1988's video games: Double Dragon, Nobunaga's Ambition, Mario, and Mario

As Double Dragon, top arcade game for the year, starts up, who isn't inspired to punch, headbutt, and kick their way through a multitude of punks to rescue their girlfriend Marian after the opening seconds has her punched in the gut and carried off?

The gameplay is simple enough to jump right into, and though it should get kind of old and repetitive, there were enough variations on the attacks (I especially like the throw over the shoulder) to keep the stages interesting. I remember putting a lot of money into the game to keep plowing through baddies. 

The top PC game for the year is Nobunaga's Ambition, which I've never played (and didn't find a way to play, at least not the PC version although I found many sites offering the Nintendo and Sega releases from a couple of years after this one). The ambition, by the way, as based on the real life story of Oda Nobunaga, is to unify a fractured Japan in the later 1500s.

I found an introductory playthrough video, grabbed the screenshot above, and logged it as something I'd like to return to find and play eventually. It looks very much like the type of strategy game that I would have loved to play around that time.

And rounding out the year is Mario still dominating the home console game sales market with the original Super Mario Bros. game, despite the sequel's release in this year. My guess is that this is due to the original game being packaged with the system and counting those bundle purchases towards sales of the game, thereby keeping it at the top of the charts for so many years running (spoiler alert: it has one more year in the top spot to go).

The Super Mario Bros. Game & Watch system, meanwhile, remains the top handheld game for the second year. What a beast this little plumber was.