Pit Fighter review - Sega Megadrive

If you reckon you're a bit of a hard case, Pitfighting is the thing for you. In this conversion of Atari's popular beat 'em up coin-op, one or two psychopathic headcases battle other horrid loony fighting types in the Pitfighter contest, with big cash prizes awarded to the winner and the losers ending up with broken limbs and worse.

The opponents are a nasty bunch. Most are armed with horrible pointy things, they're nearly all a lot bigger than you and virtually every one is capable of shrugging off even your most devastating blows with ease.

And if that's not enough to put you off, there's always the King of the Pitfighters. This masked executioner-type taunts you during all your bouts. Should you be man enough to reach this leather-clad loony, he proceeds to beat you to a pulp. Avoid this grisly fate and defeat him and you are proclaimed King, meaning you can quit the circuit and retire to spend all your money.

So choose a player - Buzz (a wrestler), Ty (a kickboxer) and Kato (a karate champ) - and get fighting.

What the Mean Machines staff thought

There's no sprite scaling, the characters are small and the animation isn't great, but this conversion of the Pitfighter coin-op is a laugh to play. The gameplay is horribly violent, and there are plenty of special moves to master. One of the best aspects I found was that each of the opponents has his or her own individual characteristics, so you have to adopt a new strategy on each round. The sheer number of skill levels is also a big plus point, meaning that both novice and expert beat 'em up fans alike can find plenty of challenge! If you're after a bit of mindless violence, give this a go!

The sprite scaling and fantastic animation that made Pitfighter such an attention-grabber in the arcades may be gone, but it's still fun to play. The sprites are quite detailed and their actions are accompanied by lots of (albeit mediocre) speech and painful-sounding effects, but the movement is unconvincing. What makes it fun is the horribly brutal action - it really is enjoyable to jump on player two's throat as he lies helpless on the floor! The special moves are a smart touch and make each character more of an individual and introduce a bit of strategy into the gameplay. The Megadrive is short on beat 'em ups, and Pitfighter is definitely one you should consider adding to your collection.