Hey everyone, the Cold Slither Podcast crew here with the first of many blog posts dedicated to taking our listeners even more behind the scenes of our show. We tend to drop several references and such throughout the show but sometimes there’s just not enough time to get into the detail behind them. So what better way to get our listeners up to speed on them than with some liner notes?

About the title of this series, “Destroy the Foundation” refers to a saying by Torch of the Dreadnoks biker gang aligned with Cobra in the GI Joe cartoon. During an old episode of G.I. Joe called “Countdown for Zartan” the Dreadnoks were training new recruits to Cobra, showing them how to use certain tactics to be destructive. Torch sees a recruit trying to take down a wall with a blowtorch, but he is pointing the flames at the top of the wall. Torch gives the green Cobra recruit the lesson of a lifetime with the following sage advice which we can all use today – (check the video below around the 1:23 mark):

“Destroy the foundation, and the rest comes tumbling down!”

With that, let’s get into some things we discussed during Episode 8, “Cold Slither: Alpha”

In this episode, we reminisced on fighting games. All of us on the show agree that there are three major fighting game franchises/families which have established and revolutionized the genre.

Street Fighter

Mortal Kombat

Tekken/Soul Edge/Blade/Calibur (the NAMCO family)

Other & Forgotten Fighting Games
Now arguably, there are several other fighting games and franchises that we only mentioned in passing.

TECMO’s Dead or Alive series

Recognize the name “Ryu Hayabusa”? Well you should, he’s the hero from Tecmo’s Ninja Gaiden series

DOA was quite popular and notorious for the… um… “jiggle physics”… on certain female characters. So much so, it spawned a spin-off beach volleyball game. Hey now!

Rival Schools was fun to play and had a unique tag team style.

Eternal Champions was one of the most awesome fighting games on the Sega Genesis system. If you owned a Genesis, this had to be in your library. Also note the fatalities and overkills it had! (credit to @bokeen of the Consumption Junction show for recommending this!)

Battle Arena Toshinden was Sony’s exclusive fighting game series that is credited for being the first game to take the fighting genre into 3-D.

Dynasty Warriors was a cool fighter on Sony Playstation that allowed you to fight using historic figures from ancient Chinese dynasties. Unfortunately, by the time the sequel came out, they changed the format from fighting game to strategy and adventure series. But this was a lot of fun.

Bushido Blade was Square & Sony’s foray into the fighting game genre on Playstation. One-on-one armed combat, you had to strike a fatal blow to win each match, so no health meters! Awesomely real!

Time Killers attempted to cash in on the success of Mortal Kombat. Players could fight each other and deal dismembering blows, so you could have matches with visible damage such as nicks, cuts and lost limbs!

Tao Feng also had visible damage. This was an X-Box exclusive fighter, recommended by Eclectik

TMNT Tournament Fighters capitalized on the popularity of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise. There were versions released for the Sega Genesis, SNES & NES systems.

SNK put out quite a few fighting games, both in the arcades as well as on their home video game system Neo Geo:
Art of Fighting

Samurai Shodown (credit to @BeerBaron4Life for recommending this!)

Fatal Fury

Last Blade

King of Fighters

King of the Monsters

World Heroes

We end this retrospective with an old-school arcade favorite of Classick’s.
Pit Fighter was a fun 3-player co-op fighter by Atari games that, as a precursor to Mortal Kombat, used digitized live actors. Classick has used several thousands of quarters on this game.

A bit of trivia on this game, actress Kim Rhodes, who now plays the mom on Disney’s “Suite Life of Zack & Cody” series is credited as “Heavy Metal” on the cast of Pit Fighter. Well, whaddya know?

More liner notes and extras from Episode 8 coming soon! Did we forget any games? Hit up the comments and let us know!