My 10 All-Time Favorite Fighting Videogames

People tell me that they write blogs or microblogs for catharsis. While I respect such opinion, I’ve always considered fighting games as a better stress-reliever. There’s no problem so severe that it can’t be made better by beating people up, as long as the kicks and punches are all in the mind – or TV. Wait, I said TV! Please drop that fighting stance!

Perhaps the most straightforward genre of videogames, fighting games always follow the same format: pit a fighter against another and have them beat each other up until one falls (or sometimes until the time runs out). Since the game would’ve been too short had it ended after just winning one fight, there’s usually an arcade mode (or “career mode”) where I choose a fighter and run him/her through a tournament, fighting with set number of opponents until I become the champion. Oh, and it’s usually possible to compete against an opponent controlled by a second player, as a test of who has a better “fighting instincts”.

Essentially, all fighting games play like that; they only differ in what can be done in their battlegrounds, but then, those differences dictate why some fighting games are better than others. See my 10 favorites in no particular order after the jump.

(more…)