Beat 'em up

This article describes side-scrolling fighting games in which players battle numerous computer-controlled enemies. Fighting games in which in which two or more opponents face off in a showdown battle are described in the Versus fighting game article.

Beat 'em ups (often called scrolling fighting games, scrolling beat 'em ups or sometimes brawlers) are action video games with close combat fighting as the main selling point. Unlike versus fighting games, play can take place over a large level, with the screen scrolling as the player moves through the stage. Though weapons may be featured, unlike shoot 'em up games the purpose of the game and main means of progress is hand-to-hand fighting against waves of enemies.

In this type of fighting game one or more players (most often two, but sometimes as many as six) each choose a unique character and team up to punch, kick, throw and slash their way through a horde of computer-controlled enemies. Thus, unlike versus figting games, when several players play simultaneously they do not fight each other. The fighting occurs in a series of side-scrolling stages, some with a powerful boss enemy at the end. Additionally, except for generally older titles, notable exemples being Kung Fu Master (1984) and Ninja Warriors (1989), most beat'em ups are characterised by that in addition to moving left and right (and/or jump/duck) the players can also move vertically, in and out of the scene.

Styles of beat 'em ups

There are two main variations on the style of gameplay: a fisticuffs and martial arts emphasized, or weapons emphasized. Fisticuff emphasized games focus on primarily fighting opponents with hand to hand combat. On occasion these games will have weapons which the player can find lying around in the game world, or can take from opponents holding them (e.g. knocking down an opponent holding a bat in Double Dragon and Final Fight makes the opponent drop the bat). Since the primary focus of gameplay is hand-to-hand combat, it is common in this type of game for weapons to disappear relatively shortly after a player acquires them. This typically happens whenever a player is knocked down, uses the weapon more than specified number of times, or heads to another stage. Example of games with martial arts emphasized include the Streets of Rage series, River City Ransom, Final Fight, and the Double Dragon series.

Weapons-emphasized games usually have a plethora of martial-arts weapons (such as nunchaku and shuriken) as well as other types of weapons that are already at the player's disposal or can be found as the player progresses through the game. While some of these games do have hand-to-hand combat moves, like being able to throw a close-standing opponent, the focus is on mêlée or ranged weapon combat. Because the player is armed, these games typically have more opponents attacking a player at one time than games where the emphasis is on martial arts. Examples of games with weapons emphasized include the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series, Alien vs. Predator, Captain Commando, Dynamite Cop, Golden Axe series and Magic Sword.

Several games of this genre share another common characteristic. Often, the player has a choice of one of three characters: a strong but slow character, a weak but fast character, and a character that is balanced between strength and speed. The classic example of this three character template is the Final Fight series (Hagar is strong, Guy is fast, and Cody is well balanced).

History

Beginnings

Early beat'em ups were generally far simpler than the later, more refined (though often formulastic) games of the Golden Age, and were commonly single-player games without depth-movement. The perhaps most commonly known example is Irem's Kung-Fu Master from 1984, but some other then-popular titles are Fist II, Knuckle Busters and The Way of the Tiger from 1986, and Altered Beast from 1988.

A early, perhaps the first, example of a beat'em up game with depth-movement is _Kunio-Kun_.28original_game.29 (known as "Renegade" in the US).^{Year, citation} Kunio-Kun introduced three features which would become central to the genre; a 3/4 view with the ability to move not only left and right but also vertically, in and out of the field of view, the 3-button "jump, left attack, right attack" control layout, and a unique boss at the end of each level. There are two features that most specifically set Kunio-Kun apart from its followers: the lack of multiplayer, and very small levels; in Kunio-Kun, each stage is set in an enclosed area, two screens in width, whereas all subsequent beat 'em ups involve fighting enemies and traversing obstacles along a long path that leads to the boss, in the style of most 2D scrolling video games.

Golden age of beat 'em ups

Starting in the mid 1980s, particularly with Double Dragon, levels were lengthened into linear paths, which the player(s) would have to traverse, battling enemies along the way, and which usually ended with a fight against a boss. Two major milestones which utilized this approach are Double Dragon and Final Fight; both of these games spawned franchises that still survive today, while some of the most popular scrolling fighting games from the late 1980s to the mid 1990s utilized the same gameplay approach. At its height, the side scroller was one of the most popular kinds of arcade games, but they have since fallen out of fashion. Capcom was known for producing several popular scrolling fighting games, ranging from original titles such as Captain Commando and the Final Fight series to licenced works such as Shadow over Mystara, Knights of the Round and Alien vs. Predator.

Video game consoles also had some very popular scrolling fighting games, particularly River City Ransom for the NES, and the Streets of Rage series for the Sega Genesis.

The proliferation of beat 'em ups in the late 1980s and early 1990s can not be over-emphasized; there were literally hundreds of different beat 'em ups made, and their popularity did not wane until long after versus fighting games caught on (which happened slowly, beginning in 1991 with the release of Street Fighter II).

Modern beat 'em ups

While a few 3D scrolling fighting games exist (notably Urban Reign, Sega's Die Hard Arcade and Spikeout, Squaresoft's The Bouncer and Konami's remake of 1989's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), they are much more a niche genre than the 2D iterations were. They are mostly attempts to capitalize on popular franchises on previous video game consoles. The major innovation that in the modern games is the introduction of combo, and versus fighting game style moves to execute various attacks. In a combo system, the player can execute a certain series of moves to prevent the opponent from being able to counter attack and possibly receive bonuses for the number of consecutive hits. These gameplay extensions are in part due to the expansion of the amount of buttons on modern controller interfaces, but also to add depth in what has been historically very simplistic gameplay (with some exceptions, such as the fighting system in the Kunio Kun games.)

However, modern scrolling fighting games have increasingly taken traditional gameplay elements created new hybrid gameplay with other genres. These games are charterized by an added depth accomplished by presenting variety of missions, much more gunplay (and fighting abilities that involve guns such as disarming moves), and slow-down/"berserk mode" abilities. Essentially, the 3d scrolling fighting game has been merged with the third-person shooter genre. Games that take this unified approach include BloodRayne, The Warriors, and Dead to Rights.

External links

Computer and video game genres | Fighting games | Beat 'em ups

Beat 'em up | Beat 'em up