PSYCHO GORILLA GAMES

Assaulting punks in a basement with a pipe.  Classic.

Final Fight. Easily one of the all time greats in gaming history. Made a little before the jump to 16-bit video game consoles and just after Double Dragon innovated the art of sidescrolling beatdowns, Final Fight took the idea and perfected it to the point that seemingly every game of its type used its formula. This was in 1989, which also saw the release of Ninja Gaiden to the American NES as well as Golden Axe and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in arcades. Whereas Double Dragon tended to slow down and seemed to be a little short in length, Final Fight created a perfect combination of great graphics for its time, catchy sound effects and music, and nonstop, action-filled gameplay.

Move your hand, amigo.  I'm gonna smash that can with Andore's neck.

This was also when games started to employ some semblance of a plot. In this case, Mayor Mike Haggar of Metro City, a former Street Fighter, enlists the help of ninja Guy and street tough Cody to rescue his daughter Jessica (Cody's girlfriend) from the clutches of the Mad Gear gang and clean up Metro City. This leads me to several thoughts on the side: first, that Haggar's mayoral politics leave something to be desired in the use of law enforcement, and second, that Metro City is a real shithole. Seriously. Like Gotham City bad, only without Batman or any Gotham police force or Commissioner Gordon or anything. Apparently, Metro City, from block to block and neighborhood to neighborhood, is filled to the brim with street punks. No civilians are found. Maybe the entire Metro City population is filled with gang members. In fact, the only police officer to be found in the entire city, Edi E, is employed by the Mad Gear as some sort of psychotic rent-a-cop. And they're all looking for a fight at all times. From Andre the Giant lookalikes (Andore, to be exact) to punk rock chicks to knife throwing Mexicans (a little tall to be Mexican...maybe Argentine?), everybody wants a piece of the mayor. They'll start fights in the slums (naturally), the subway, a west side bar, a factory, public restrooms, and a fancy uptown mansion. And they're not looking for a fair, mixed martial arts type of fight. They gang up on you, sometimes ten at a time, armed with knives, swords, firebombs, and even guns and crossbows.

The Mayor attempts to win the battle royale in one move.

The best thing about Final Fight is its ability to keep you interested and frustrated from start to finish. Every time you get chopped up by the samurai boss Sodom, every time you get shot, stabbed, beaten by six or more men at once, tied to a wall and strapped with dynamite, you get pissed to the point that you have to win. You want to see the end. You'll get quarters by panhandling in the street if you have to. You see the final boss backed against the giant glass high rise window. You know you want to dropkick him to the concrete below. You want him dead so bad you can taste it. You'll eat chewed up gum, old fruit out of a crate, drink whiskey you find on the floor, all to clean up the giant disaster of crime equivalent of Gary, Indiana that is Metro City. And Final Fight was incredibly advanced for its time. It was made for home consoles and never really perfected to the image of the arcade until 2005, sixteen years later, as part of a Capcom collection for Playstation 2 and XBox. Final Fight is one of the all time greatest game titles ever made, as well as several of the above mentioned titles listed above that were released in 1989. In many ways, that year was the pinnacle of gaming evolution for action. Developers today could learn from its example.

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