The King of Kong

The King of Kong is a movie about Billy Mitchell and Steve Wiebe.  I was slightly surprised by the competitiveness of the two men.  They devoted a good portion of their life to tackling Donkey Kong.  For Billy, being the top man at arcade games is his life in a nutshell, but for Steve it was the driving force to keep him moving forward after he lost his job.  At first it seems the movie pushes for Billy's side of things to keep him the winner, but it soon turns to Steve as the honest family man that is trying to impress his wife and kids.  It makes a fool of Billy, showing that he submits a video rather than compete in person.  Steve Wiebe works hard to earn the respect of the officials and eventually Beats Billy's record.

Double Dragon is another classic beat-em-up game.  It features guys and girls in tights punching and kicking the snot out of each other.  It is like river city ransom with less of a storyline. Both games have similar controls and mechanics...even similar maps and platforms.  Other than the bright colors and memorable character design it is just like River City Ransom.  It is best played with a friend for a fun, quick game.

River City Ransom

River City Ransom is a NES game that is a perfect example of a classic beat-em-up game.  It is made by the makers of Double Dragon. You play a tough guy that beats up thugs and is fighting leaders of gangs.  The art style is a simple 8-bit super deformed character.  The game gets old fast, but is fun to play with a friend.  It is always funny when you accidentally beat up your friend after mistaking him for an enemy.  It makes me thing of FPS games today with the text for comments appearing at the bottom while the player is in the middle of a game, it is very distracting and messes up gameplay.  Although the text is distracting, it is funny..."Barf" is the noise you make when you are seriously hurt.

Ninja Gaiden

Ninja Gaiden is a platformer/ side-scroller that is very hard to beat.  It has a actual storyline with cutscenes.  It uses the full range of color that an 8-bit system could offer.  The enemies spawn at the most horrible places.  If you dont move forward or back they continue to spawn over and over again. 

It makes me angry when I jump onto a platform only to find that it is not part of the actual platform.  The color and art style is beautiful, but it makes it hard to play the game.  I would rather have very defined platforms han art on the screen that gets in the way of game mechanics.  

The Legend of Zelda

Considered one of the greatest game franchises of all time, The Legend of Zelda is a series of static screens with weapons, monsters, and dungeons.  You are the hero named Link and you have been set on a journey to save Princess Zelda.  

This game is very impossible without the maps and tips that came with the original packaging of the cartridges.  There are eight dungeons to go through.  You start off with a sword.  It takes its bases from the game Adventure for the Atari 2600.  It inspired countless RPGs such as Dragon Quest.  

Contra

Contra is very close to a beat-em-up and a FPS game combined.  The first level is a side-scroller.  As you move through the game you gain upgrades to your weapon.  It has extremely hard bosses and in general is a very tough game to play. 

The characters look like your ordinary tough guys.  Konami used the big action stars and movies of the day to create a game they believed the people wanted to play.  It is almost too hard to play.  Without the use of the Konami Code it is pretty much unbeatable.  

Mega-Man 2

Mega-man 2 has many bright colors and has nine levels.  You choose which level you begin with.  You cannot fight the evil Dr. Wily until you have beaten the other eight 'mans' that Dr. Wily has created.  After you defeat each boss you receive a power-up to help you defeat a new boss.

This game is very tough and requires lots of concentration to beat this game.  This is a successful sequel to the original Mega-Man.  There is a more open world than Mario games and it allows for a changing story and a different feel to the game each time.