The Outfoxies

The Outfoxies, released by Namco to arcades in 1995, is one of the strangest fighting games of its era — mostly because it refuses to look like one. Seven professional assassins all receive the same contract from a mysterious client: kill the others. Instead of a flat arena and two fighters facing off, you get sprawling multi-storey stages to climb, jump and shoot across, with a camera that zooms in and out to follow the action.

The environments are the star. You fight aboard a plane in mid-flight, inside an art museum, or on a high-rise, and the stage keeps changing while you brawl: floors give way, fires spread, the plane banks and everything loose slides across the deck. Nobody starts armed — weapons are scattered around the level, from pistols and machine guns to bazookas and whatever junk happens to be lying nearby. Anyone who has played Super Smash Bros. will recognise the formula instantly; The Outfoxies got there four years earlier and is routinely cited as its arcade ancestor.

The cast is a parade of eccentrics: alongside slick killers there is a professor in a weaponised wheelchair and a trained chimpanzee. Each character handles differently, and the single-player mode runs you through a series of one-on-one duels. Controls are simple, but the on-screen chaos is considerable — the game truly shines against a human opponent, when it turns into a frantic race for the nearest rocket launcher.

It has flaws: fights can get messy, hit detection is loose, and the solo campaign is short. But as a genuine oddity that was years ahead of its time and never received a home port, it is essential viewing for anyone curious about the road not taken by fighting games.

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