my fave fighter

[Ack]

I've been playing them since their inception...

You must be a lot older than I imagined you to be!

Yeah, if he were five when he first hit up the arcade, that would make him...about 35 now? Warrior saw its release in 1978, or was it 1979? It's definitely possible.

[vejita]

Haha, 35 is OLD AS SHIT

j/k

[gennss]

The fighter genre im pretty sure didn't start that far back, I think omongst the first ones was on NES.

Shmups on the otherhand pre-date me.

edit:
karate champ is my guess on first fighting game. (no combat does not count)

[Ack]

Actually it's believed that the fighting genre really got its start with Warrior, which saw its arcade release in 1979, by Vectorbeam. Here's the Wikipedia article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrior_(arcade_game)

It's not the earliest game with that kind of play in mind, as Sega released a boxing game, Heavyweight Champ, in 1976. Here's a little info on Heavyweight Champ from the Killer List of Video Games:

http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?game_id=8099

Karate Champ(1984) and Way of the Exploding Fist(1985) also predate the NES. Yes, I realize that WotEF was released the same year, but it saw its Commodore 64 release in August, where as the NES didn't see its US release until October.

[Mike231]

Capcom vs Snk 2 hands down

[Overload]

My favorite fighter would have to be Super Smash Brothers Melee