One of the most celebrated
arcade games ever,
Golden Axe
is a fascinating and deeply
involving strategy epic where
careful thought and forward
planning are the order of the
day. Hal April Fool!
(But Stuart,
this is May. You've missed the
April issue - Ed) Ah. Okay, so it's
a beat-'em-up. You play one of
three intelligent and considerate
characters by the names of Ax-Battler The Barbarian, Gillius
Thunderhead The Dwarf, and
Tyris Flare The Amazon. All
three have a grudge of some
sort to bear against an
unpleasant and unhygienic
fellow with a
huge body
and a tiny
head
calling
himself
Death
Adder.
(He stole
Ax-Battler's
rattle as a
child, ran
over Tyris'
favourite pet flea
and called Gillius a
smelly midget in front of
his granny, or something like
that.)
Righteously incensed, the
three of them (well, one or two
of them, depending on whether
you're playing the game
yourself or with a friend) set
out to right these wrongs by,
er, killing everyone in sight. In
game terms this means you
walk along the screen for a
bit until a couple of bad guys
appear, walk up to them and
hit the fire button repeatedly
for a couple of hours until
they die, then walk along a
little bit further and do it all
over again. Sounds tedious?
Well, it isn't! Actually that's a
lie. It's all
hopelessly dull,
and not
helped by
the fact that
hitting the
baddies
seems to
be
completely
a matter of
luck. You
can be
standing there
hammering away
on the fire button
quite happily, when for no
apparent reason your character
suddenly leaps backwards and
lies on the ground for a while
flashing on and off in a slightly
disconcerting manner.
Eventually, you realise you've
been hit, but it doesn't help
much as there doesn't seem to
be anything you can do to stop it
happening again. You just have
to keep charging in there and
flailing away and hoping for the
best. If you're lucky, you'll keep
killing the baddies and you'll get
to travel a little further through
the levels, admiring the, er,
interesting scenery as you go.
Well, it's interesting if you like
black, anyway.
If I sound a bit
grumpy about all this, there's a
very good reason for it. I am.
Golden Axe is the sort of thing
which passes for arcade
entertainment these days - all
pretty graphics and no gameplay
substance whatsoever. While
this is absolutely fine for
dedicated coin-ops with
thousands of pounds' worth of
flashy graphics hardware, it
simply doesn't cut it on the
Speccy. Our beloved machine is
on a hiding to nothing when it
comes to the pretty pictures,
which shows the shallowness of
the gameplay up for what it is -
repetitive and boring. Speccy
owners also have to put up with
an unhelpful multi-load system
(even on 128), which puts the
final nail in the coffin as far as
addictiveness is concerned.
Really, forget about the name,
this is twice as cheap'n'nasty as
the dullest original budget game
- give it the widest berth you
can muster.
| Arcade version screenshot... |
|
| Click here to view all 9 pics |
| Ratings given by other magazines |
| |
7/10
|
|
7/10
| |
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| Info supplied by the SPOT*ON database |
