Tatio's Double Dragon

Double Dragon was developed by Technos Japen, and published by Tatio Corp. The game was released in the arcades in 1987, and the NES in 1988. This side-scrolling beat'em up is a spiritual sequel to the game Renegade, that was released in 1986. Double Dragon is believed to be one of the first successful examples of the beat'em up genre.

The objective of the game is that you play as a martial artist named Billy Lee (and Jimmy Lee in co-op mode). Your girlfriend, Marian, has be kidnapped by a fearless gang called the Black Warriors. It is up to you ,and your brother in co-op mode, to rescue her. Now, nothing to big in the plot of this game. Very stereo-typical for this era in video game history. Like other games of its time, it was just a side-scroller, nothing too fancy. There are some notable differences  from the arcade version though. One of the major differences, is that in co-op mode, instead of the final boss being the leader of the Black Warriors gang, you must fight your own brother for the affection of Marian. This added a large level  friendly competition to the game.  The NES version added an upgrade system. That is, after defeating a certain amount of enemies, the player earns a heart. Using this heart allowed the player to perform more complicated and difficult moves. Also, the NES version had 2 modes. Mode A allowed the players to play normal campaign. Mode B allowed players to 1 vs 1 each other or the computer in a martial arts battle.

Now, besides what the game did as a successful franchise, it really doesn't have anything super special about it. So if your looking for something really fun and entertaining, Double Dragon wouldn't be my first choice. You can see the impact this game made on today's popular beat'em up franchises, such as Soul Caliber, Street Fighter, and Mortal Kombat. So if you are looking for a fun beat'em up, I'd go for one of those, they are newer and more technologically advanced.

Nunchuck to your face, check

Now I'm not saying this game is terrible. Just not very unique in today's world. Maybe in 1988 it was more unique. Now though, nothing special. There were a few things I liked about this game. The first was the fact that you could move up and down on the screen instead of just left and right like on a lot of other side-scrollers of that time. This added more options to the game, such as choosing which opponents to take out first. With that you can have more of a strategy of how to win the game such as taking out enemies with weapons first. This brings be to other major thing I liked about this game, the availability of weapons. Everyone knows that weapons make life that much easier to do what you are trying to do...in video games. You find these weapons mostly from opponents carrying them to attack you with. But you can also find weapons in the environment to use, such as barrels and rocks. One thing that definitely hit me though was some one that developed this game must of kinky as all hell. Because you can fight girls in whole body hugging outfits, that carry whips and whip you. You can also knock those whips out of their hands...and whip them back...

Who's a kinky boy

In all, the game isn't that bad, just extremely boring. So as I said before, if you are looking for a beat'em up to play for fun, pick up a more recently released game. It would most likely entertain you more. If you want to go old school though, and get a little taste on what started today's versions of the beat'em up genre. Check out the link. Or go pick up Mass Effect 3, because it is still just that good and trumps all other genres.

References:
http://www.giantbomb.com/double-dragon/61-20752/
http://www.arcade-history.com/?n=double-dragon&page=detail&id=676