Double Dragon

Double Dragon Arcade Game

Double Dragon was released by Taito in the USA (1987), and was essentially a sequel to the game Renegade.  In the game, the player controls martial artist Billy Lee, or in cooperative play, Billy and his brother Jimmy.  The duo must rescue their girlfriend, Marian, from the Black Warriors gang.  Martial Arts moved were achieved by joystick and a combination of buttons for jumping, kicking, and punching.  Players have a time limit to reach the end of each level, as well as health points that must not be depleted before reaching the end of the level.  Enemy gang members would often use weapons against the brothers, and these weapons could be knocked out, picked up, and used against them.

The game was split into four stages:  A city slum, the factory, the woods, and the Black Warrior gang’s hideout.  At the last stage, if the brothers are still alive when the boss is defeated, the two must fight each other to determine who will win Marian’s hand.

Double Dragon Arcade Game Cabinet

There were tons of home versions of this game, not only in the early days for Atari and the Commodore 64, but also later for the NES and Sega Genesis.  There were remakes of the game created for more contemporary home systems, such as Xbox, Wii and Playstation.