Producer: Entertainment USA
Retail Price: £1.99
Author: P Atkinson and J Brennan

The interplanetary wrestling committee are staging the most bizarre wrestling match of them all. In the guise of six alien forms, ranging from bug-eyed beetle to brawny barbarian, one or two players battle it out in the intergalactic championship.

Combat takes place within a three-sided monochromatic cage under the gaze of a suitably intergalactic audience. Participants may grab, kick, hit, head butt, neck chop and throw their opponent, the objective being to stun him long enough to climb up the sides of the cage and win the match. Unless he fails to shake the climbing wrestler off the mesh, the unlucky fighter left in the ring disappears as the solid looking cage floor turns into a bottomless abyss of flashing lights.

Two energy bars indicate the status of each player's strength; momentary periods of rest give dwindling health a chance to recover. Success means promotion to a tougher match, a tougher opponent and another shot at becoming intergalactic wrestler supreme.

COMMENTS

Joysticks: Cursor, Kempston, Sinclair
Graphics: poor perspective and jerky animation
Sound: a few weak white noise effects
Options: choice of six different characters. One or two players

Pathetic is the first, and probably only printable word that sprang to my mind whilst playing Cage Match. Horribly deformed character sprites hobble woodenly around the bland, unattractive backdrop. Wrestling isn't my favourite sport at the best of times, and even this intergalactic version failed miserably to spark any sort of enthusiasm. Apart from the dire graphics, the gameplay has very limited appeal, with the combatants being limited to a few superfluous moves; your poor old character is usually on the receiving end of the physical barrage, since the computer controlled opponent consistently wipes the floor with you. Not that the game actually gives you much incentive to try. Take my advice: steer clear of Cage Match
MARK

Why must we continue to endure such rubbish from some Spectrum programmers? Surely they must realise a bad game when they see it? Cage Match is nothing but utter drivel. The graphics are fine until they start to move, being jerky and inaccurate. The sound is similarly pathetic, consisting of a few meagre white noise effects. And as for the game - where is it? The only way you can last in a bout is to avoid your opponent. You've no chance of beating him as the moves (I presume there are some) are impossible to access. And he recovers so quickly that you might as well not have bothered in the first place. Spectrum computers need this like an eskimo needs a fridge.
PAUL

Mastertronic
£1.99
Reviewer: Tony Worrall

Wossis, then? Cage Match is a futuristic version of the gentle art of Wrestling, the sport loved by umbrella wielding grannies up and down the country. The standard wrestling ring has been replaced by a wire mesh cage, open at the top to allow the players to climb out. "Climb out?" I hear you say, "Why?" Simple. If a player manages to reach the top of the cage, he/it wins the game and the other player respectfully melts into three pounds of quivering jelly.

The player's character (after selection from a list of dubious looking contestants), must beat the living daylights out of the other characters, so as to reduce their vital energy meters. Get your opponent's energy low enough and he freezes, giving you an essential couple of seconds to dash up the cage side and end the game.

That's about all there is to it really. Only a tiny number of aggressive moves are available and most of those are difficult to perform when you need them. The animation is jerky and the characters respond pretty poorly to the game controls.

Cage Match may have been a good idea, but programmers Icon Design, who should know better, have put little thought into the gameplay. If you want to risk your two quid go ahead, but I can think of better things to spend my dosh on - like TWO copies of next month's YS!

Label: Mastertronic
Author: Icon Design
Price: £2.99
Memory: 48K/128K
Joystick: various
Reviewer: Tony "not very easily impressed" Dillon

As you might have guessed, I have a new word. Lame. Meaning anything naff or generally useless. This game fits it perfectly.

Billed as a 'future sports simulation', you play one of seven 'wrestlers' stuck inside a huge cage. You have to punch, kick, slap and jump on your opponents to batter their energy to a minus state. I can only say that this game reminds me of nothing so much as that other lame experience, Rock and Wrestle. The controls are pretty ineffective, having little real effect on what is going on. The graphics are poor and the animation is slow and jerky. The sound is pretty limited too. Is there anything good I can say about this game, I ask myself? Well, it does have a two player feature, but are there two people who want to play it?