is a side-scrolling

beat 'em up The beat 'em up (also known as brawler and, in some markets, beat 'em all) is a video game genre featuring hand-to-hand combat against a large number of opponents. Traditional beat 'em ups take place in scrolling, two-dimensional (2D) levels, ...

arcade video game An arcade video game takes player input from its controls, processes it through electrical or computerized components, and displays output to an electronic monitor or similar display. Most arcade video games are coin-operated, housed in an arca ...

developed by Pallas and published internationally by

SNK is a Japanese video game hardware and software company. It is the successor to the company Shin Nihon Kikaku and presently owns the SNK video game brand and the Neo Geo video game platform. SNK's predecessor Shin Nihon Kikaku was founded in 1978 ...

for both the

Neo Geo MVS The , stylised as NEO•GEO and also written as NEOGEO, is a cartridge-based arcade system board and the fourth generation home video game console released on April 26, 1990 by Japanese game company SNK Corporation. It was the first system in ...

(arcade) and

Neo Geo AES The , stylised as NEO•GEO and also written as NEOGEO, is a cartridge-based arcade system board and the fourth generation home video game console released on April 26, 1990 by Japanese game company SNK Corporation. It was the first system in ...

(home) platforms in 1991. It is based on Kazumasa Hirai's 1963

manga Manga (Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is u ...

and

anime is Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japane ...

superhero A superhero or superheroine is a stock character that typically possesses ''superpowers'', abilities beyond those of ordinary people, and fits the role of the hero, typically using his or her powers to help the world become a better place, ...

of the same name, who is considered one of the earliest

cyborg A cyborg ()—a portmanteau of ''cybernetic'' and ''organism''—is a being with both organic and biomechatronic body parts. The term was coined in 1960 by Manfred Clynes and Nathan S. Kline.

superhero characters from

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. Staying true to its concept of a crime-fighting super-robot, players take the role of 8 Man and his robo-comrade 9 Man respectively in a fight against an invading evil robot army.

Gameplay

''Eight Man'' is a side-scrolling beat 'em up game where players control the cyborg superhero 8 Man (P1) and his former rival comrade 9 Man (P2), across ten stages that take place in a futuristic setting where a bio-computer system called Cyber is threatening mankind with his army of robots.''Eight Man'' user's manual (Neo Geo AES, US) During gameplay, players can only move between left and right in the levels, while enemies are fought with either the A or C button (which activates the character's special attack), in addition of the B button that serves for jumping and pressing it when holding the joystick down, the characters perform a slide movement. The levels are broken into different phases and some of them involves the players chasing a vehicle, while enemies are coming out to attack. Power-ups are also scattered along the way to be collected that will enhance the player's attacks, as well as granting screen-clearing bombs that damages all enemies in sight. After reaching the end of a level, a boss must be fought in order to progress onto the next stage. If a

memory card A memory card is an electronic data storage device used for storing digital information, typically using flash memory. These are commonly used in digital portable electronic devices. They allow adding memory to such devices using a card in a so ...

is present, the player is allowed to save their progress and resume into the last stage the game saved at.

Release

''Eight Man'' was initially launched for arcades on June 7, 1991, and later during the same period for the Neo Geo AES in November 1991

Reception

''RePlay'' reported ''Eight Man'' to be the fourth most-popular arcade game at the time. ''Eight Man'' received mixed to positive reception since its initial release in arcades and Neo Geo AES.

Notes

References

External links

''Eight Man''
at

GameFAQs GameFAQs is a website that hosts FAQs and walkthroughs for video games. It was created in November 1995 by Jeff Veasey and was bought by CNET Networks in May 2003. It is currently owned by Fandom, Inc. since October 2022. The site has a databa ...

''Eight Man''
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Giant Bomb ''Giant Bomb'' is an American video game website and wiki that includes personality-driven gaming videos, commentary, news, and reviews, created by former ''GameSpot'' editors Jeff Gerstmann and Ryan Davis. The website was voted by ''Time'' mag ...

''Eight Man''
at

Killer List of Videogames Killer List of Videogames (KLOV) is a website featuring an online encyclopedia devoted to cataloging arcade games past and present. It is the video game department of the International Arcade Museum, and has been referred to as "the IMDb for pla ...

''Eight Man''
at

MobyGames MobyGames is a commercial website that catalogs information on video games and the people and companies behind them via crowdsourcing. This includes nearly 300,000 games for hundreds of platforms. The site is supported by banner ads and a small ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Eight Man (video game) 1991 video games Arcade video games SNK beat 'em ups Cooperative video games Multiplayer and single-player video games Neo Geo games Side-scrolling beat 'em ups Superhero video games Video games about cyborgs Video games about police officers Video games based on anime and manga Video games set in the future Video games developed in Japan