Besides being one of the first (and best) fighting games on the NES, Double Dragon was also one of the oddest. If you just play it without thinking about it, you don't notice anything. But if you pay attention to some of the game's content, you start noticing something... You know what? Forget the intro. I'm sick of writing these intros. They're never any good and I don't think anybody reads them. Let's just get onto the screenshots.

The plot of Double Dragon is that you are Billy Lee, and your girlfriend Marian has been kidnapped by... some dudes. This is a screen from the intro shot. By the way, if you saw a woman who looked that skanky and dressed like that in the bad part of town, don't you think she'd be a hooker? Me too. Anyway, your idiot hooker girlfriend just stands there as a somewhat menacing-looking gang approaches her. Rather than turn and run the other direction, she just stands there. So what happens?

BAM! Sucker punch to the gut. He then proceeds to throw her over his shoulder and carry her offscreen. And so begins...

MISSION 1! Take a look at the sign in the top left hand corner: What word in the English language do you know of that is spelt "GRIGR?" Or, for that matter, any word that even begins with it? People often say that "All your base are belong to us" is the worst case of Engrish ever. Now we know they're wrong.

Whatever gang it is that has kidnapped Marian employs the weirdest minions. Our first example: These guys. How am I supposed to be intimidated by two pasty white guys with orange pompadore haircuts? It's like having a throwdown with Conan O'Brien.

After you clear a screen, a friendly thumb will appear on screen telling you which way to go. In case you wanted to go backwards or to scale the building behind you.

Here are another group of odd minions. Whips and bright red hair... It's like Annie grew up to be a dominatrix.

It's not just S&M chicks and late night talk show hosts who want a piece of you: For some reason this hobo is angry with you, and he won't be satisfied until he throws an oil drum your direction. I think this game sends young NES players a very important message: Loathing the homeless is not enough. You must also beat the crap out of them.

You fight some more whip women before you make it to this warehouse place. These hobos want to kill you because you caught them squating in this abandoned building. Oh, and don't mind the conveyer belt: The hobos just like to leave that on for kicks. What use could a warehouse possibly have for a conveyer belt that just leads to a huge pit?

After you kill the hobos for their evil squating ways, you face this atrocity named Abobo. It's painfully obvious that Abobo is an Incredible Hulk rip-off, or maybe The Thing from the Fantastic Four. Well, let's see if it's "clobberin' time" for Abobo! Haha. That was a little joke about Abobo being The Thing. Ha. Err... let's move on...

Use that conveyer belt that just happened to be there to get rid of Abobo. Don't worry, he isn't dead, you'll fight him later on because villians never die in video games, the same way that killers never die in slasher flicks. While we're still on this screenshot, take a look at Abobo's face. It appears he likes to whistle while he prepares to die. And once again, by "die" I mean scurry away to show up at a later point in the game.

After beating Abobo you start Mission 2. Once again, you're faced against some odd looking guys. They sorta resemble this man, standup comedian Dom Irrera. Also, notice the dangerous weapon the Irerra twins are using against you: A CARDBOARD BOX! Oh no! Not cardboard! If only you had remembered to bring your Supersoaker you could've neuteralized their greatest means of defense!

Once you get past those two you'll come across this guy, a pink man wearing Marty McFly's jacket from Back to the Future. There are a bunch of guys like this in this level, and they seem to like firecrackers.

Now you must fight Punk Rock Bruce Lee (he's called "Chin" in this game, but I know Punk Rock Bruce Lee when I see him). How ironic is it that a guy named Chin doesn't seem to have one? That'd be like if Clay Aiken's parents named him Talent.

Beat Chin and you'll find yourself in Mission 3, which happens to take place in some woods. I'm pretty sure that's Spider-Man up there because no other person could crouch to a tree like that.

There's more to the game than that, but I've decided to stop with the main mode for now (i.e. I lost) and move briefly to the fighting mode. The fighting mode allowed us to not only learn the names of the characters of Double Dragon, but also to see their disgusting faces close up. Look at these people... Even their faces have well defined muscles. It's like they inject horse steroids directly into their foreheads. Will looks like Kurt Russell, Rowper looks like WWE superstar Brock Lesnar, and Abobo looks like a nasty orange I ate once. Does Billy know his head is on fire?

The dissapointing thing about Double Dragon's fighting mode is that both players must be the same character. Here we see two Abobos about to fight in a setting way too romantic for a fight.

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