Five Things that Make Mugen One of the Greatest Freeware Games Out

The Mugen fighting game engine has been around for a little more tahn 10 years now. With the recent updates released by a rejuvenated Elecbyte, It got me to thinking about why I still enjoy Mugen. Why is it that I continue to go back and edit,tinker with and and mess around with the various settings in this little program? What keep me coming back to this particular game engine?

Five Things I Like About Mugen: Tutorials.
If you want to know how to make things in Mugen(lifebars, stages and characters), as opposed to just downloading from random sites, all you have to do it open up your docs folder and check out the tutorials provided by Elecbyte..Kung Fu Man and be used as a template for learning how to code characters.

Five Things I Like About Mugen: Key Configuration.
Fighting games aren't popular on computers for a reason. That reason is fairly simple: There is no default native joystick or D-Pad controller on personal computers. Sure, there are plenty of controllers from companies like Logitec, but most of them have sticky buttons, or the D-Pad is extremely tight.

Not every video game is better with a controller. Take First person Shooters for example. With Mugen, Elecbyte took into account the uncomfortable nature of playing a fighter with a keyboard. You can simple use your favorite console gaming system controller(with a USB converter) and configure it to play Mugen as it was intended.

Five Things I Like About Mugen: Openendedness.
Mugen is to Fighters as the RPG Maker series is to Console Role Playing games.. It's a niche game development engine. Mugen can be used to either recreate games commercial games, make enhanced/remixed versions of those games, or make something completely original.

I've lost count of the number of King of Fighters fan games that have been made using Mugen thus was. All have their own little quirks and specialties that make them different. The community has really taken the concept of this engine, and embraced it ten fold.

Five Things I Like About Mugen: Kung Fu Man.
As token karate guys in video games go, Kung Fu Man is good at what he does. He's a terrific example template for those who want to make their own characters in Mugen. It's really one of the better ways of learning any programing language. With the help of the tutorials I've mentioned earlier in this article, you can open files for Kung Fu man and study or adjust settings to see how it behaves.

Counter-Strike is an example of the type of results you can get when modifying someone elses code. A team of modders used the source code for Half-Life and changed graphics, in game items, sound, them to make it into a war based tactical shooter. By using Kung Fu Man as a base, You can theoretically make a completely new move set for him, or even change him into a new character. It just just depends on how much work you put in it.

Five Things I Like About Mugen: Development Continues.
With the reformation of Elecbyte, an already good thing has a great chance to become even better as time goes on. The new Release Candidate versions of Mugen are buggy(which is to be expected, considering Mugen was never that stable to begin with), but show that the team are making strides on improving their software.