Way of the Exploding Fist
Way of the exploding fist was the first
beat 'em up even though, being the first, the term was not invented at that point.(In fact
beat 'em up is an addaption of
shoot 'em up).
When it came out WotEF was way ahead of it's time. In a
gaming world where one or two weopons were the norm WotEF gave you several attacks:
- reverse punch
- rabbit punch
- nealing punch
- low kick
- mid kick
- high kick
- front sweep
- back sweep
- round house
- high back kick
- jumping kick
It also featured auto blocking and somersaults.
Unlike Street Fight, which came along later, in WotEF the idea was that if you got a minor hit on your opponent then you would get one half of a yin yang symbol . If you hit them hard then you would get a whole one. After each hit the game stopped while the players composed themselves. When you got 2 complete yin yang symbols you could proceed to your next belt and a harder opponent.
Why, then, is Street Fighter so much more well known? Well, SF had more gimmicks(it gets the credit for inventing special moves and the power bar and intoducing various different characters) and better graphics, WotEF being a home computer based game while SF was based firmly in arcade machines.
WotEF lives on in the hearts of ex ZX Spectrum owners everywhere(particularly those with emulators)