Arcade Quiz (Mano a Mano)

I was asking myself, what have I done for Evil Evil Genius lately? Well, I know what I haven’t done.

Yes, it’s time for another arcade sound quiz!

All of these games share a common theme.

In each game, you control a protagonist that uses his or her bare hands to lay some serious smackdown on some deserving fools (or as Mr. T would say, “foos”).

I’ll give you the year the game came out along with the sound sample. A few of these games have some relatively primitive voice samples, for all you primitive voice sample fans out there.

Mano a Mano 1 (1982)
This game is pretty fun. I think the music should give it away.

Mano a Mano 2 (1984)
I would rarely get past the third level (okay, to be honest, the second level would give me lots of trouble too), but this game was tons of fun.

Mano a Mano 3 (1987)
Believe it or not, though I am the first to admit I am a terrible arcade gamer, I could easily finish this game on one quarter. Yes, I used the magic elbow move that basically made you unstoppable.

Mano a Mano 4 (1988)
This game might be a little obscure. I used to play this at the Spaceport arcade when I was going to school at University of Illinois in Champaign/Urbana. No, I did not have any friends.

Mano a Mano 5 (1992)
I was working in an arcade while I was at school down in Carbondale, but I stayed away from this game. It scared the crap out of me with its complicated controls. I started playing a couple years ago via the MAME emulator. I suck at it, but it’s fun. If you can recognize this game, I give you permission to give me crap for not doing a fatality.

Oh, I just thought of one more that I wanted to include!

Mano a Mano 6 (1984)
I wasn’t very good at this game (surprised?). This game’s controls were a little unusual, and in some ways were a precursor to Mano a Mano Game #5.

UPDATE:

Answers posted!

11 thoughts on “Arcade Quiz (Mano a Mano)”

  1. dc, sorry! Pacman didn’t acquire arms until his terrible Saturday morning cartoon show.

    manx, nicely done! Your answers for 2 and 4-6 are correct. I am especially impressed by your identification of #4 and #6.

  2. I knew 2 well. To this day, when I’m sparring with dogs or little kids, I always say “Uppercut, Uppercut!” “Body Blow, Body Blow! as much like that guy’s voice that I can.

    I knew 4 well. My best friend and I would play for hours after school. I always had to be Hammer, the blond guy. I hated that.

    6? Are you kidding? Of course I’d be down with one of the first fight on fight games. What kind of 9 year old did you take me for.

    I was going to guess “Popeye(?)” for 1 since I thought I heard the spinach theme in there, but that could be just another game snatching the license-free song.

  3. Regarding #2, don’t forget the classic “Put ’em away!”

    #4 – Hammer?!! Wow, extra points to you for knowing the names of those guys.

    #1 is indeed Popeye.

  4. I was afraid I would look at other answers, so I downloiaded the sounds and wrote my answers on a text file. Here they are…

    1) . Popeye (I sucked at this game)

    2). Punch Out (I could never tell if the announcer was saying “body blow” or “mighty blow”).

    3). Dammit, I know this game…. the story was 2 brothers looking for their girlfreinds who were held hostage by a gang, I think. I always thought that it sounded like the bad guys were puking when they died. Is it Bad Boys? Something like that.

    4). Crap, again!!! I know this one too… He would flex and his arms looked all veiny when he said “I’m Bad!”Now I’m thinking this one was called “Bad Dudes” which makes me doubt my number 3.

    5). This one’s easy… only the greatest fighting game ever. Mortal Kombat “GET OVER HERE!”

    6). I loved this game. I was always trying to do the jump kick because the soud of the foot hitting the face was awesome. Karate Champ.

  5. Whoops, manx, I’m sorry but #4 is actually incorrect.

    CTC, nicely done! Your first guess for #4 was correct, and was probably messed up by my previous comment. #4 is indeed Bad Dudes. Wonderfully done. It shouldn’t be too hard to guess what #3 is (it was one of manx’s guesses, hint, hint).

    Yeah, “Get over here!” was great — I think the Scorpion guy did that, right?

  6. Splothcy,

    You know the path to my cold and dark heart! As a reward, look for a Splotchy-centric post soon on WILATU. (I’m not giving it away, but I am still working on it.)

    This is what I had:

    1. Popeye – I’ve never seen it, but the music is a dead giveaway.

    2. Pre-Mike Tyson “Punch Out”

    3. Street Fighter (incorrect)

    4. Unknown so I am giving a shout-out to the Simpson’s fake video game from the Noiseland arcade “Touch of Death.”

    5. “FINISH HIM!!!” Best button-masher ever!

    6. Karate Champ? I wasn’t sure on the name, but I can see the little ref dude clear as day.

    muchos gracias,
    The EEG

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