Beat 'Em Ups

[Spark Of Spirit]

Games where you beat people up while approaching your goal of beating bigger people up.

Gaming at it's most simplistic, but IMO, at it's most engaging. The genre was at it's peak in popularity in the arcades back in the 90s thanks to devs like Technos, Konami, and Capcom, but has been mostly left for dead since.

What are some of your favorites?

[Commode]

Oh yeah,  Turtles in Time, Simpsons Arcade, X-Men Arcade, and so on and so forth.  That new Scott Pilgrim game was a good effort at a revival as well, although I guess some people didn't like how glitchy it was.

[Foggle]

God Hand, baby, God Hand. Best beat 'em up -- nay, best GAME -- ever.

I absolutely love beat 'em ups; Streets of Rage, Double Dragon, Turtles In Time, 'n all that. I love 'em in 2D, I love 'em in 3D. I love 'em in single plane, I love 'em with multiple planes. Hack 'n slash? I love those, too. People say this kind of game gets repetitive after 5 minutes, but I have to disagree completely. Gimme' a couple combos and a couple hundred enemies and that's all I need to waste away an afternoon.

Shank is probably the best beat 'em up released in the past couple years (I bought it twice, in fact!). I've also been playing River City Ransom a lot recently. Such a classic.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I'm praying to my God desperately that Guardian Heroes gets a remake on XBLA/PSN. That's the one beat em up I've always wanted to play but never could because of how hard it is to acquire.

[talonmalon333]

Turtles in Time

[Spark Of Spirit]

SNES, arcade, or DLC remake?

I always thought if TMNT3 got a remake in the Turtles In Time engine, it would easily be one of the best beat em ups ever.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

The beat-em-up genre is one of my all time favorites. As far as the 2D games go, my favorites are Turtles in Time, The Simpsons arcade beat-em-up, the entire Streets for Rage trilogy, and Comix Zone (even though I never got to beat it). I also enjoyed the X-Men arcade beat-em-up game, and I'd probably love the Double Dragon games if I had gotten the opportunity to play more of them more often.

As far as 3D beat-em-ups go, I always wanted to play God Hand, but I still haven't gotten the chance to. As it stands, my favorite 3D beat-em-up game is Ninja Gaiden Black, which falls in the hack n' slash sub-genre. Some people would say that those don't count as beat-em-up games, but on the contrary they essentially are the same thing as any beat-em-up game....except with more emphasis on "slashing" than, you know, actual "beating" of things.

I also love what I've gotten to play of Bayonetta, which is my 2nd favorite 3D beat-em-up game (once again, I only consider hack n' slash to merely be a sub-genre that belongs to the beat-em-up genre).

[Foggle]

Yeah, hack 'n slash games are basically beat 'em ups but with swords instead of fists.

The Simpsons arcade beat-em-up

Oh god yes yes yes!! I used to play that motherfucker for hours at Chuck E. Cheese. One of five games I've ever gotten my dad to play with me.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Has anyone played Super Double Dragon? I played it on co-op with a friend, and while it wasn't a perfect game, I was really impressed by its combat system, which I find to be something that was pretty advanced and deep for its own time. You could probably make the argument that Double Dragon is the series that evolved the beat-em-up genre, and introduced the concept of depth to the combat system, beyond just mashing buttons. Its the oldest game that I've played that features a lot of stuff beyond just the ability to block, like countering and picking up and throwing items and such. I haven't played River City Ransom, so maybe that and older games started some of that stuff before, but I'm pretty sure DD invented some useful tropes in the genre of its own, that are still probably used to day in some form.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Super Double Dragon is surprisingly good despite being an unfinished game. Return Of (the Japanese version) is slightly better since it has a bit more finished, but either way it's a good beat em up. Double Dragon Advance is even better, though. It's easily the best combat system in a 2D beat em up. So many options, yet it still remains simple and fun.

[Daxdiv]

I like Scott Pilgrim one, even if Ubisoft is filled with douchebags and won't update this game for 360 users. They should be glad that I like Assassin's Creed series so much, otherwise I wouldn't be playing their games. As for my favorite game of all, The Simpsons Arcade game is one that I really want to see be rereleased in one way, shape or form. I've also been playing the X-men Arcade game since it came out on Xbox Live, and right now, my favorite character to use in that is a tie between Storm and Nightcrawler. I tried getting into a game with 5 other people, and we were able to get to Magneto, and get both of the 6 player achievements. Life is good.

[Spark Of Spirit]

So you finally got the achievement? Good. 

X-Men is a surprisingly good beat em up. For a 6 player game, the balance in challenge is surprisingly well tuned.

[Daxdiv]

Yep, I got all the achievements, even though I heard that one with Mystique is kind of glitched, but I heard that's mostly for people that join a game in progress, and I just happened to find a game that was still in the lobby, I was player 4 thanks to that, and chose Storm. Yeah, I love how they bombard you with more baddies on the screen if you have more than 1 player in a game. Really, the best fun with this game is if you manage to get 6 people in a game, or hell, even 2. I find this game more fun if you have more than 1 person on the screen for reasons like more baddies and a better chance to screw around. Though due to the new rerelease of this, I always have the urge to use my mutant power. It doesn't help that when I waste a life in this game, I don't have to put in an extra quarter, and I can just continue with what I was doing.

Also, yesterday I got the achievement for beating the game with all 6 X-Men, turns out the mutant I didn't beat the game with was Cyclopes.

[Angus]

The Simpsons, Turtles in Time, X-Men, and those Golden Axe games where you can mount a beast and tail trip enemies.

I tried out Marvel Ultimate Alliance over Thanksgiving. That looked kind of fun.

[Daxdiv]

The Scott Pilgrim game finally got the Knives Chau DLC for the Xbox 360, yet I tried playing the game earlier, and it still fucking frozed on me. Dammit Ubisoft, you were supposed to fix that.