Best Hand to Hand Combat you've seen in a game

#1 Rune, Enclave, Blade of Darkness, Jedi Knight 2, Legacy of Kaine Series, Onimusha Series, Lord of the Rings Series, Demon Stone, Prince of Persia Series, God of War

#2 It doesn't get any deeper than Tekken. But then again that's a fighting game that makes you memorize "a rediculous number of combo sequences". I'm currently playing God of War and the fighting in that is probably some of the most enjoyable I've played in an action adventure game. Finishing moves using special button presses when the enemy is worn out is pretty cool. Plus when they throw in titties 20 minutes into the game you just gotta keep playing to see what's gonna happen next. I like the fighting using the lock on targeting in the modern Zelda games as well.
-Ajari-

#3 ONI, Blade of Darkness, Thief (sword fighting), PoP2: Warrior Within, Tekken, Mortal Kombat, Chronicles of Riddick, GTA:SA, Fight for NY

ONI - good dynamic and intuitive control

Blade of Darkness - balanced melee, good AI, bad implementation of combos (never used them because of that)

Thief - :))))) Just love this game. Best melee fighting from first person view, intuitive control, good blocking, good implementation of fighting regardles to distance between opponents

PoP2: Warrior Within - many possibilites, good control exept combos (hate them), interaction with wold when fight.

Tekken, Mortal Kombat - so.. what can I say - best fighting games (developed for that style), but again COMBOS. Superb animation and fighting moves.

Chronicles of Riddick - the best hand to hand melee (boxing I mean) ever seen in games. Intuitive control.

GTA:SA - try hand to hand fight (without weapons) with 4 policemens one time :))))

Fight for NY - Dont played it myself, but it have a simple and good idea of interaction with scene and opponent.

I think it's good when you give to player some simple moves (like in Chronicles of Riddick) for FPS game.
Many moves, styles, interaction with scene when you fight, intuitive control when fighting many opponents - for RPG, fighting or action game.

PS: Try to avoide combos. :)

#4 For melee? how about the bushido blade series? or even Way of the samurai. It had simple combos which were unique to the type of weapon.. plus you could block attack and throw enemies off guard while they're attacking you and use that for an opening. Lock on is a must for 3d action games these days i think.

#5 For HTH with weapons: Rune
For HTH with martial arts + guns: Oni

#6 Zelda 2 ... from the original NES days... It was unique. You could earn multiple fighting styles, like down attack and up attack. Having full life increasxed the power of your attack... and you had to make good use of standing and crouching while attacking... Also, your sheild was't active if you were attacking... very well balanced combat.

#7 In fast multiplayer melee battle Rune is the best one.
For single player there are many of them like Enclave , Knights of the temple, Dungeon Lords ...

#8 Soul Calibur. Best flow I've come across in a fighter, moreso than Tekken.

#9 Daikantana - NOT!

#10 Best- Devil May Cry

Soul Calibur & Tekken ar ok but they hold on to that annyoing "watery" style of combat instead to locking into solid gameplay.

#11 Melee: Soul Reaver; Legacy of Kain.

I always wished that their had been more depth to the system, i.e. parry/ block, counter moves etc., but it was still a great system - simple and elegant IMO.

#12 How could I have forgotten Zelda 64! The introduction of Z-lock =)

#13 ONI definately takes #1 for HTH.

A close second is Guild Wars. GW actually utilizes advanced hitboxes for its damage. Each swing of the sword is different from the last one (computationally, if not animated) so you might hit the other guy's foot, weapon, arm, head, etc. based on the position and animation of you and your opponent. It is VERY subtle... but VERY effective... which is why I include it. The only improvement that could be made is if it were an FPS... but then it would be RealmWars. :)

#14 The best melee system I've used was in an adventure game called Silver..
it was unique (well, I'd never seen it before)

you used the mouse to gesture the movements.. so left click and sweeping to the side would slash to the side, click and moving forward would stab and click and moving back would spin you around and slash.. you really got into it and developed a real fighting style and skill... right click did blocks I think. Then you used the normal single click to move around.

Maybe a fighting game like that would be cool.. special moves could be included by different gestures. if it's a 1st person ninja game... gesturing a move from the wrist to the elbow would attempt an arm lock... could work but it could also be extremely complicated.

#15 Pshaw! no one here has played Die by the Sword? this was and still is my favorite melee combat implementation of all time. the unique aspect of this adventure game is controlling the sword which is done in real time using the mouse. the sword movement mimicks the mouse movement. horizontal, vertical, diagonal, circular movements, whatever. any mouse movement can create a sword slash with the attack strength proportional to the movement speed.

#16 Die By the Sword totally _ruled_. I used a big-ass analogue joystick for sword control; wrenching the stick around felt more sword-like than using a mouse.

Perfectly timing your swing to coincide with your player character's inertial spin and lopping a head clean off... all skill, no pre-programmed moves at all... ah, those were the days.

#17 I'm a Tekken fan myself. I also enjoy Soul Calibur, Mortal Combat, and so on.

@Anthony Lopes: What do you mean by "watery"?

But if you're against combos, how about: TIME KILLERS! Messy fun. Lop off your opponents arms, legs, or head... and you could take them all off in one move if you managed to stun them. It had a crazy variety of characters( from a caveman up through some space alien and a couple sci-fi human types), and Lots Of Gore. Like I said, "messy fun".

#18 I'd have to say Breakdown for X-Box has some of the best hand-to-hand combat I've ever seen.

#19 Not "hand to hand" combat as most see it ... but I really enjoyed the melee system of Phantasy Star Online. Simple but deep enough with subtle strategy that after five years I still play it to death. KOTOR seems to have a very similar melee system from what I have seen of it but was not able to truely get my hands on the game to find out for myself. PSO rules.

#20 Hmmm... probably the most fluid playing games with hand-tohand (or sword) have to be the Soul Calibur series, Tekken sereis, and Ninja Gaiden.