Bad Street Brawler (1989). Play online

Summary

Bad Street Brawler stands out as one of only two titles ever engineered for Mattel’s notorious Power Glove, the motion‑controller that tried to turn NES gaming into a hand‑gestured circus. Originally a 1987 home‑computer beat‑em‑up called Bop'n Rumble in the U.S. (Street Hassle overseas), the game was reshaped for the Nintendo console and released in September 1989 under the more ominous‑sounding title.

The conversion’s road to market was far from smooth – a slated announcement at the Winter CES 1988 vanished by the summer show, where a Paperboy port snagged its spotlight instead. Critics remain divided: Seanbaby immortalized it as #16 on his "20 worst games of all time" list, while the UK’s Zzap!64 praised the title as "an extremely strange but enjoyable beat ’em up," handing it an 80 % score.

That contrast makes Bad Street Brawler a curious footnote in NES history – a game that tried to marry cutting‑edge hardware with classic brawling, and ended up polarizing anyone who gave the glove a swing.

Storyline

In Bad Street Brawler you play as Duke Davis – the box even calls him Duke Dunnegan – a former punk rocker turned martial artist who proudly calls himself the world’s coolest fighter. Dressed in a yellow tank top, sunglasses and matching yellow pants, he punches his way through a gritty cityscape filled with gangsters. Before each of the 15 stages a quirky quote flashes on screen, like “Never trouble trouble until trouble troubles you.”

The roster of foes is oddly diverse: street thugs, hulking gorillas, circus dwarves that hurl hammers, and even old ladies who fling purses. Duke can unleash a charging “bull ram” and a quick “trip” to keep the baddies at bay. By the end of the final stage he’s cleared the city of every menace.