For some reason
people often mistake me for a
mild mannered, easy-going
'yes' man. And I don't use the
word 'mistake' lightly, as the admissions
list of the Bristol Royal Infirmary will
testify. So when a new boxing game was
slid under the door of the shed I was its
natural recipient.
If you didn't recognise the name in between the
game's title and its price, that's because Beyond Belief
is a new set-up and this is its first game. Hurrah! When
so many so-called 'big' companies are tending to
overlook the Speccy in its old age, its nice to see
a new company getting its priorities right
from day one. And the game's not bad
either.
It's about as standard a boxing
game as it's
possible to get,
but as there
haven't been too
many boxing
games on the Spectrum in recent years I'd better go
over the basics. Your boxer stands on the left,
facing the other one (controlled either by
the computer or a chum) who stands on
the right. By pressing the right
combination of keys you can get
him to walk backwards and
forwards and do various punches.
As you lay into your opponent his
strength goes down until,
eventually, he'll fall over. He
might manage to get up again (by hitting the left and
right keys), in which case he gets a bit more energy
and another chance. If not, you win the fight and move
up a rank. (You start off in eighth position, and have to
become first in the world, you see.) Between every
couple of bouts you get a chance to beef up your
power rating by hitting a punch bag.
Although initially it seems that all you have to do to
win a fight is press all the keys as quickly as possible
and hope for the best, you'll eventually work out
combinations of moves which work for you. But the
best thing is the way the boxing matches actually look
like boxing matches, with teeth flying all over the
place. In fact the whole feel of the game, while
distinctly Spectrummy, is just right and nothing like as
repetitive as these things so often can be. So, um, it's
really rather good then.
| Ratings given by other magazines |
| |
7/10
|
|
6/10
| |
|
| Info supplied by the SPOT*ON database |
