If Aliens vs. Predator and “The Flintstone meet the Jetsons” have taught us anything it’s that sometimes two great franchises go great together. Turns out this is true in the world of video games as well, especially when it comes to fighting games. The next time you buy a game where people beat the crap out of each other there’s no telling who will show up.
1. Yoda and Darth Vader
The Soul Calibur series has always been about fighting in a vague, medieval Europe using the weapons of the time (blades, poles, hammers) with a little magic thrown in. That didn’t stop these powerful force users from a galaxy far, far away from showing up to mow down fools with their laser swords. This series has seen its fair share of strange guest stars like Link and Spawn. But this one is one of the weirdest.
2. Freddy Krueger
The Mortal Kombat games were considered so violent that they caused a senate hearing which later led to the creation of the video game ratings board. With that in mind it seems a little less random that slasher icon Freddy Krueger will be a downloadable character in the latest installment alongside all the ninjas and robots and ninja robots. Nah, it’s still kind of random.
3. Solid Snake
The Super Smash Bros. series is where you can see cute Nintendo mascots like Mario and Pikachu brawl it out in a teen-rated fashion. Why then is Solid Snake, the gritty, hard-smoking, occasionally murderous main character from the decidedly mature-rated Metal Gear Solid series one of the big guest stars in the Wii installment? One of his grab moves has him choking the life out of a cartoon dinosaur.
4. M.O.D.O.K.
Capcom has made plenty of strange decisions when it comes to the rosters of their numerous crossover fighting games. One of the biggest has to be including M.O.D.O.K. in the recently released Marvel vs. Capcom 3. For those that don’t know, M.O.D.O.K. is a Marvel comics supervillain that’s basically a giant, evil version of Patton Oswalt’s head with stubby limbs, psychic powers and who gets around with a futuristic old-man scooter.
5. Optimus Prime
Unlike the rest of us, our friends over in China don’t let things like copyright law limit who goes in their fighting games. The bizarre, bootleg, shareware PC fighting game Dong Dong Never Die is the only game where you can see Mario go up against a weirdo in a gas mask. But what puts this one over the top is the special move in which you summon Optimus Prime who turns into a truck and proceeds to run into your opponent. This isn’t Optimus’s only fighting game appearance but it’s definitely his best. It’s also one of the weirdest fighting game crossovers of all time.
