A few months ago, it was my firm belief that the fighting-game genre was so exhausted that not even the most creative folks could come up with a twist on two people punching and kicking each other silly. That's why I was pleasantly surprised that CapCom the company that started all this mano a mano madness with its legendary Street Fighter II has come out with Darkstalkers and its semisequel, Night Warriors.
Game characters are monsters taken from ancient and modern culture instead of the usual droll cast of fireball-lobbing karate boys. There's a cut-and-pasted creature that bears a close resemblance to Frankenstein's monster. There's a vampire who sleeps by day and apparently abuses steroids by night.
With an array of characters that appeals to everyone from young pups to old farts, these are among the very rare fighting games in which you don't need to memorize hundreds of special moves to have fun; you just choose a monster and start spilling whichever bodily fluid happens to seep out of your opponent. One of the best titles yet for the 32-bit game boxes.
Darkstalkers for Sony PlayStation: US$66.95. Night Warriors, Darkstalkers' Revenge for Sega Saturn: US$64.95. CapCom Entertainment: +1 (408) 774 0400, on the Web at www.capcom.com/.
STREET CRED
Synthetic DreamsThe Wright Stuff
Creatures of Fight
Back to the Future, Acoustically
