Karate

Sinclair UserSinclair User Classic

Overall 5/5

John Gilbert 5/5

Publisher: Point Blank, [redacted] Price: £12.95 Joystick Perfect precision of mind and body are required if you are to pass the tests set for you by the holy men at the temple. Yup! This is the first Way of the Fist/Tiger title for the QL - and excellent it is too. The first level, which takes place outside the temple is easy enough. You're in the left-hand corner, wearing green; your opponent, stage right, wears white. A great variety of punches, chops and kicks are available to you and there are two modes of attack. The first, which is the least aggressive, uses only the direction keys or joystick directions without the fire button depressed. If you push up your fighter jumps in the air, down will put him in a squat, down/right gives a forward jab and up/left is a face block. When the fire button is pressed you can do backward somersaults, squat and kick, leap into a flying kick and shin kicks. They are the most aggressive attack moves and, if you want to get past the first level, your thumb will spend most of its time on the fire button. Your strength, and that of your opponent, is shown as a horizontal bar on the status window at the top of the screen. When you land a direct hit on your opponent a star appears at the point of impact and his strength rating decreases. If your bar disappears you lose one of three lives and must restart on the same level. Beat your opponent and you go to the next stage of initiation. The second level is similar to the first but you are matched against t w o opponents rather than one. If you thought Level 1 was easy you'll find Level 2 almost impossible. Fighting two karate masters with combined strengths is difficult. There's no let up in the blows that rain down upon you and if you run away they'll follow. If you're lucky you'll defeat one of the opponents before your strength disappears but two of them is almost impossible. I couldn't get past Level 2, yet I managed to attain sixth dan in the Spectrum version of Way of the Exploding Fist. If you do manage to get past Level 2 you are assured of yet more opponents and a variety of colourful backgrounds. QL Karate would not stand a chance if it was a Spectrum game - mainly because there are so many other good karate programs - but on the QL it's great. If you're tired of playing chess, chasing blobs around a screen or moving spaceships around a massive maze, QL Karate's a knockout.