20 Incredibly Important Video Games That Shaped The Industry

10. Street Fighter 2

Why It Is Important: Street Fighter 2 revolutionised the beat 'em up genre with its intuitive controls and combo system. As the name implies, Street Fighter 2 wasn't the first Street Fighter game, but it was the first good one and that's all that really matters. Released in 1991, it brought a new level of precision and strategy to the beat 'em up genre and gave the dying arcade the boost it desperately needed. It was later ported to every console under the sun so that friends could get unnecessarily angry at one another in the comfort of their own homes. The strength of Street Fighter 2 lies in its controls. For the first time there was no real element of luck to doing special moves. The button inputs for moves were simple and easy to remember (down, forward punch for hadouken, down left back for the badass Tatsumaki Senpuukyaku tornado kick). If you failed to pull off a Hadouken it was your own fault because the game always responded exactly to the buttons you pressed. Special moves soon became standard in future fighters, as did SF2's excellent combo system that allowed moves to be chained together in quick succession. The sheer number of ways to attack combined with the varied character roster meant that every player could develop their own fighting style. You could jump around like a dog on a bouncy castle or play more defensively and counter attack. It was like a fast-paced game of chess. But with punching. This of course led to the popularity of tournaments where the best players in neighbourhoods would gather to compete. SF2 is still popular amongst tournament players today, which really proves how well the game was designed. Street Fighter 2 quite simply is an amazing game with a huge legacy. There would be no Mortal Kombat or Tekken or Virtua Fighter without this gem existing. There wouldn't be a Street Fighter movie either, so feel free to blame SF2 for that abomination.