Pit-Fighter

Pit-Fighter is a 1990 fighting game by Atari. It was the first fighting game to use live-action footage as the source of the character sprites, roughly a year before Mortal Kombat popularized it.


 * Asskicking Pose: All three player-characters strike a pose after hitting their special attack. Doubles as a Victory Pose since they do the same pose after winning a match. And, yes, winning a match with a special attack results in the character doing the same pose twice in succession. Also leaves your character vulnerable during it which can lead to a world of pain if your opponent gets up quickly or if you're fighting more than one enemy - which leads to a tendency to use Ty in preference over the other characters as his pose is a brief air punch as opposed to Kato's which is a full second and a half of poser tai-chi moves. Buzz is somewhere in the middle with around a second of bicep flexing.
 * Big Bad: Masked Warrior
 * The Big Guy: Buzz
 * The Brute: Chainman Eddie
 * Color-Coded Multiplayer: Blue (Player 1), Red (Player 2) and Yellow (Player 3). Even though there are only three characters, unlike other similar games of its time, more than one player can use the same character if they desire.
 * Dark Action Girl: Angel
 * The Dragon: Chainman Eddie
 * Drill Sergeant Nasty: Mad Miles, if his outfit is any indication.
 * Evil Laugh: Chainman Eddie
 * Fighting Game: Came out just before the boom created by Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat
 * Fragile Speedster: Kato
 * Honor Before Reason: Kato bows at the start of every match. Unfortunately, this leaves him open to an attack from his opponent(s) and they WILL take advantage of it.
 * Also the enemy "Southside Jim" will not attack downed opponents, even if they attack him on the deck first.
 * Jack of All Stats: Ty
 * Kickboxer: Ty
 * Life Meter: Standard for the genre but with the twist that it did not refill between battles - so as you progressed your character was less and less durable, to the point where you could win a fight but a single light slap from the next opponent could finish you - and as you only had one life the only way to continue after losing all your health was to pump more coins in...
 * Lightning Bruiser: Masked Warrior
 * Me's a Crowd: The round before the Masked Warrior features two Chainman Eddies regardless of how many players are in the game at that point.
 * Mighty Glacier: Buzz, Chainman Eddie
 * Mirror Match: The bonus rounds in single-player mode
 * Only in It For The Money: The score is represented in dollars and there is no real characterization for anyone, so this is the only logical conclusion to why anyone is here.
 * Simple Staff: The most common weapon (except maybe the barrels and kegs) is a stick used like a bo staff
 * Spam Attack: Kato's special attack is a series of karate thrusts followed by a double palm strike.
 * Story and Gameplay Segregation: The opening cinematic shows Kato being very proficient with a staff. In the actual game, he doesn't use it any better than any other character.
 * Super Serum: The power pills hidden in barrels in some stages causes the user (player or enemy) to gain a green tinge, knock down any opponent in one hit, deal more damage, and not react when an opponent attacks. Also, in the arcade version the user becomes slightly larger.
 * Token Minority: Southside Jim, Ty
 * Use Your Head: Chainman Eddie uses this move. It's hugely damaging and can send you flying the full length of the playing area to bounce off the crowd/wall. Especially deadly when fighting two of them together as you do in the penultimate round.
 * Wrestler in All of Us: Buzz, Masked Warrior