Fatal Fury Special

Available for download from Xbox Live a while ago Fatal Fury Special is a classic 2D sprite based fighting game from SNK (now SNK Playmore) that finds you playing one of twelve selectable characters and progressing through a number of bouts to be crowned the winner of the tournament. I can imagine most players will be more familiar with Capcom's Street Fighter brand but in the nineties Capcom and SNK were fighting head-to-head to be crowned "King of the 2D fighter" and both series of games had there fans.

Fatal Fury spawned a number of sequels and this edition that's been brought to Live is a remix of Fatal Fury 2, first released on the Neo Geo in 1993. The large character sprites are nicely detailed and have decent, but not overly complex move sets. What made this game different to other 2D fighters was the introduction of the "two plane" system allowing characters to move between planes to dodge attacks and adding another dynamic element to the gameplay. If you're a fan of the genre and you've not played Fatal Fury Special before then it's certainly worth a look.