Nineteen eighty five called, it would like to have a word with you about cheesy Karate games. Specifically, I would like you to cast your mind back to the spectrum era. Long loading times, terribad graphics, but a blank canvas where game creativity was about pushing boundaries and exploring what games could be. One of those many explorations was a title called IK+ (International Karate +), a glorious bit of code involving some pixellated men in pyjamas whacking each other in the goal of changing their belt colours. The controls were tight, the fighting was good, and the feeling was very much that of a cheesy b-movie. Hell, the Amiga version had Stephen Segal (or a very good likeness)[www.atarimania.com] on the cover along with what looks to be Chuck Norris delivering a trademark kick to some poor sod. Fighting games have wavered in and out of vogue, travelling between the more realistic and the more fantastical over the generations, but the pure, basic Karate game sortof vanished into the ether...

... UNTIL NOW...

... KAHATAE MASTAH. NOCKA DOON BALOO. OSU!

It's gloriously throwback, the graphics are retro Amiga era, the script has more chinglish than a motherboard manual, you get to Karate Fight a bull and a bear (yes, you get the opportunity to punch a bear), and you get to do a jump kick over a car to promote your dojo. It's that kind of finely matured cheese. Jackie Chan would be -proud- to feature in such a script. It has so much terribleness (like the fact you can exit without saving very easily and the game does a TERRIBLE job of warning you) that it has no right to be as good as it is. Yet, it is. It's good, it's good in the way finely matured cheese is good.

The game features a mix of tournaments, one shot fights against various opponents (who if you beat, will then appear in the said same tournaments), special encounters such as the aforementioned "DO A FLYING KICK OVER A CAR!", and occasional expositions of horribly written story, with english so badly written even google translate looks at me and throws it's arms up in despair. You can read it, and you'll laugh, it's that wonderfully bad.

In between the fighting and the b-reel script you get to train your fighter in a fantastically diverse set of mini-games (some are genius, others... not so much), and there's a limited RPG style progression system where you'll tinker with the stats of your fighter, and can even suffer injuries and get to participate in a mini game where you have to recover from those (and the first time that happens, you get some cringeworthy story for that too).

The fighting however is -good-, really good, it uses the tekken style approach of mapping left and right legs and arms to seperate buttons, and then you can apply "low" or "high" using down or up on the controller to give you a wide variety of punches and kicks. There's a good set of combos and a fairly fluid system tucked away in here, as well as a solid blocking and countering system, and button mashing is punished frequently with the AI giving you a damn good spanking in the later stages, so it pays to learn the intricacies. In effect, this is IK+ put on steroids, and then given a serious training regimen, the Karate is pretty full featured (at least that an outside layperson can figure) and has a much more realistic, crunchy feel to it, as opposed to the more fantasy based fighters that you tend to run into.

Training focusses on the various stats, or training you in new moves, the stat training can range from simple button mashing (for body conditioning, which will give you hand cramp, well, they did say it was toughness training - BEAR THE PAIN), to attempting to hit a tennis ball suspended by a piece of string, which feels a bit like the human version of a cat playing with a feather. Generally speaking some minigames work really well (the concrete bag, the strength tests, some of the toughness tests) and there's only a few real duds (the water droplet test can die in a fire). There's even a minigame where you work to build up funds to enter the starter tournaments, which... can go horribly wrong if you decide to fiddle about with your forklift (there's safety videos for that you know!).

With all this said, would one recommend it? At the price point it's pitched at? Absolutely. It's a -steal-. There's a lot to do in this game, and it'll keep you busy easily for a good few evenings or a solid weekend, and you may well return to it every so often for a theraputic bit of Karate fighting in the later tournaments, even after you master the game. It's excellent value, and as a b-movie, modernised IK+, it's an easy sell. If you're into fighting games and fancy a change of pace, grab this and give it a whirl.

Nineteen eighty five called, it would like to have a word with you about cheesy Karate games. Specifically, I would like you to cast your mind back to the spectrum era. Long loading times, terribad graphics, but a blank canvas where game creativity was about pushing boundaries and exploring what games could be. One of those many explorations was a title called IK+ (International Karate +), a glorious bit of code involving some pixellated men in pyjamas whacking each other in the goal of changing their belt colours. The controls were tight, the fighting was good, and the feeling was very much that of a cheesy b-movie. Hell, the Amiga version had [url=http://www.atarimania.com/pubs/hi_res/international_karate_plus_atari_st_ad_uk.jpg]Stephen Segal (or a very good likeness)[/url] on the cover along with what looks to be Chuck Norris delivering a trademark kick to some poor sod. Fighting games have wavered in and out of vogue, travelling between the more realistic and the more fantastical over the generations, but the pure, basic Karate game sortof vanished into the ether... [i]... UNTIL NOW...[/i] [b]... KAHATAE MASTAH. NOCKA DOON BALOO. OSU![/b] It's gloriously throwback, the graphics are retro Amiga era, the script has more chinglish than a motherboard manual, you get to Karate Fight a bull and a bear (yes, you get the opportunity to punch a bear), and you get to do a jump kick over a car to promote your dojo. It's that kind of finely matured cheese. Jackie Chan would be -proud- to feature in such a script. It has so much terribleness (like the fact you can exit without saving very easily and the game does a TERRIBLE job of warning you) that it has no right to be as good as it is. Yet, it is. It's good, it's good in the way finely matured cheese is good. The game features a mix of tournaments, one shot fights against various opponents (who if you beat, will then appear in the said same tournaments), special encounters such as the aforementioned "DO A FLYING KICK OVER A CAR!", and occasional expositions of horribly written story, with english so badly written even google translate looks at me and throws it's arms up in despair. You can read it, and you'll laugh, it's that wonderfully bad. In between the fighting and the b-reel script you get to train your fighter in a fantastically diverse set of mini-games (some are genius, others... not so much), and there's a limited RPG style progression system where you'll tinker with the stats of your fighter, and can even suffer injuries and get to participate in a mini game where you have to recover from those (and the first time that happens, you get some cringeworthy story for that too). The fighting however is -good-, really good, it uses the tekken style approach of mapping left and right legs and arms to seperate buttons, and then you can apply "low" or "high" using down or up on the controller to give you a wide variety of punches and kicks. There's a good set of combos and a fairly fluid system tucked away in here, as well as a solid blocking and countering system, and button mashing is punished frequently with the AI giving you a damn good spanking in the later stages, so it pays to learn the intricacies. In effect, this is IK+ put on steroids, and then given a serious training regimen, the Karate is pretty full featured (at least that an outside layperson can figure) and has a much more realistic, crunchy feel to it, as opposed to the more fantasy based fighters that you tend to run into. Training focusses on the various stats, or training you in new moves, the stat training can range from simple button mashing (for body conditioning, which will give you hand cramp, well, they did say it was toughness training - BEAR THE PAIN), to attempting to hit a tennis ball suspended by a piece of string, which feels a bit like the human version of a cat playing with a feather. Generally speaking some minigames work really well (the concrete bag, the strength tests, some of the toughness tests) and there's only a few real duds (the water droplet test can die in a fire). There's even a minigame where you work to build up funds to enter the starter tournaments, which... can go horribly wrong if you decide to fiddle about with your forklift (there's safety videos for that you know!). With all this said, would one recommend it? At the price point it's pitched at? Absolutely. It's a -steal-. There's a lot to do in this game, and it'll keep you busy easily for a good few evenings or a solid weekend, and you may well return to it every so often for a theraputic bit of Karate fighting in the later tournaments, even after you master the game. It's excellent value, and as a b-movie, modernised IK+, it's an easy sell. If you're into fighting games and fancy a change of pace, grab this and give it a whirl.