As you well know, I’m a bit of a fighting game fan. I grew up from a very young age playing Street Fighter II on the Mega Drive and it all stemmed from there. Ever since then I’ve loved the whole genre and almost treated it like an art form, that’s probably grown from watching Bruce Lee movies as a youth too. But one thing I hate is when you play another player or more often the CPU will cheaply “spam” the crap out of you by doing the same move over and over again. It’s boring! I’ve spoken to many gamers and we all agree that doing the same move over and over again, doesn’t make it a healthy addition to the game, it just causes you to yawn a lot and wish that they did something different. Anyways, here is my top seven moves which get spammed a lot and provide much annoyance whether you’re playing another human player, or a CPU controlled git.

7. Ray MacDougal (Fighter’s History) – Dynamite Tackle

Not many people will remember this game, it was a beat ’em up from Data East and was released back in 1993. It’s a complete rip off of Street Fighter which was huge at the time. Detective Ray had a move which was so simple to do, all you had to do was push towards, towards + punch. He would then slide towards you shouting “Dynamite” and pretty much shunted you in the corner like Juggernaut from X-Men. It was cheap because of the simple button combination and playing another player at the arcade, as soon as you saw them select Ray, you knew you were going to be on the end of a dynamite onslaught. It was ridiculous that you could actually complete the game just by doing that one move!

6. Li Long (Soul Blade) – Crazy Windmill

Soul Blade essentially was Tekken but with weapons. It was released by Namco who also did Tekken so no surprise that the game turned out like it did. Li Long was a Shaolin Monk character who had a three-partitioned staff. He was a very fluid character and probably the easiest to use. However, he did have a move which was simple to do, it was just forward and square + triangle. He would then charge at you Kenshiro style shouting “TANTARANTARA!” and launch you skywards for a 3 hit combo. Tactically this move was good, to receive it over and over again was very annoying. It always seemed to be on the harder difficulties that the CPU would spam the crap out of you with this one move leaving you to have to become an expert at blocking and countering.

5. Eyedol (Killer Instinct) – Club Swing Uppercut

Eyedol was the final boss in Killer Instinct and was a two headed ogre with a big ol’ club for a weapon. Like Goro and Kintaro in Mortal Kombat he was very much of the ilk of being a huge blocking enthusiast before unleashing a hugely damaging move. Eyedol had a habit on harder difficulties of repeatedly smacking you skywards off the screen for a huge damage hit. You could always try and evade this attack of course, but the sheer huge arc of damage detection nearly made it impossible and before long you had to resort to button mashing just to chip any form of health off him. Players seem to be fond of this move too as it was just back, toward + X on the SNES. Cheap and unblockable, sounds about right for a final boss!

4. Seth (Street Fighter IV) – Teleport/360 Piledriver/Super Combo

Seth however is an awfully bad character who frankly is the cheapest character to have ever graced Street Fighter and to be honest whoever designed him should be shot. Playing as him he’s frustratingly slow and cumbersome and relies totally on a couple of powerful moves, which are pretty tricky to pull off. However, this is never a problem for the CPU. He teleports ALL the time and ALWAYS catches you with his imitation of Zangief’s spinning piledriver causing masses of damage. As a human player, it’s impossible to replicate the speed and accuracy of a CPU controlled Seth in performing these moves and he will repeat that pattern over and over again. This gets tiresome very quickly and upping the difficulty always just seems to make him do it even more. I appreciate the challenge provided in fighting games, but this is just too cheap. It’s not even as if you can hit the guy because he’s constantly teleporting and doing that bloody 360 piledriver to wear you down. Worst of all was his super. The fact that it sucked you into himself made it nearly impossivble for you to avoid and the mere instant that his Ultra bar fills, you get sucked in and a good 30% of your health is gone. Bison was a better final boss because at least he had three moves he spammed you with rather than one, so it didn’t feel like you were repeatedly running into a brick wall like you do when you fight Seth.

3. Azazel (Tekken 6) – Ground Claws / Teleport Smash

If you thought Seth from Street Fighter 4 was an almighty cheat, then you haven’t seen anything until you’ve fought Azazel from Tekken 6. This monstrosity is an unplayable character unlike most Tekken games and is by far the cheapest in the history of Tekken, and to be honest every fighting game ever. It’s the continual spamming of the same three moves which makes him a fucking terrible character and trust me, you will get fed up of his four move repertoire. It’s not the fact that he seems to have some auto-block function so that despite you sidestepping his moves which leaves him slightly open, he doesn’t take any damage despite missing you with his attack. That’s the first frustration, but straight from the off, he does this move whereby he pounds into the floor causing 4 claws to pop up from the ground. Not only is this unblockable, he also does it about seven times in a row as you try and get a hit in. This move is only eclipsed by his ridiculous teleport stomp. Similar to Goro in Mortal Kombat, you knock him down and then all of a sudden he’s above you and stomps you into the ground. The main difference with this and Goro’s one, is that it homes in on you. If you can see it coming, you can try and roll away, except the cheating prick will still end up on your face smashing you into oblivion. It’s cheap, stupid, and he will do it about 5 times every bout. You’d think that Namco would have at least attempted to give him some more moves, but instead opted for 4 or 5 cheap attacks to piss other players off. Well was the CPU spamming the shit out of you, the next two are very much so player spamming moves…

2. Scorpion (Mortal Kombat) – Spear, then Uppercut

Wasn’t this just like the defining move for Mortal Kombat? “Come here!” and “Get Over Here!” (depending if you had a SNES or Mega Drive)  were echoed through youths everywhere, emulating Scorpion’s spear attack as he snared you from across the screen and reeled you in for a free hit, which 99% of the time resulted in an uppercut for lots of damage. Playing someone who owned the game when you went round their house usually meant you were target practice for an endless chain of spears, followed by the obligatory uppercut. Personally it got a bit boring playing someone who just spent the entire session reeling you in, all because they never told you there’s a block button. Similarly Sub-Zero’s ice ball had the same effect but just wasn’t as frustratingly cheap as the spear. But gamers worldwide loved it, and it is a pretty cool move! But you try doing it against the CPU! They will block it 90% of the time!

1. Ryu/Ken (Street Fighter II) – Hadoken

It really wasn’t going to be anything else was it? This is probably the most legendary projectile attack in the history of fighting games and even onnline today is a spammer’s favourite. I’ve lost count of how many times in my fighting game experience I have spent half a match dodging a barrage of fireballs from someone cowering in a corner giving an endless chain of them. Down, Down/Forward, Forward is one of the most well known moves in fighting game history and has seen so many other games incorporate this as a projectile move, such as Fighter’s History, Fatal Fury and Body Blows on the Amiga. But most importantly even if you don’t like fighting games, everybody knows about the constant barrage of hadokens which take place in the average noob Street Fighter bout. While this is the #1 for the player spammability (is that a word?) the CPU tends to over use this move too. Playing against Ryu on the original Street Fighter II on the Mega Drive will see you receive a glut of hadokens come your way only for you to jump over them and recieve a shoryuken to the face. Yeah it’s cheap, but it’s also a time tested strategy. What started off as a simple fireball move has now evolved into a Dragonball Z style massive world shattering move. From the days when it used to take off as much as roundhouse, the Hadoken has all the pomp and circumstance of a military band by managing to envelop the screen and launch a 32 hit attack. I am of course talking about the super moves which came out by the Street Fighter Alpha series. Not only could you throw and endless chain for fireballs and your opponent, you could also throw a Hammer of Dawn-esque blast the same way and pretty much demolish half the world. The hadoken is definitely my number one choice for the most spammed special move in video game history, and nothing else really comes close.