Final Fight

Sinclair User

Graphics 95%

Sound 68%

Playability 73%

Lastability 81%

Overall 81%

Alan Dykes

Garth Sumpter

Steve Keen 81%

Label: US Gold Memory: 48K/128K Price: £11.99 Tape, £16.99 Disk Reviewer: Steve Keen If a two bit actor can become president in the good old US of A then there is no doubt that a man mountain that looks like the result of genetic splicing between Hulk Hogan and an African elephant can become mayor of a city. Said Mayor Haggar, who squeezes into a shirt and tie for whatever duties his vast intellect can muster at the office, gets a phone call from the terrorists who have kidnapped his daughter. Rather than let his personal army of security men handle the problem he decides to don his wrestling trousers and scour the streets for himself. Enlisting the help of Cody and Guy, his street wise side kick, the game begins and this is where it shakes off the yawns. The size of the sprites are awesome, the backdrops fabulously detailed and scrolling is mostly smooth. Haggar and chums have a variety of moves in the six levels of beat 'em up action with as many backdrops. Bash, thump and kick your way through the subway, restaurant, factory, bay and hotel. Various knives and pipes can be used against the thugs, but don't last forever. All the way through the game, due to memory restrictions, the baddies are more or less the same with only about five different opponents. It's for this same reason that control is severely restricted when fighting as things can get very complicated. A sudden move of your controls and the two opponents disappear in a ball of arms and legs, and later separate with one sprite remaining as victor. However your attention is maintained by the sheer attractiveness of the sprites. Some backdrops mask your characters detail, but you suddenly step out to a whiter back ground and are stunned by their detail. Not the most playable beat 'em up in the world, but definitely the best looking. The variety of moves for the different players go a long way to making this a good lasting buy.

Can Cody go the distance?

Guy's ready for your action.

Haggar mixes it up with some of the downtown street punks in the city.

Haggar thinks about the situation.

Haggar; no relation to the comic strip hero, has big plans to combat pollution.

Let's get the stats on today's offered beef cake. Mmm, but there's more.

My first question would have been "What brand of face cream have you?"

No our hero Haggar is not giving a chumy some light relief. It's a PILEDRIVER.

That's right me old china. I'm taking the bull by it's ugly horns!!!

Wait up, isn't that blackmail? Sure thing!

FIGHT FAX The largest bicep recorded is that of Isaac "Dr Size" Nesser whose arms are 26 and 1/8in when cold (not pumped). The longest bout of wrestling was between Martin Klein of Russian Alfred Asikainen of Finland and lasted an incredible 11hr 40min. The heaviest man on record was Walter Hudson who at his peak weight weighed 85 stones and 7lb. His waist was an astounding 119in in diameter. By sharp contrast the lightest adult was Lucia Zarate an emaciated dwarf who weighed 4.7lb at the age of 17. By her 20th birthday she had fattened up to 13lb.

Your Sinclair

Life Expectancy 73%

Instant Appeal 74%

Graphics 85%

Addictiveness 71%

Overall 77%

James Leach 77%

US Gold £10.21 (543) cass Reviewer: James Leach Oh good grief! I did a huge Megapreview all about Final Fight in issue 68 and I've just realised that the start of the game is called Haggar, not Hagger. (Prat. Ed) So it seems I was completely wrong. Er, sorry, everybody. Anyway, on with the extreme violence. Haggar (I got it right this time) has just been declared Mayor of a rather nifty town in America called Metro City (where all the cars are Metros, I presume). Haggar used to be a bit of a street-fighter, but he's promised that he'll stop so he can spend more time being Mayor. Unfortunately, Metro City is still filled with violent dudes, and the worst of all are the Mad Gear Gang (so called because they're completely mad and they've got lots of, er, gears). They've gone and kidnapped Haggar's daughter, Jessica - for no apparent reason! Naturally, Haggar's none too pleased with this state of affairs, so with his mate Cody, he decides I go and deal with the gang personally. The thing with the CapCom coin-op version of Final Fight was that it had absolutely mega-huge sprites. And guess what? The Speccy version's got them just as big! They're about half the sceen high and rather spiffily detailed. Of course there's a price to pay for these whoppers, and it's smoothness. As you might expect, the game is a bit jerky and uneven. The fighters move around nicely but when they carry out their special moves it occasionally gets rather confusing. You have the usual kick, thump, jump and duck moves plus others, depending on whether you're playing Haggar, Guy or Cody. Cody does Ninja-style kicks and flips, Guy does massive punches and Haggar does wrestling body slams and strangleholds (and rather lethal they are too). TOTALLY SMASHING! There are six levels of all this horizontally scrolling mayhem, which means that you've got six backdrops to do your fighting in front of. Level One is the street thence 'street-fighting'), Level Two the subway, Level Three is a restaurant, Level Four is a factory, Five is by a rather pleasant seaside bay and Six is a hotel (where you'll find Jessica by the way). The baddies are pretty much the same throughout, but there are different weapons to be found in each level (such as knives and forks in the restaurant, sharp shells by the bay and so on). Although the sprites can't be as slick as the usual mincing little jobbies you see, they really are works of art. You sense the power in the punches, gasp as your opponents reel back, blood spurting from their... (Calm yourself, James. Ed) But I suppose, at the end of the day, it depends what you're after in a beat-'em-up. Final Fight's got lots of moves and weapons (such as knives, iron bars and lots of yummy things like that) to use on your enemies, and plenty of non-stop face-punching fun. It isn't as slick and playable as some, but it's novel and the speed is impressive for the size of the graphics.

Haggar's energy bar. He's doing fine! Score. Every punch counts. Haggar. He's just about to try for one of his famous headlocks which, if it works, traps Bred (or whoever) and slowly squeezes the life out of him (hur hur). The only thing Bred can do is call on his mates for help. Bred, Haggar's old and weedy enemy. Bred's energy bar. He's not so well.

Here's the first really tough baddie. He's called Bill Bull and he's both a bull and an, erm, bill (I suppose).

Read it at Your Sinclair Rock'n'Roll Years

CrashCrash Smash

Presentation 88%

Graphics 91%

Sound 84%

Playability 89%

Addictivity 87%

Overall 90%

Mark Caswell 91%

Nick Roberts 89%

Civic duties take on a whole new meaning for Mike Haggar, new mayor of Metro City (2CV City wouldn't have the same ring, would it?) in this fast moving beat-'em-up, bash-'em-up, bags-of-ouch struggle! Nick Roberts takes a trip to the future to join the action... US Gold £11.99 On becoming Mayor, Haggar has put his life of mindless violence on the street fighting circuit behind him - until daughter Jessica is kidnapped by the brutal Mad Gear gang and held for ransom. What's he to do? Call in the SAS? Shrug his shoulders and sigh? No! 'Cos he's tough, mean and don't take no nonsense from no-one! So, he dons his size 12 Doc Martens and gets his street fighting friends together to get her back in this - the final fight (hence the title!). You can control either Haggar or his sidekicks, Cody and Guy, and you can play the game as a one or two-player battle. They're all formidable fighting machines and pretty nifty with a punch. Looking at the screenshots you can see how big everything is. And surprisingly, the speed isn't bad at all. I mean, it's not super fast and zippy but it's quick enough to be very playable. The only time things slow down a bit too much is when the screen scrolls to a further location - but when it does you're generally not involved in a fight scene (so that's OK). STREET TOUGH Life on the streets, is tough. Everyone's got it in for you, even the cops! The opponents come in all shapes and sizes but have one thing in common - they're all BIG! Weirdos in the game include a nutter in a Batman suit, a bloke with one hell of a beer belly (I told you Nick was there - Ed) and someone called 2P! (obviously a bit of small change!) To batter the baddies you can pick up knives, pipes and Molotov Cocktails (petrol bombs if you're not up on the street fighting lingo!) to throw at anyone who takes your fancy, as well as battering them with fists and feet. Knocking off the street scum is peanuts though, compared to facing the big, end-of-level hard nuts. Sinister Samurai swordsmen and evil giants need a bit more than a spank on the botty to stop them crushing you! (No, a wet haddock won't help either). LOOK AT THE SIZE OF THAT THING! People who moan that Speccy graphics are tiny and boring should take a good butchers at Final Fight. The character sprites fill half the screen just like the arcade machine. The backgrounds to the many levels are detailed and impressive. Some even have animation as you run along, as in the subway section with trains pulling up behind you. Dustbins, crates and telephones dotted along your path can be picked up and smashed to smithereens! This is mindless violence, I know, but it often reveals handy hidden weapons. Fighting is the same old affair seen in many a beat-'em-up. Waggling the joystick (which can really make your hand ache after a while, if you know what I mean) with or without the fire button, gives different moves, including jumps, back kicks and mega punches. The difficulty setting is just right, with beating an opponent just a matter of perseverance with a lead pipe! Tough, eh? I'm usually not very impressed with beat-'em-ups as programmers usually fall into the trap of producing mediocre games with nothing new to offer. Final Fight is different. With its detailed, gigantic graphics and loadsa whacky enemies it's bound to be a real winner with all beat-'em-up fans, even I loved it 'cos I pretended it was Corky that I was duffing up! NICK 89%

Compare the graphics of the block busting arcade machine with the Spectrum's. Ooo they're the same!

Haggar doesn't seem too happy as he twists off the neck of this Batman look-a-like!

Stayin' alive, boogy woogy!: Cody does his John Travolta impressions specially for Big Bull (the one with a small elephant stuffed up his shirt!).

Take that you nasty man. Oooo bugger, me nuckles! That hurt more than looking at Corky's face in the morning and believe me, that's painful!

Take that, you beast! Bopping people over the head with a rolling pin is one of Haggar's specialities.

COMPLETING FINAL FIGHT IN THE ARCADES A mammoth session on Final Fight is what you need to complete the coin-op original of the game - about one and a half hour's worth of solid bashing! That's going to cost you about £10.50 (two players). So investing in the Speccy version is a much better idea (it's only £1.50 more) and you can play it over and over again! The end of the coin-op game's a bit peculiar (we don't know about the end of the Speccy version - haven't got that far yet): the final opponent turns out to be a wheelchair-bound hoodlum. Your first objective is to knock him off his chair, so he's hobbling around on his stumps. Shouldn't feel too sorry for him though - he's got a deadly machine gun! Arrrrgh!

GOLLY! DON'T THEY LOOK MEAN! HAGGAR BORN 9.3.1943 Funny looking chap for a Mayor, isn't he? And where's his chain of office, that's what we want to know. Wouldn't argue with him though, he's a former champion street fighter and he's mastered professional wrestling skills. Special moves include the lethal Back Drop and Piledriver. GUY BORN 8.12.1965 Speed and endurance are Guy's qualities, coupled with his expertise in the art of martial art of Ninjitsu. His attacks can be devastating! He often catches his opponents off guard with his special off-the-wall jump. The jump's a handy move (as long as he doesn't fall into anything nasty!) CODY BORN 4-12.1967 This is where it can all get a bit confusing. Jessica (the one that's been kidnapped) is Cody's girlfriend. Jessica is Haggar's daughter. So that means Haggar will be Cody's father-in-law if they rescue her and they get married and, erm, we're not at all sure where Guy fits into the picture…

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