Body Blows

Body Blows is an Amiga versus fighting game. It was released in 1993 by Team17. It was followed by Body Blows Galactic and Ultimate Body Blows. A version for DOS was also released. The game has a lot of similarities to Street Fighter II, for example, both had two characters with projectile, rising uppercut and spinning kick special moves and played identically (as with Ryu and Ken).

Gameplay
The gameplay mostly follows the typical formula of the Street Fighter series, in that the player competes against each opponent in best-of-three matches. Each fighter has their own set of standard attack moves and special moves. Due to most Amiga joysticks of the time having one single fire button, the controls for special moves are largely simplified: one special move per character is performed by keeping the fire button pressed while holding still, while others are performed by moving in one of the eight directions and pressing the fire button. There are no combos or throws. Unlike Street Fighter and similarly to other games such as Mortal Kombat, blocking is performed by holding the fire button while moving away from the opponent.

One characteristic gameplay feature is that, when an opponent is knocked down, the fire button of the other player is locked until the opponent gets back up and moves. This mode was labelled mercy when it became optional in versions of the game following the original Amiga retail release.

There are three modes of play in Body Blows:
 * 1) One Player (Arcade mode). The player selects one characters and battles all the others in sequence until the final showdown against Max.
 * 2) Two Player. This mode allows two players to take control of joysticks and fight each other using a character they desire.
 * 3) Tournament. This mode lets four or eight players play a tournament against each other.

Characters
There are 11 characters in Body Blows. In one player mode the player can choose to play as 1 of 4 characters, Danny, Junior, Nik or Lo Ray. In other modes, players can select from 10 of the characters in the game.

Main Contenders

 * Danny is a street thug from a local gang in Boston, who wants to prove he's the best fighter period.
 * Nik is Dan's younger brother and is the leader of a rival Boston gang. He and Dan have a heated sibling rivalry, and he can match his brother move for move.
 * Junior is a British boxer who was subsequently banned from boxing and found a better calling in street fighting.
 * Lo Ray is a Buddhist monk who left his Shaolin Temple seeking fame and fortune on the prize fighting circuit.

Other characters

 * Kossak is a strong kickboxer from Moscow who can surprise his foes with a special underground sneak attack.
 * Dug is a pro wrestler from Vegas. His size and strength are unrivaled and his stomp can cause small earthquakes to stun his foes.
 * Maria is an aerobic dancer from Barcelona who is incredibly fast and agile.
 * Mike is a Wall Street executive who can use wind-based attacks, including turning into a tornado.
 * The Ninja is fast, sneaky and deadly. He carries a katana and can use magic to turn invisible temporarily.
 * Yit-U is a highly disciplined warrior from Beijing and is notoriously fast.

Boss characters

 * Max is a strong built fighter who battles near a construction site. He is the strongest fighter in the game. Max is only playable in the 1-Player and 2-Player modes on the PC version via a cheat code.
 * T-17 is Max's true form, a T-800-like exoskeleton with lots of hidden weapons. If T-17 is defeated, he will explode and vanish.

Upgrade disk
In summer 1993, a few months after the game was released, Team17 published an updated version of the program disk for Amiga computers. The update increases ingame speed, adds shadows to the characters and makes all the non-boss characters selectable in story mode. It also includes a few gameplay tweaks, such as an option for not locking the fire button after a fighter is knocked down and allowing the time limit setting to also apply during the match against the T-17. This upgrade was only available for a fee to owners of the retail version, who were required to send the original boot disk via mail to Team17.

Amiga AGA version
With the release of Ultimate Body Blows in 1994, an updated version of the first Body Blows was released for Amigas equipped with AGA chipsets, such as the A1200 and A4000. This version is installable to hard drive and includes all the updated features from Ultimate Body Blows, such as entirely redrawn backgrounds, slight changes in the movesets and the ability to stun the opponent. Likewise, the sprites for the characters Dan and Junior were updated to the ones first used in Body Blows Galactic.

Reaction

 * "The best beat-em up money can buy" - 91% - CU Amiga
 * "Not as good as the console sf2, but it's a very close thing" - 87% - Amiga Format
 * "If you thought Streetfighter II was the business, think again" - 92% - The One
 * "A true corker of a game with undeniable influences" - 89% - Amiga Power