1st February 1989
Sai Combat
This martial arts beat-'em-up followed a long line of similar games when it was released by Mirrorsoft in May 1986. Its unique feature was that the fighters were armed with sai sticks.
As In Way Of The Exploding Fist this beat-'em-up takes place over several levels in which the player tries to bash either a computer or human opponent. Each player has sixteen different moves to use, accessed in the typical beat-'em-up fashion, namely combinations of directions and fire.
Animation of the fighters is very good, although the background never changes. The computer opponents are fairly intelligent and tough to beat, but eventually bashing fighter after fighter (all identical) gets more than a touch monotonous.
Nevertheless, Sai Combat is a well-implemented, no-nonsense combat game which is a good buy if you haven't got a decent martial arts beat-'em-up in your software collection.
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