Title: Double Dragon

Release Date: 1987

Developer: Technos

Class: Wide Release

Genre: Beat-Em-Up

Maximum number of players: 2

Number of simultaneous players: 2

Game Controls:

• Joystick: 8-Way
• Total Buttons: 3
• Actions:
  Punch
  Kick
  Jump

Overview:

Double Dragon is a sideways-scrolling beat-em-up for one or two players, featuring twin brothers and martial arts masters, "Billy & Jimmy Lee". The brothers must defeat the savage street gang known as the 'Black Warriors' to rescue Billy's kidnapped girlfriend, Marian. Standing between the brothers and Marian are four huge, colourful and varied levels; each populated with a wide variety of thugs.

Many of the game's enemies carry weapons (knives, baseball bats etc.) and should Billy or Jimmy manage to knock the weapons from the enemies' hands, the heroes can pick the weapons up and use them against the enemies.

The Black Warrior gang is made up of six distinct enemy characters- plus Willy, the game's final boss - with each differing in both physical appearance and fighting style. As such, the game-play never feels repetitive. The members of the Black Warriors consist of the following fighters:
* Williams - A generic street punk. Not very strong but he wields a variety of weapons such as baseball bats, dynamite and daggers.
* Roper - He is a little stronger than Williams and likes to pick up and throw large objects such as oil drums, rocks and boxes.
* Linda - Female punk who usually carries a whip. She's not very strong and appears less frequently than the other enemies.
* Bolo - A tall, big-muscled bald guy. He's very strong and likes to pick up and throw the player's character.
* Abobo - The first boss, a head-swap of Bolo with a Mr. T-style mohawk and beard. A green version of Abobo appears in the end of Mission three.
* Jeff - The second boss. A head swap of the player's character who uses similar techniques. A real challenge.
* Willy - The game's final boss, armed, somewhat unfairly, with a machine-gun.

Double Dragon was a huge success due to the many game-play innovations it brought to the genre (see TRIVIA for details), but it demonstrates its final moment of inspired genius at the very end of the game. Should both players still be alive after the final boss has been defeated, they will then have to fight each OTHER. The winner of this fight will be the one who wins Marian's affections.

Facts & Trivia:

Double Dragon may not have been the world's first scrolling beat-em-up (that accolade belongs to Irem's "Kung-Fu Master", released in 1984) but it is the world's first CO-OPERATIVE fighting game and as such completely revolutionised its genre.

The varied, multi-colored sprites and hugely detailed backdrops - married to instinctive, one or two-player game-play - was something that had never really been seen in the fighting game before and Double Dragon quickly became a legend in its own right. The game would be the inspiration for an entire genre and classics such as Capcom's "Final Fight" owe a huge debt of gratitude to the Technos legend. The game was such a huge hit, that when the home versions finally came out, the rear side of the package advertised, 'You'll never have to stand in line to play Double Dragon again!'.

Double Dragon's hugely innovative game-play and superb graphics proved to be too ambitious for the host Technos hardware and the game was plagued with the now notorious 'slowdown', that occurred whenever a large number of fighters appeared on-screen.

The game's director, Yoshihisa Kishimoto, reportedly conceived his initial idea for Double Dragon around the date of July 20th in 1986, the 13th anniversary of Bruce Lee's death.

Director Yoshihisa Kishimoto got the idea of picking up an enemy's weapon from his previous game, "Renegade" ("Nekketsu Kouha Kunio-kun" in Japan). During the first stage of Renegade, he noticed that the armed enemy characters were not holding their weapons when they were on the ground.

On the first stage of the game, a billboard for "Nekketsu Kouha Kunio-kun" (the Japanese version of "Renegade") can be seen atop a building prior to the first boss battle.

For more trivia check out www.arcade-history.com and www.arcade-museum.com

Game Ports:

Nintendo Famicom
Sega Master System
Atari 2600
Atari 7800
Nintendo Game Boy
Sega Mega Drive
Atari Lynx
Nintendo Game Boy Advance
Microsoft XBOX 360

Commodore C64
Commodore Amiga
PC
Sinclair ZX Spectrum
Amstrad CPC
Atari ST

Tips & Tricks / More info:

* Here's How To Get Infinite Points In Double Dragon : Level One, one player grabs the whip when it comes out. The other player relieves the enemy who walks out with a bat of that bat. But he does NOT kill that enemy. Continue moving on until you're at the end of stage one. At this point the player WITHOUT the whip grabs the now bat-less enemy. The other player finishes the stage. Note that when the boss man is dead, the clock stops running down. Then the player tortures the bat-less one with the whip. 200 points per pop, and the enemy will NEVER die. Switch to non-whip attack to kill him, and resume normal play.

* To easily get through the whole game, use the following strategy. When an opponent is coming towards you from one direction, face the opposite direction. When the enemy is at arm's length, do an elbow smash. The enemy will go flying forward. While the opponent is still on the ground, face away from him/her and repeat the process. Now, you can defeat enemies without them attacking. This strategy also works for bosses.

* Ghost Player : Notice that player one gets all the points for certain weapons. Notably the barrel, which is important because it is reusable. Should player one die, while player two is still alive, player one continues to get points for the barrel. If this gets him over the extra-man mark, he gets a ghost player, which is limited in the kinds of things he can do.

* Infinite Knives : When an enemy carrying a knife appears on the screen (NOT an enemy that picks up a knife, but one already carrying the knife when he appears), instead of taking the knife beating the enemy, hit the weapon, causing the enemy to drop it (or let it hit a wall). Doing this you will be able to pick up and use the knife against some other enemies, while the character bearing the knife will take out a new one so you can repeat the trick. You can use this same trick with dynamite.

* At the end of some levels you can throw your weapons onto the next stage. Normally you discard them, but you can cheat. This works well on level 1, for instance. When at the end of the level, just after you kill the boss, move to the extreme right of the level, as far as it will scroll. Jump up just as the level ends and scrolls to the next one, if you time it right you will let go of your weapon in mid air and it will fall onto the next stage where you can just about pick it up at the very left of the screen!

For more Tips and Tricks check out www.arcade-history.com and www.arcade-museum.com