Bad Dudes

Up to two players can play simultaneously. The first player controls the character wearing white pants, while the second player character wears green pants. Players start with the ability to do basic punches, kicks, and jumps. Some moves are special like spinning kicks and the ability to charge themselves up with "inner energy" by holding the punch button to throw a powerful long-range attack that hits all opponents in front of the player. Players will also come across several power-ups; some are weapons like knives and nunchakus, some recharge a player's health, and others add a few seconds to the remaining time.

The various types of enemies encountered in the game have their own means of attack. The basic blue-colored ninjas directly charge the player, while some leap with their swords, or throw shuriken and makibishi; there are also acrobatic kunoichi (female ninjas), attack dogs, and people who are on fire. The enemies may be beaten down or avoided. Most enemies can be beaten with only a single hit of any kind, and multiple enemies can be defeated with one hit if they are standing close together.

The game is set in Washington, D.C., United States, where President Ronnie (based on 40th President Ronald Reagan) has been abducted by the evil Dragon Ninja. The game begins with the following introduction: "Rampant ninja related crimes these days ... Whitehouse is not the exception". A Secret Service agent speaks to the titular "Bad Dudes", a tough and heroic duo of street-smart brawlers named Blade and Striker: "President Ronnie has been kidnapped by the ninjas. Are you a bad enough dude to rescue Ronnie?"

The Bad Dudes pursue the Dragon Ninja through the streets of downtown New York City, onto a moving big rig truck, through a large storm sewer, through a forest, onto a freight train on an old Southern Pacific line (where the titular character of another Data East arcade game, Chelnov, can be seen being transported in a frozen container in the arcade version), through a cave, and into an underground factory in order to save President Ronnie.

The game was ported to home systems, including the Apple II, Atari ST, Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, MSX, MS-DOS in 1988. Quicksilver Software developed the Apple II and PC ports with the rest produced by UK-based Ocean Software and published in Europe on their Imagine label as Bad Dudes Vs. DragonNinja. These versions were titled Dragon Ninja in-game, and the "Bad Dudes Vs." was de-emphasised in the cover art, resulting in the game commonly being known by the latter title (including among the European gaming press of the time).

A NES/Famicom port was developed by Data East and published in Japan by Namco as DragonNinja on July 14, 1989. In North America, the same version was released that year by Data East USA simply as Bad Dudes, featuring an illustration by Marc Ericksen.

The game was commercially successful in arcades. In Japan, Game Machine listed DragonNinja on their May 15, 1988, issue as being the seventh most-successful table arcade unit of the month. In North America, it was a high-earning arcade game, becoming one of the top five highest-grossing arcade games of 1988. On the UK Coinslot charts, during Summer 1988, Bad Dudes was number two on the monthly arcade video game chart. On Hong Kong's annual Bondeal chart, it was the seventh highest-grossing arcade game of 1988.

The arcade game received generally positive reviews from critics upon release. Sinclair User magazine, in its January 1989 issue, gave it the award for best Beat 'Em Up of 1988.

The game was followed by a spiritual successor in 1991: Two Crude (known in Japan as Crude Buster). A sequel which was supposed to take place 23 years after the first game was unsuccessfully attempted to be financed via Kickstarter by Pinstripe Games in 2012.

The arcade version of the game appears in the 1989 film Parenthood, where the son of Steve Martin's character wonders why the game is so difficult. Martin, grasping for an answer, says, "Well, they're bad dudes. That's why they call the game Bad Dudes". The Bad Dudes logo can be seen at the end of Stage 4 in Sly Spy, another Data East arcade game.