One Must Fall: 2097

One Must Fall: 2097 is the 1994 fighting game from Epic Megagames (later just plain old "Epic") released for DOS. Fighting games weren't nearly as popular on PCs as they were on consoles, but OMF was a decent hit - the inclusion of network play probably helped its appeal. Instead of humans or dinosaurs, OMF players chose a pilot and a giant robot to fight. My guess is this was a conscious decision to sidestep all the controversy surrounding the violence of Mortal Kombat; in fact, an early version of One Must Fall (minus the 2097) had humans fighting. Another commercial fighting game from the same period, Rise of the Robots, also had a similar approach. Like many games in the 90's, OMF was released as shareware. As with most fighting games, each character has special moves and abilities.

Epic released this game as freeware in 1999, but I've had difficulty getting it to run under DOSBox. Even in this video you can see inconsistent speeds throughout.

A sequel was developed and released in 2003, OMF: Battlegrounds, adding 3D and internet play. It had development and game play issues and wasn't a big hit.

One Must Fall: 2097 is the 1994 fighting game from Epic Megagames (later just plain old "Epic") released for DOS. Fighting games weren't nearly as popular on PCs as they were on consoles, but OMF was a decent hit - the inclusion of network play probably helped its appeal. Instead of humans or dinosaurs, OMF players chose a pilot and a giant robot to fight. My guess is this was a conscious decision to sidestep all the controversy surrounding the violence of Mortal Kombat; in fact, an early version of One Must Fall (minus the 2097) had humans fighting. Another commercial fighting game from the same period, Rise of the Robots, also had a similar approach. Like many games in the 90's, OMF was released as shareware. As with most fighting games, each character has special moves and abilities.

Epic released this game as freeware in 1999, but I've had difficulty getting it to run under DOSBox. Even in this video you can see inconsistent speeds throughout.

A sequel was developed and released in 2003, OMF: Battlegrounds, adding 3D and internet play. It had development and game play issues and wasn't a big hit.