Just as dull is Players' unoriginal beat-'em-up, Street Gang (24%). Strolling through eight New York streets, you are attacked by all manner of punks and thugs, some of them wielding machine guns. The bad news is that despite the presence of many foes, progress is surprisingly easy. This is especially so when you discover that by continuously jumping to the right, completion of all eight levels is a mere formality. This amazing feature helps to make Street Gang about as eventful as a monks' wife-swapping party.
Label: Players
Author: Kevin Parker, Colin Swinbourne
Price: £1.99
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: various
Reviewer: Tony Dillon
Yo, the guy in this game is almost as big and bad as me! He's no ordinary street-wise punk, no sir, he's the leader of a street gang. The most competitive sport on the American city streets ever to appear. You are Micky Spatsburg, ex cop and brain surgeon who has to cross the dangerous streets of New York in a desperate bid to reach the east side to save the life of a small child who desperately needs surgery. (Their plot, not mine).
As a game, Street Gang is a flipscreen affair. You've got to get to the right hand side of the screen, beat up all the baddies and avoid the bullets, and it looks really nice. So it should, because the graphics are by none other than budget supremo, Colin 'Joe Blade 1 & 2, Deviants, Thing on a Spring, Brat Attack' Swinbourne. Yeeey! Shame the gameplay doesn't match up to the graphics.
As you move from left to right, assailants run on from both sides of the screen. Regular hard guys just run across the screen, some of them stopping to wave a fist in your direction. Armed gunmen run about, stopping sometimes to take a shot in your direction. As in real life, bullets aren't a problem. All you have to do to avoid one is jump into the air.
At various points along the way, you find lots of spare weapons, just left lying around casually. Things like knives and baseball bats adorn the sidewalks. In the rough and tumble back streets of New York, even the litter is lethal. All the extra weapons seem to do is to extend your reach a little and make your graphic look more ferocious.
Now, the graphics. They're fab. All the sprites are large and well detailed and cartoony. The backgrounds are quite nicely laid out as well, and guess what, in colour mode there's tons of colour clash. Thankfully you can change between colour and mono backgrounds at the touch of a button.
The problem with the game? it's far too easy. It seems that if you keep jumping from left to right, you can't be hit by bullets and you avoid all the thugs. This is not good. I got to level three on my first go. This is also not good. The levels are only five screens long. This is the pits.
Another fine graphical effort from Mr Swinbourne, but a poor attempt at a game. Shame really.
Amstrad, Spectrum: £1.99
Mickey Spatsburg, as well as having a stupid name, also has a death wish. After the infamous "Curl" - leader of the biggest gang in New York - threatens to mug everyone who crosses his East Side district, guess where Mickey decides to go?
Streets and roads of the Big Apple are displayed side-on, and Mickey makes his way from left to right across the flip-screen scenery. All manner of assailants appear and attempt to stop Mickey dead in his tracks, with everyone from acid house fruitcakes to gun-wielding grannies laying into our hero. Mickey hits back with bare fists and jumps over gunshots, but can also collect weapons en route.
A bulging bicep signals Mick's current strength, and as he gets hit, so the arm withers. Death sees Mickey explode (!) and reappear at the start of the level.
Hardly in the same league as Renegade, this one. Combat is too limited to be of any real interest and the zombie-like characters simply wander on, attack, and wander off again. An over-simplistic beat-em-up, and really not recommended.
All information in this page is provided by ZXSR instead of ZXDB