3. The Side-Scrolling Beat 'Em Up
After the fighting/beat 'em up genre was first developed, most releases fell into one of two broad categories. The first, epitomised by the likes of Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter and Tekken, pitted players against either computer or human opponents in one-on-one bouts where the victor was the one who could deplete the health bar of their adversary first. The second, epitomised by the likes of Double Dragon, Final Fight and Streets Of Rage, split the game into levels and challenged the player or players to make their way through said levels and defeat a number of different mooks and bosses along the way. Whilst the former remains a popular genre, aided by the success of realistic boxing, wrestling and mixed martial arts games, the latter has died a slow death over the years, mostly as a result of the mass transition from two dimensional gameplay to three. The decline of arcades has also played a part, as the games are better suited to co-operative gameplay with joysticks and a couple of buttons rather than solo gameplay on a multi-buttoned console controller. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game was an excellent throwback to the genre (and an accompaniment to a similarly excellent graphic novel series and film) a few years back, but this was seemingly a one-off, forcing those who like to slowly move across a screen beating up everything in sight to revert to the titles of yesteryear to get their fix unless they wish to make the transition to 3D 'hack and slash' games such as Devil May Cry, Ninja Gaiden and God Of War.