Article on how to ressurect the Beat-Em-Ups

[jalvarez82]

QC+P or K types power moves (i.e. in Street Fighter & KOF) would be hella cool in a beat em up, I think.

I like MrPopo's for another D&D beat em up.

[jfrost]

BEUs do not need to be overcomplicated, but the simplicity of older games wouldn't translate so well nowadays, in my opinition. Take God of War, for example: you have essentially two attack buttons, one throw button and a jump button. You mostly do the crazy moves with two buttons and still looks awesome. If they transpose this to a 2D plane, you have a great BEU.

[jaydubnb]

Are Beat Em Ups really a dead genre?

I've always thought that many of the recent Marvel superhero games (ultimate alliance, legends, wolverine origins, web of shadows) qualify as a Beat Em Up. They're not sidescrolling , but still beat em ups thnat probably don't differ much from Dungeons and Dragons: Shadows over Mystara (it's the first BEU that came to my mind when I think of BEUs with leveling up and equipments), except with a different view angle.

Oh, and hello everybody! First time poster, but I've been lurking around the forums for a few months now.

Hi, my name is Jeff Wilson, and I'm the author of the 2D-X article. After a bit of pondering, I would agree. I recently went to an press event and got hands-on with Ultimate Alliance II (a piece on that is forthcoming), which is one of the few modern BEUs that feel like a traditional BEU--but with a nice glossy coating, of course.

BTW--nice community you guys have here. I have strong retro gaming leanings as well, mainly due to the fact that many modern games have overly complex controls

[Octopod]

Isnt Marvel Ultimate Alliance a dungeon crawler like the Baldurs Gate Dark Alliance games?

[fast]

Its more like Gauntlet Seven Sorrows. It is not as involved as Baldurs Gate Dark Alliance, but more so than Gauntlet Dark Legacy.

Theres a genre that needs to come back - Action RPG hack/slash beatemup. Give me something on the scale of Gauntlet but plays like Die Hard Arcade meets Devil May Cry with an exp system and random dungeons...ok I asked for too much.

[SpaceBooger]

I just want something simple yet challenging.

I have played the X-Men games and lost interest after a while, and for Ultimate Alliance - I have it on the Wii but gave up because of the crappy waggle controls.

I still have not beat any of the old Capcom Beat-Em-Ups with one credit yet. That is what keeps me coming back... that and the fact that I can use 100s of credits through emulation to play through a whole game whenever I want.
There is something satisfying about playing the games with unlimited credits and trying to beat it with limited lives - thats what makes the genre fun to me.

[silverback]

Beat em ups frankly IMO were rubbish after the 16 BIT era.

I remember playing SFII on my Amiga 500, who cares there were 6 disks or something, it was awesome. Then I got SFII on my SNES, then my cousin got SFII Turbo on his Snes. Mortal Kombat was ok, but not as good as SF.

Then ths PS etc came with tekken, virtua fighter etc and it was rubbish.

In fact the only decent BEU's aftert eh 16 BIT era were DOA and Killer Instinct.

Games like Marvel vs Capcom on the GC are pretty poor IMO they just are not as good.

I have yet to try the new street fighter but I have been put off with BEU's due to them being rubbish the last few gens.

[fast]

silverback, the beatemups we are talking about are like Double Dragon, Final Fight, Streets of Rage, etc. I know that in some countries, Scotland included, the fighting genre is called beatemup, sorry for the confusion.

[Luke]

Someone please design a side scrolling beat em up similar to Final Fight where the regular guy enemies look like the Jonas brothers, the girl enemies look like Paris Hilton, and the bosses are LJN video game designers.

I think that game could be sold in lieu of anger management therapy.

[silverback]

ah fair enough. Streets of rage was awesome.