Cage Match

Sinclair User

Overall 2/10

Tony Dillon 2/10

Label: Mastertronic Author: Icon Design Price: £2.99 Memory: 48K/128K Joystick: various Reviewer: Tony "not very easily impressed" Dillon As you might have guessed, I have a new word. Lame. Meaning anything naff or generally useless. This game fits it perfectly. Billed as a 'future sports simulation', you play one of seven 'wrestlers' stuck inside a huge cage. You have to punch, kick, slap and jump on your opponents to batter their energy to a minus state. I can only say that this game reminds me of nothing so much as that other lame experience, Rock and Wrestle. The controls are pretty ineffective, having little real effect on what is going on. The graphics are poor and the animation is slow and jerky. The sound is pretty limited too. Is there anything good I can say about this game, I ask myself? Well, it does have a two player feature, but are there two people who want to play it?

Your Sinclair

Graphics 5/10

Playability 4/10

Value For Money 5/10

Addictiveness 4/10

Overall 4/10

Tony Worrall 4/10

Mastertronic £1.99 Reviewer: Tony Worrall Wossis, then? Cage Match is a futuristic version of the gentle art of Wrestling, the sport loved by umbrella wielding grannies up and down the country. The standard wrestling ring has been replaced by a wire mesh cage, open at the top to allow the players to climb out. "Climb out?" I hear you say, "Why?" Simple. If a player manages to reach the top of the cage, he/it wins the game and the other player respectfully melts into three pounds of quivering jelly. The player's character (after selection from a list of dubious looking contestants), must beat the living daylights out of the other characters, so as to reduce their vital energy meters. Get your opponent's energy low enough and he freezes, giving you an essential couple of seconds to dash up the cage side and end the game. That's about all there is to it really. Only a tiny number of aggressive moves are available and most of those are difficult to perform when you need them. The animation is jerky and the characters respond pretty poorly to the game controls. Cage Match may have been a good idea, but programmers Icon Design, who should know better, have put little thought into the gameplay. If you want to risk your two quid go ahead, but I can think of better things to spend my dosh on - like TWO copies of next month's YS!

Crash

Presentation 47%

Graphics 28%

Playability 12%

Addictive Qualities 14%

Overall 15%

Mark Caswell

Paul Sumner

Producer: Entertainment USA Retail Price: £1.99 Author: P Atkinson and J Brennan The interplanetary wrestling committee are staging the most bizarre wrestling match of them all. In the guise of six alien forms, ranging from bug-eyed beetle to brawny barbarian, one or two players battle it out in the intergalactic championship. Combat takes place within a three-sided monochromatic cage under the gaze of a suitably intergalactic audience. Participants may grab, kick, hit, head butt, neck chop and throw their opponent, the objective being to stun him long enough to climb up the sides of the cage and win the match. Unless he fails to shake the climbing wrestler off the mesh, the unlucky fighter left in the ring disappears as the solid looking cage floor turns into a bottomless abyss of flashing lights. Two energy bars indicate the status of each player's strength; momentary periods of rest give dwindling health a chance to recover. Success means promotion to a tougher match, a tougher opponent and another shot at becoming intergalactic wrestler supreme. COMMENTS Joysticks: Cursor, Kempston, Sinclair Graphics: poor perspective and jerky animation Sound: a few weak white noise effects Options: choice of six different characters. One or two players