a babysitter. Allowing for a brief respite from their annoying as hell child to look at furniture, but I lapped it up and in no time I was joining Ax=Battler, Tyris=Flare and Gilius=Thunderhead on their quest to stop Death=Adder and bring peace back to the land.



This didn't end there. By discovering Golden Axe, I knew I had to have the closest thing to it. So I begged my parents to get it for the Sega Master System. I got it, but I wasn't satisfied for long. In the game you could only play as the main human character Ax Battler and thus I felt I was kind of getting jipped. 8-Bit Golden Axe just didn't live up to it's Arcade counterpart. Besides, where was Gilius? I loved that Dwarf and his Axe. Clearly it was time to go Genesis...but alas even then I never did get a copy of the game for that system. I pretty much begged and borrowed and hounded people I knew who had it. I remember one occassion where I was invited over to play some of the 16-Bit version, only for them to deliberately not answer the door and laugh at me from inside their house. I didn't care, I just wanted a full version of Golden Axe...I loved Beat Em Ups that much.


Could I even write this and not post a picture of TMNT '89 Arcade? I think they'd take my beat 'em up fanboy pass away from me

I'm using Golden Axe as my go-to game, but to be fair I loved tons of Beat 'Em Ups. Sure I could throw out names like P.O.W. or Vigilante for street cred, but I plan on following this up with a list of my favourite Beat 'Em Ups anyways. Just be sure that I love 'em and that's why unfortunately "Teh Bias" comes into play. Sadly every game with a very thin list of exceptions that has attempted the Genre post 16-Bit has just gotten it all wrong and mostly suck. To that end, Beat 'Em Ups have become a dying breed, because most of those games forget what made those games special to begin with.


why aren't you on XBLA already?

Now hear me out, this isn't the only reason why games like Golden Axe: Beast Rider failed. Horrible controls and a desire to be more Hack 'n Slash don't help either. See what most really don't understand is atleast from my point of view, for the game to be a solid Beat 'Em Up in today's generation they need to do 2 things.

1. Be A Side Scroller

2. Paced Gameplay



Think about this for a second, what would you think if Capcom made Super Street Fighter IV a game where the camera was over the shoulder and it was free roam around the battlefield much like the Dragon Ball Z fighting games? Would you support it and continue to play Street Fighter games, or would you feel they betrayed the core gameplay that made past iterations so popular? Of course, in SSFIV you do have moments of action that take place in a 3-D environment but at it's basics, it's still the same format as Street Fighter III, and Street Fighter II before it. So why would you when taking a much beloved genre like Beat 'Em Ups turn it into a 3-D, enemy spamfest? Where's the same love and care put into Beat 'Em Ups that Fighters already get? Don't get me wrong, I'm not a staunch protestor of advancing gameplay, infact I'd love to play a fighter that allows for sweet looking 3-D cutscenes and maneuvers but what I've noticed is when the fighters have literally become 3-D the hit detection becomes abit clunkier. In the classics, you're always slashing/punching to the right or left but throw that into a 3-D environment and something feels wrong and awkward and being that it's just fighting, it seems harder to concentrate on the barrage...also did I mention shitty controls? I did? They don't help either. So why aren't Beat 'Em Up's of yore honored?



This is why thankfully we have companies like The Behemoth. The makers of Castle Crashers just totally get what the classics were all about. Side Scrolling goodness, and a pace and build up to the enemies. One of the best part about old school Beat 'Em Ups were little hints about the dangers ahead. In Double Dragon, the main boss would watch on as his goons punched the girl in the stomach and walked away thus alluding to a fight to come. In Castle Crashers, you see muscled up thugs run away with the Princesses in much the same fashion. In Golden Axe upon entering the final area, maggots crawl along the floor and eventually make up what would be the essence of Death Adder, creating an image of a larger than life bad ass that you now had to face. In Castle Crashers there's a tough looking guy that you're meant to think is the Boss, who gets crushed by a door as the "real" Boss enters the fight. All Classic stuff. All forgotten by everyone except one Developer.

So to the creators of The Warriors: Street Brawl, Watchmen: End Is Nigh and Golden Axe: Beast Rider....what were you guys thinking?....hey..wait a minute...those are all licensed games.......now things are starting to make a little more sense. The almighty dollar. Mucho Dinero.

Well for all those still reading this, will Scott Pilgrim BUCK the trend? ho ho ho.