Yie Ar Kung-Fu is now available on Xbox Live. When I was 10, I dominated the high score screen on this game at the long-gone Pizza Hut near Ventura and Reseda in the San Fernando Valley. It was, for some reason, the first and only arcade fighter I ever really loved. Maybe it's because Oolong can jump around like nobody's business. Maybe it's because of the way the music gets kinda crazy when you're near death. Maybe it's because, unlike later games such as Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat, I was actually really good at it, though I've since lost my touch.

Anyway, of course those later games made the genre much deeper and much more popular. And this version is lacking one really nifty feature included in the Konami Arcade Advanced version: the ability to play as other characters besides Oolong. A true vs. mode would have been great, too, instead of this score battle nonsense. That could have really reinvigorated this game. But despite all this, I'm glad to see this funny little game on Xbox Live. I think it's an important and oft-overlooked piece of hot fighting history. Or maybe just my own history.