Fighters Month: Pit Fighter

Game: Pit Fighter
Console: Sega Mega Drive
Developer: Atari
Release Date: 1991

With early use of digitized graphics and the inventive inclusion of various weapons and fighting techniques, you'd think that Pit Fighter might stand the test of time as a pioneer of the fighting games genre. Unfortunately the graphics aren't even comparable to that of Mortal Kombat, which doesn't look all that good itself, and the three fighting techniques included in the game are almost indistinguishable from one another.

Players are given the role of a Pit Fighter, facing off one-on-one against opponents whilst surrounded by spectators. Every three rounds there's a grudge match where fighters attempt to be the first to knock the other down three times, which makes a change from the regular matches but doesn't seem to contribute much to the overall experience.

Fighting is tedious at best; hit detection is poor and often hitting your opponent seems to be a matter of random chance. Button mashing seems to be the best strategy as some fighters have special moves, though there's no indication of what should be done to access them. As for the different styles of each fighter, I couldn't tell much of a difference between each of their punches and kicks. I'm aware that this is a pretty early game in the fighting genre, but it's completely unenjoyable on many levels.

As players advance through the game, they'll face 8 different opponents in total (provided that they haven't lost their 3 lives to the high level of difficulty) and earn money for beating each round of the game. Once the game over screen is reached, the amount of money earned acts as the player's score, and the game begins again from the intro screen.

Graphically the game is presented in very low quality, thanks to its pioneering digitized approach and often it's hard to tell quite what's happening on screen, especially when the fighters make their way into the crowd. Musically the game's soundtrack seems to vary between fitting the action and seeming completely unrelated; sometimes it's quite funky and others it's almost relaxed.

Overall I didn't enjoy Pit Fighter as a game at all. I can appreciate that it used some new techniques for the time it was released, and the inclusion of weapons and various fighting moves must have seemed quite exciting for players new to the game, but with so many advances in fighting games since then, nowadays the game seems like somewhat of a broken relic.

Rating: 40/100
Grade: E