What's Better Than a Single Dragon?
Double Dragon
Platform: Arcade | Genre: Beat-'em-up
Publisher: Taito | Developer: Technos | Released: 1987

What would the world of entertainment be without the street brawl? Just as Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone punching or shooting people typified the blockbuster action movies of the 1980s, so did Double Dragon represent the epitome of action gaming in its era--and for years to come. Today, the game stands as an undisputed classic. It's hardly the first game in which the player would walk to the right while punching and kicking anything that moved; but it was by far the best, and it was unsurpassed for a full two years until the 1989 advent of Sega's Golden Axe and Capcom's Final Fight. Double Dragon inspired these and many other subsequent brawler titles, but it still typifies the side-scrolling 2D brawler at its very best.

Though earlier games like Kung-Fu Master and Renegade were quite similar in spirit to Double Dragon, Technos' brawler introduced some of the most visceral gameplay the world had ever seen. The first moments of the game perfectly explained what semblance of a plot there was and also instantly demonstrated how Double Dragon was pushing the envelope in terms of video game depictions of realistic violence. Simply put, you see a woman get punched in the stomach and carried off--kidnapped--by a gang of thugs. A moment later, the nearby garage door opens and out comes Billy Lee, as well as the near-identical Jimmy Lee, if two players put in their quarters. Armed with nothing but their bare fists, the twins would fight their way through droves of bad guys (and bad girls, many of whom got their names from characters from Bruce Lee's Enter the Dragon) in an attempt to rescue their beloved Marian.

They would then proceed to fight one another to the death, because there are two Lee brothers but only one Marian. Talk about playing hard-to-get.

Notwithstanding the surprise twist at the end, the story of Double Dragon has little bearing. What's important is that the game delivered easily the hardest-hitting action of its time. Realistic grunts and groans from vanquished opponents, along with the loud, clear sound of punches and kicks laying into their targets, became synonymous with the arcade gaming experience of that time. Some especially brutal-looking moves, most notably in how Billy and Jimmy could grab their opponents by the hair and deliver a series of knee strikes to their faces, distinguished Double Dragon from all the relatively simpler, cleaner beat-'em-up games that preceded it.

Double Dragon also featured a larger variety of moves than most similar games--uppercuts, head-butts, jump kicks, throws, roundhouse kicks, and, of course, elbow strikes. Plus, the game featured a nice variety of street-fight-style weapons--knives, baseball bats, oil barrels, and tires, as well as whips, boulders, and even sticks of dynamite. Like most arcade games of the time, Double Dragon was quite short, spanning just a handful of stages of action. Nevertheless, most players had to spend a good two or three dollars to get through it. Finishing the game was hardly the end, though. Like any great game, Double Dragon continued to be fun long after you beat up Machine Gun Willy and Jimmy or Billy Lee and saved the girl.

I spent an entire summer playing Double Dragon, but I don't think I ever quite managed to make it through on one credit. Fifteen years later, I remember every aspect of that game as clearly as ever. I remember poring over an issue of Nintendo Fun Club, which unveiled an upcoming port of Double Dragon for the Nintendo Entertainment System--you can't imagine how much I wanted that game. It turned out to be a pale imitation of the arcade classic, but I still played the heck out of it, just because it reminded me of my then-favorite game.