Pit-Fighter is a 1990 arcadefighting game by Atari Games which used digitized live actors. The Japanese arcade release was published by Konami. Home versions were published by Tengen. The graphical animations for the player character and opponents were created through a bluescreen process, where the various poses and moves were performed by real actors in front of a video camera. The game's on-screen character animation are replays of the actual footage, not a rotoscoped animation. Pit-Fighter is the second fighting game to use digitized sprites, after Home Data's Reikai Dōshi: Chinese Exorcist.
Gameplay
The gameplay is similar to Taito's Violence Fight and SNK's Street Smart. The player must punch and kick their opponents until their energy runs out. If the player presses all three of the buttons at once, the character will perform a "super move". The player begins by choosing one of the three playable characters, who each have different moves, speed, and power. As many as three people can play at a time, but there will be extra opponents to fight during any of the game's 15 different matches. Every third fight is a bonus round known as a Grudge Match. In a Grudge Match, the player must fight against a CPU controlled clone of the fighter if playing alone, or against the other players in a multiplayer game. Getting knocked down three times eliminates a player from the Grudge Match, the winner is the last one standing. Losing the Grudge Match does not eliminate a player, but the winner gets bonus money. The final battle, the "Championship Match", is between the player and the mysterious entity that taunts between matches periodically, the Masked Warrior. If more than one person is playing the game before this match, they must fight each other to the death until only one becomes victorious and can fight him. Sometimes during matches the player will encounter foreign objects such as knives, crates, sticks, motorcycles, and bar stools that can be thrown at a character in play. The player may also encounter a power-up known as the "power pill". If a character grabs this item, one will become temporarily stronger and take less damage from hits. At times even the crowd will interfere in the fights. Two characters, known as Knife Man and Knife Woman, will come out of the crowd and stab the player with their daggers. The player can take these nuisances out with one hit. Sometimes there is also a fat bearded man with a stick. If the player knocks him down, the player can take the stick and use it against the current opponent. The audience will also push any fighter that ends up among them, and stays there more than a few seconds. They will be forced back into the fighting area.
In Japan, Game Machine listed Pit-Fighter on their January 1, 1991 issue as being the seventh most-successful table arcade unit of the year. Julian Rignall of Computer and Video Games gave the game 90%, calling it a "thoroughly enjoyable beat'em up which really packs a punch" and "one of the most enjoyable arcade fighting games in a long time." Zzap!64 gave the game a more negative review, dubbing it an "anticlimactic beat'em up" and writing that the attract mode was the best part of the game. They criticized the limited frames of animation and compared it unfavorably to The Combatribes and Final Fight. Computer Gaming World approved of the Amiga version of Pit-Fighter, stating that it "is the arcade game teleported", and concluded that the game "offers the two-player option missing in many fighter games and enough roughhousing to suit the most violent gamer". Reviewing the Super Nintendo port, George and Rob reviewed the game in Nintendo Power. George commented that game was "extremely difficult to control" and that Rob commented on the graphics using digitized people, stating "it doesn't matter if it uses new technology or not. The question is "is the game fun?" and I think the answer in this case is "no"."
Legacy
had a two-page preview of the planned sequel, which the magazine claimed was more than 75% finished and would be released for Sega Genesis in the 4th quarter of 1993. Kato, Buzz, and Ty were returning along with three new selectable fighters: Connor, Tanya, and Chief — three of the playable characters that were ultimately featured in Atari's subsequent game, Guardians of the 'Hood. Pictures show two CPU fighters, Helga and Jay-Jay.
