This little-known beat-’em-up pales into comparison to its sequel – remember all the fuss that Amstrad Action made over Street Fighter II, which was ultimately never released for the CPC? No choice of player, though; you are left with the diminutive Ryu to travel the globe in a series of bouts to determine who is the ‘world warrior’. You and your opponent face each other in front of a luscious landscape while you proceed to knock the crap out of him/her using the variety of moves available to you. A health bar at the top of the screen indicates your progress or lack of it. Good large sprites, but rather garish colours. It’s also too easy up to the final confrontation with Sagat, who is way too difficult.
Watch YouTube videos of this game by:
Metr81,
Novabug,
ZEUSDAZ.
Another beat-’em-up that has you playing the usual cool customer out to beat up various gangs. Basically, the back of the box tells the whole story; “Kick and punch your way through New York City’s violent crime-ridden streets”. But despite its lack of originality, there’s something I like about this game. The graphics are quite colourful and cartoony, and are a breath of fresh air from the usual seriousness of this type of game. The hero actually looks quite geeky, and the villains come in all sorts of interesting guises. Another nice touch is an end-of-level bonus stage where you open one of three bins for the chance to win an extra life – and they are much needed, because this game is pretty tough! Overall, not the best game of its type, but fairly enjoyable nonetheless.
Street Gang Football
(Code Masters, 1989)
A football game with a difference – it’s played in your own back yard! Two gangs have gathered for a fun game of football, but there aren’t many rules, and if either side scores a goal, the two gangs may start a fight with each other. This involves lots of silly remarks filling up the screen – “Goal!”, “No it wasn’t”, “Yes it was”, “Not even near”, “Wanna fight about it?”, etc. It’s not so much the tricky controls as the fact that this game takes itself too seriously. It does have some really kicking music, though.
Based on the American TV series from the 1980s, Street Hawk puts you in the shoes of ex-dirt biker Jesse Mach, and in the saddle of the latest government project – an all-terrain attack motorcycle capable of great speeds. You travel up the screen, evading police, shooting enemy cars with your lasers, jumping over and evading innocent drivers and pedestrians, while keeping an eye on your several gauges (armour, laser, turbo, etc.). After locating a robbery at a store, the game switches to Operation Wolf-style shoot-’em-up shenanigans before switching back to more driving. The game is not too difficult (if anything, it’s too short) and the variety of gameplay keeps things fresh. OK, it’s not too pretty to look at, being a Spectrum port, but it’s definitely worth a play.
Watch a YouTube video of this game by:
Xyphoe.
Street Machine
(Software Invasion, 1987)
This is a driving game viewed from above, where you race your rally car around a track in the shortest time. The course takes you through towns and countryside, and forests and lakes. The car can be difficult to control, particularly on the second and third stages where you’ll be driving in rain and snow respectively. Eventually your car will break down and you have a minute to fix your car; if any part of the car has more than 80% damage, you won’t be allowed to continue. It takes a while to learn how to control the car, but it’s really not a bad game at all, and the graphics, while fairly simple, are still colourful – and the lightning effect on the second stage is nice, too!
Watch a YouTube video of this game by:
ChinnyVision.
Street Sports Basketball
(Epyx, 1988)
Two teams, each with three players, battle it out on the streets for a few games of basketball. There’s a choice of four courts to play on – the suburbs, a school playground, a city parking lot, or a back alley – and there are a total of ten guys and girls to choose from. It sounds exciting, but as soon as the game begins, you know it’s going to be very disappointing. The graphics are terrible with a poor choice of colours, and the players in both teams are displayed in the same colour, so you can’t tell easily who’s in which team. The computer doesn’t automatically select the player in your team who’s closest to the ball, which is annoying, and there is no sound or music at all! It’s an attempt to bring a different style of basketball to the CPC, but it’s very poorly done and it feels like a lazy Spectrum port.
A non-commercial adaptation of the Street Fighter II-type beat-’em-up genre, in Street Warriors you can select one or two players and up to six different fighters from around the world – four men and two women. There are a lot of files on the disc, so there is quite a bit of disc access and loading. It’s not a bad effort, with large, colourful fighters, a decent playing area, some nice vocal sounds from each character during the fights, and multiple fighting manoeuvres. If you can master the moves, in particular the special move for each fighter, it will be a much more enjoyable game to play. To help you achieve this, a practice option is available. It’s not in same league as the arcade version of Street Fighter II but it’s definitely worth a go. An unusual inclusion is the loud digitised tune that plays on the loading screen.
An aptly named game, as it will give you a great deal of stress. Stress is an adaptation of Pac-Man, but sadly it is not a very good one. You play a human-shaped white silhouetted sprite in a bland-looking square arena representing a room of a haunted house. Just as in Pac-Man, you collect a large amount of yellow dots (which are meant to represent gold coins), but that’s where any similarities end. There is only a single white ghost chasing you and there is no grid or path that the ghost follows. In this game the enemy ghost just zooms straight for you. From the beginning, you have very little chance of surviving the first level no matter how many times you try or what tactics you use to avoid it capturing you.
Defeat the master and his evil minions across the continents of the globe in this action platformer set in a 21st century still in the Cold War. A faithful conversion of the arcade game by Capcom, you take Strider deep into enemy territory where you must destroy all that comes in your way. Plenty of special weapons are available, while numerous major end-of-level bosses await to stop you. In spite of the monochrome graphics, this is a visually pleasing game with some nice sound effects chucked in for good measure and excellent gameplay, although the sequel is better.
See also: Strider II.
Watch YouTube videos of this game by:
jgonza,
Retro Danuart,
Xyphoe.
Once more you must defeat the evil master in what is pretty much a repeat of the prequel. This time, you are also equipped with a gun as well as your sword with which to take out your enemies, which again are divided between normal bods and big bosses. Nevertheless, the graphics are better than in Strider, with good, fluid sprite animation and detailed backgrounds. The nicely rendered theme tune remains also. And yet, the game hasn’t lost any playability or speed – which makes you wonder why the original didn’t look as good as this.
See also: Strider.