World Karate Championship
for C64
Also available for: C64 (International Karate)

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Jumpman Junior:Popular Vote:
5/6
Company: System Three Software / Epyx
Year: 1986
Genre: Sport, Action
Theme: Fighting / Individual Sports / Multiplayer
Language: English
Licence: Commercial
Views: 111342
Review by Jumpman Junior (2008-05-22)

A well-known classic from the arcade from 1986. Business as usual: Fight against your opponents who become more stronger from round to round and try to collect as many point as possible...

You start as Karateka with the white belt - you can choose Egypt or Australia. It does not matter at all because the starting location has no influence on the game itself. After 3 rounds of fighting you either go to New York or to Rio de Janeiro - and that already was the little excursion because after round no. 3 the background graphic does not change any more. At least as far as I could play...

At the very beginning your opponents are very easy to be beat so you are able to try all the different moves and kicks. It's learning by doing - a training session does not exist. The number of different actions is limited and after a short while you will master it while sleeping. You win a round by getting 2 points, while there will be differed between half and full points depending on the fighting situation. The points are given by a referee who reminds me a bit of a mixture of Mr Miyagi and the Fist-of-Zen guy from MTV...

Between the rounds are try-outs for bonus points. They come up rarely and don't affect the gaming fun. The main target is - like I wrote above - collecting points to rise up as a Karateka in the ring: from the white belt to yellow, green, purple, brown and finally black. But to reach it, you have to play on for a certain time and you must win all the time! One single defeat and the game's over. So for the missing High-Score-Saver one point is stripped off!

Much more entertaining than playing against the computer is playing against a second player. Put your joystick where your mouth is and let's go! Graphics are up-to-that-date, just like the sound effects. The music is state-of-the-art, the controlling is direct easy to be done. Fun playing against the computer does not last very long and there is no long-time motivation.

Conclusion: A typical game of this genre, but nicely done. 3 out of 6 points.

Comments (4) [Post comment]

Moebius:
This also looks a lot like The Way of Exploding Fist (one of the greatest zx-spectrum & commodore 64 hits), you might wanna add it to Similar Games section. I think it's important, and also something tells me it surpasses all those International Karate clones.
Steven B:

I'm with you, this game is genius!

I still remember with finally cracking black-belt.

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