REPLAY

And now, the moment a number of you have been waiting for. It's remarkable, it's resplendent, it's Replay!

Ocean
£9.99 cassette
061 832 6633
Reviewer: Rich Pelley

Hi there - Rich here again, this time with a round up of Ninja Collection from Ocean. So what are we waiting for then? Oh yeah - me.

DRAGON NINJA

This first ninja game came out positively ages ago (1989) and even back them it wasn't especially outstanding. This one plays in what I'd term as the familiar Kung Fu Master style. If you're not familiar then this means that you can only move left and right and not in and out of the screen. This means that the gameplay is, in my opinion at least, immediately reduced by about half. There is no choice of which order to pick off the baddies and only a mere smattering of attacking moves available.

Games with this type of over-simplistic gameplay tend to rely heavily on large 'interesting' levels to disguise their flimsiness, and, quel suprise, Dragon Ninja is of no exception. Levels One to Six take place on a street, on top of a huge truck, in a sewer, in another sewer, on top of a train, in some caverns and in the warehouse respectively. Different scenery to explore and different baddies and end of level baddies to face there may be, but the repetitive walk/jump/punch/kick routine is far too boring. I'm afraid at the end of the day, Dragon Ninja gets classed as a nothing more than boring, unadventurous, not-really-worth-the-time-of-day (one player which I forgot to mention) crappy beat-em-up romp.
49°

DOUBLE DRAGON

Oo-er, this one's so old that it's even been been sequelled and re-sequelled again! Double Dragon reared its head for the first time in the arcade where it gained a cult following mainly as it was a two-player and pretty easy to beat. However, they cocked it up a bit converting it to the Speccy, and by today's standards and especially the standards of its two follow-ups, the graphics seem undeniably dodgy, the sound mysteriously lacking, the gameplay slightly repetitive and worse still, there's a strange kind of multi-load.

However, it is far more interactive than Dragonn Ninja (you can climb scenery and pick up weapons) and it requires a lot more skill than Shadow Warriors. Waggling the joystick inanely will be of little use until you've mastered which of the eight attacking moves to use where. All in all Double Dragon is good fun but heavily dated.
66°

SHADOW WARRIORS

Ah yes, Shadow Warriors, an average beat-'em-up served with a side order of large levels and lavish graphics, also appears on the 2 Hot 2 Handle compilation reviewed elsewhere by yours truly. So why not read the review of it there?
76°

And as by way of an outroduction, I'd suggest that this Ninja collection is not the supposed bargain you people deserve. As opposed to laying your hands on three of the best beat-'em-ups ever, two average and one non-eventful games are all you getting for your money which frankly, Mr Shankly, I'd say is a bit of a disappointment really.

Overall 70°

Label: Ocean
Memory: 48K/128K
Price: £9.99 Tape
Reviewer: Matthew Denton

A deafening HIIYAAAH! signals the arrival of yet another does of chop-sockey action to try and rule supreme over the current compilations and beat 'em-ups which are currently doing the rounds. Oceans effort involves three arcade conversions, namely Double Dragon, Shadow Warriors and Dragon Ninja, which were all quite successful when first released.

First one the sparring mat is Double Dragon, where as Billy and Jimmy Lee you and a friend can kick the excrement out of the evil gang that has kidnapped Billy's girlfriend Marion. This game is the worst on the pack. Some of the most tedious and excruciatingly boring gameplay ever devised makes the Quit feature possibly the best feature about his game.

Shadow Warriors is one of my favourite beat 'em up arcade games, even though it's getting on a bit now. The Speccie version features colourful graphics, with some large sprites and tasty backgrounds that can become a little confusing at times whislt I found the controls too unresponsive to generate the fun and addictiveness of the coin-op. Oh well, back to the arcade version.

Dragon Ninja is the last to kick it's way into the package and again involves a rescue mission - this time the President of the good ol' U.S. of A has been abducted ("Thats happenin' - ED")

This conversion loses the simultaneous two player option, but it's still a faithful conversion. Graphics are well defined, the sound is adequate, and the action is involving and enjoyable. This one is definitely the pick of the bunch but it cannot compensate for the other two atrocities on this pack. If you want Dragon Ninja, get it on budget, and leve this pack in the Dojo of Dreadful Compilations.

GARTH:
Ahh soo. Velly silly price point means that you only save £2.00 on the budget price of the games and end up with a couple of less-than-excellent games. If you already own one of these game then don't buy it!