Shanghai Karate

Your Sinclair

Overall 4/10

Nat Pryce 4/10

BARGAIN BASEMENT And down in the Cheapies Emporium this wee (nothing over £3 considered), is Bristol's answer to Billy Idol, Nat Pryce! SHANGHAI KARATE Players £1.99 Reviewer: Nat Pryce It's no surprise to find that this game is a good ol' fashioned beat 'em up with a plot full of honourable grandfathers and mystical old scrolls. Yup, two people in their pyjamas start at either side of the screen, bow to each other and then beat each other to death, or push each other off the edge of the playing area into the water. It's a pity that with all the excellent graphics in the game (they're designed by the bloke who did those in Denizen), the game itself is a joke, and not a very funny one at the The controls are extremely unresponsive and there is virtually no in-between frames in the animation of the sprites. There are many combat games which are ten times as good as this one, including that old wrinkly, WOTEF itself.

Read it at Your Sinclair Rock'n'Roll Years

Sinclair User

Overall 7/10

Chris Jenkins 7/10

Label: Players Author: Thomson, Parker, Severn and Swinbourne Price: £1.99 Memory: 48K/128K Joystick: various Reviewer: Chris Jenkins HEEEEeeeeeeAAAH! GNNNGH! HUUUuuurnhhhHHHG! ! No, it's not one of Ian Botham's elephants straining itself, it's yet another karate game in progress. You'd have thought the genre would have been played out long ago, what with the originals like Way of the Exploding Fist now reappearing on budget, but Players' latest, Shanghai Karate, shows that martial arts games are alive and - kicking (hur hur!). So what's the plot, I hear you yawning. The evil Wang Chen has stolen the sacred scrolls from the Karate Masters. While he was at it he slaughtered the lot of them, which I'd have thought would have been more frowned upon, leaving only Lo Yin (who was reading the Daily Star in the bog at the time) ) to revenge his masters and regai the scrolls. How does he go about it? - Why, by kicking lots of orientals to death. The first level is set in the caves beneath the academy, the second by the Yangtze river, and the third in the Dragon Temple. All the scenes load in one go on the 128K version, which features nicely sampled gongs and various slaps and grunts, together with decent music. On the 48K version you have to load the different levels one at a time. Some of the backgrounds are lovely, especially the Dragon Temple, but the characters sometimes tend to get lost against the background, especially in the riverside scene. The movement, too, is a bit dodgy; there just aren't enough frames in the animation, so you can't really react to your opponents move until it's too late. You have the usual selection of fighting moves, including high kicks, punches, low sweeps and blocks. As you chop away at your opponent, he will try to force you to one side of the screen where you will fall (very slowly) to your death. The solution is to leap over his head (again very slowly), turn around and try to force him into the same position. On the one-player game, you must reduce your opponent's power to zero and bump him off four times to move on the next level. In two-player mode, you just compete on level one, which seems a pity. So, there you have it. Nice backgrounds, nice sampled noises and music on the 128K version, but rather slow movement (which can be speeded up by selecting sound off) and undistinguished character design. Whether you fancy a quick kick a at Shanghai Karate depends very much, I suppose, on whether you've already played and enjoyed Exploding Fist, Ninja Hamster, Fighting Warrior, Uchi Mata, Barbarian, Sai Combat, Fist 2, Yie-Ar Kung Fu, Kung-Fu Master, Shaolin's Way, International Karate, International Karate Plus, Samurai Warrior, de dum de dah de dum...

Crash

Presentation 57%

Graphics 60%

Playability 41%

Addictive Qualities 40%

Overall 45%

Kati Hamza 41%

Paul Sumner 48%

Producer: Players Retail Price: £1.99 Author: Kevin Parker and Jabba Severn The Changchun Academy, which based its disciplines on the secret karate scrolls, was the most famous karate school in northern China. A failed former pupil, Wang Chen bore a terrible grudge and massacred both masters and students in one terrible night of carnage. Only Lo Yin survived to make a desperate (and ultimately successful) attempt to transport the precious scrolls to the safety of Shanghai. Mission accomplished, Lo was lured into a dangerous dragon temple and never seen again. The player takes the part of Lo Yin (player two can take the part of Wang) in an attempt to relive the six levels of his journey to Shanghai. In an underground cave and on the Great Wall Lo meets one of Wang's men in single combat. Using 16 different moves he attempts to chop, kick, sweep and block his way to success by reducing his opponent's energy to zero four times. Following a battle with Wang's men on the shores of the Yangtze river, Lo reaches Shanghai. The enemy attempts to defeat him twice more (in the harbour and the city sewers) before Lo enters the dragon temple and enacts the ending of his unfinished tale. COMMENTS Joysticks: Sinclair, Kempston Graphics: attractive backgrounds with slowly animated, but detailed, main characters Sound: great gong sound, with white noise effects Options: sound on/off

Nice graphics, shame about the gameplay...