Chances are that if you're an American male there was a point in your life where you wanted to be Batman. The cool gadgets, awesome cape and half-nude boy apprentice had you enticed with the vigilante lifestyle. Sure, you didn't have a Batmobile, but you did have a Big Wheel and ambition and that was all you needed.

Unfortunately the real world isn't so fond of anonymous men in masks taking the law into their own hands. In fact, there are several laws in place to punish those who dare to live the super-dream. But in the world of video games vigilante justice isn't just encouraged, it's required. From Double Dragon to River City Ransom , these games give you the opportunity to clean up the alleyways and bring peace to a fictional community. But before you fit yourself for a gi you should probably make yourself familiar with the way things work in action games.

#1 All the Bad Guys Have the Same Name

Remember that time you were at the state fair and got separated from your buddies? After searching the grounds for a bit you walked towards the Anne's Pretzel wagon and yelled “Yo, Chet!” Much to your surprise, not only was Chet a common name among middle aged men but apparently those men all loved state fairs. Several men stared back at you, each with a pretzel at hand and a look of mild confusion on their faces. Well, if you replace the fair with a city street, the vendor's wagon with a hobo and the pretzels with knives, it's safe to assume you're in Streets of Rage, where the most common enemy is Garcia, several hundred men with the same taste in crime and presumably music.

To be honest one was too many.

It's impressive that so many criminals would dress alike but even more so that they'd all share the first same name. Has anyone done any studies of this phenomenon? Like, maybe everyone named Lance is destined to be a serial strangler or something? Seriously, if you live in a city where every white male named Garcia grows up to be a street urchin, hurling knives at every blonde guy with a headband and tight jeans, don't you think it would be a good idea to cross that name out of the baby book?

#2 Food is Everywhere

It's happened to all of us at one time or another: during a quest to save your girlfriend (or girlfriends for us comedy writers) you'd be punching out, like, eighteen Garcias, when all of a sudden a nineteenth Garcia blind-sides you with a bicycle chain. The world comes crashing down around you, gravity is falling up and the ringing in your ears descends into a scream. You can feel the blood rushing down the side of your head as your body temperature rapidly drops. Dizziness takes hold- this could be the end. As you stumble about you kick a trashcan over revealing a fully roasted turkey on a plate. You look to the nearest Garcia as your lips twist into a wicked grin. Before tearing off a turkey leg you say “Looks like today just isn't your day, slut-nugget.” He can only watch on in fear as you feast on your discovery and carry out what the local newsmen would eventually call the Thanksgiving Massacre.

When cleaning up the mean streets you're bound to suffer a horrible  wound. Luckily a stray apple or turkey can do more than most medical staff, weather you've been punched in the face or slashed with a machete. But if you're worried that a thermos and a lunchbox are going to hinder your ability to kick the ass of everyone you meet, fret not; as it turns out fully prepared food is everywhere. Inside a phone booth? Yup. Under a homeless man's bench? Oh yeah. In an arcade cabinet? Well duh. If you aren't comfortable with eating food found in strange places but still don't want to walk into an emergency room you could always go to your local Wal-Green's and enjoy a Love Potion instead.

"Yeah, I've got a few broken ribs, some internal bleeding, a mild concussion and I think I've swallowed a few teeth. What do you have in poorly named energy drinks?"

#3 Prostitutes Aren't All That Friendly

So far we've been seeing things from the hero's perspective, but just for a second let's put ourselves in the evil mastermind's shoes. You've got your sinister plot; maybe it's kidnapping or maybe you're going the casual route of staging nuclear warfare. Whatever, it's just your scene. Now that you've got the gumption you just need the man power. You put an ad in the Village Voice for violent thugs seeking steady employment. The turn out is good, but not great. After all, that guy in the headband's got like, what, three continues? It's going to take more than a couple hundred bald guys with pipes to deal with this. You could arm your legion of thugs with guns and hope for the best but you need satisfaction now and that damn Brady Bill will only get in the way. No, clearly the only answer is to arm loose women with deadly weapons.

Pictured: The dangers of on-line dating.

For whatever reason, chicks with whips are a staple in classic brawlers. Maybe the developers are trying to interject some sex appeal into your testosterone driven bloodbath. Maybe they're attempting to cater to the allusive kinky crowd. Or it could be that maybe, just maybe, Japanese game developers have a horribly over-sexed image of women.

Truly, a question for the ages.

#4 Law Enforcement Doesn't Exist

Brawlers take place in a world where society doesn't function, where men with weapons can take over their major metropolitan locations and proceed to fuck shit up unhindered. Law abiding, God fearing citizens are powerless to stop them, probably because the the first thing said criminals did was steal all the motorcyles from Danny's Discount Auto.

Oddly enough, this isn't from a Mad Max video game.

Given that the criminal to not-a-criminal ratio is somewhere around twenty-to-one you're probably wondering why the fate of thousands of people is left in the hands of a street wise do-gooder armed only with a with a white tank top and a mean uppercut. Shouldn't somebody think to call the cops? For the most part the boys in blue are nowhere to be found during the ensuing chaos and there's probably a very good reason to for that. Here's a clip from the first Streets of Rage wherein the police were actually quite active (skip forward to the 1:00 mark):

After watching that it's safe to assume that every cop in that city lost his or her job for an insane use of excessive force. If you're too terrified to watch it, here's a brief rundown: the police in question, having been called upon to arrest an unruly brute, carefully weigh their choices for all of three seconds before reaching the logical conclusion to mother-fucking carpet bomb the guy. And if you wondering just how many guns this brute was flaunting to get such a drastic response the answer is none. He was just a well toned man in red underwear not unlike a professional wrestler. So yeah, maybe it's best we don't rely on Dragnet for this one.

#5 The Mastermind Is Pretty Underwhelming

After following all the clues and mercilessly pummeling every man named Garcia within a ten mile radius you've found the villain's secret lair. Nestled in the crevice of Mt. Doom this pleasant abode will almost certainly pit you against every boss in triplicate before giving you the chance to bring the madman to justice. It's been a hard fought battle but the end is near.

Then it turns out it was just a brain in a jar.

What a twist!

As it turns out, that's actually what happens with Mr. X from Streets of Rage 3, and despite not having arms, legs, muscle tissue or any sort of body to speak of, he managed to orchestrate Sega's most asinine plot to date . How do you fight a brain? You can't really punch it in the face and it doesn't have much of an ass to kick. We suppose you could just tip the jar over and let it dry out, but is that really what you killed all those hookers for?

But before Mr. X was grey matter he was a series of robots. This doesn't make a whole lot of sense as he never mentioned it in your previous encounters. On the other hand, Mr. X is kind of a dick, so we can understand why he didn't reveal his double automaton-brain jar plot twist the first two times.

Robots choose only the finest Hagger slacks.

But while Mr. X was lame in the sucky sense Final Fight's Belger, financial backer of the Mad Gear gang, is lame in the FDR sense, at least when he starts the final confrontation. Wheelchair bound, Belger's offense lies in his liberal use of a crossbow. Then you break his wheelchair and it turns out that he wasn't paralyzed, just an insensitive asshole.

You wouldn't punch a fake parapalegic, would you?

After a great deal of jumping and blindly firing arrows, karma kicks him square in the balls by tossing him out of a window which, ironically, probably left him paralyzed. If only he had a wheelchair.

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