Producer: Melbourne House
Retail Price: £8.95
Author: Steven Taylor, Damian Watharow, Frank Oldham

Following on from previous beat em up successes, Melbourne House bring the excitement of the wrestling ring to the Spectrum screen in a game which can be played against computerised opponents or head-to-head with a friend.

In the one player game, you control Gorgeous Greg who is going for the World Championship. Four opponents stand between Greg and the champion's belt, and he must defeat them all twice on the route to the top. The fighters Greg faces in the ring each have a unique personality and temperament and their fighting styles vary accordingly. Lord Toff, for instance, takes the scientific approach to wrestling and knows all of the twenty three moves available in the game. Vicious Vivian is a mohicanned yob who learnt to fight on the streets, while the Missouri Breaker fights mean and dirty. Redneck McCoy is apparently an affable yokel, but when he's in the ring he becomes one mean opponent, yessiree.

Each bout on the way to the championship lasts three minutes and to win, Greg has to pin his opponent to the canvas for a count of three seconds. In the two player mode the winner is the first to get two pintails. The two wrestlers each have a status bar displayed at the edge of the screen, and as they take falls or weakeners - forearm smashes, knee jerks and kicks - their stamina levels fall. Before going for the pinfall, it's wise to soften your opponent up.

The final bout, which can leave Greg Champion of the World, has no time limit - it's a fight to the death almost. The only thing that's missing from the game is the overexcited granny who rushes up the ringside and prods the bad guy with her umbrella!

COMMENTS

Control keys: redefinable
Joystick: Kempston, Cursor, Interface 2
Keyboard play: a bit tricky, slow response
Use of colour: 'transparent' wrestlers, pretty ring
Graphics: rather confusing at times
Sound: no Rock! Spot effects only
Skill levels: one
Screens: four wrestlers to beat

Rock and Wrestle is definitely not a worthy follow up to the other Melbourne House hits. The graphics are very poor and the sound could have been pinched from the great Fist. Even if you're a bit of a grappling fan, you are unlikely to be impressed by the way your opponent can bash you to the floor and then jump on you after a pause - NOT all part of the same move. Where's the ref, eh? I'm glad Melbourne House have finally put in a decent background in the Spectrum game, but the crowd do seem very bored with the whole affair. The graphics are very podgy and a bit like Axil from Heavy On The Magic which poses a few problems in a combat game. Seeing your man when he's in a crucial clinch can get difficult. I warn you, the graphics may look nice but the game's very low on playability. There's no 'Rock', either.

OK Melbourne, where's the Rock, eh? Come to that, where's the game? Fist is definitely one of the all time lighting classics, so why couldn't Melbourne come up with a wrestling game that is just as good? The sound is taken from Fist, but where's the 'complete rock sound track' mentioned in the adverts? Colour is lavishly used, but the graphics are chunky, badly defined, and generally messily done. The controls are quite slow to respond, which makes the game even more difficult, to the point of making it frustratingly unaddictive. No, though I don't like to slag off a company which has produced such classics in the past, I think Rock 'N Wrestle is a complete foul up.

I can say without fear of being beaten up by my fellow reviewers that this game is appalling: there isn't a single thing about it that stands out or is interesting. The graphics are poor, so poor in fact that at times it is very difficult to follow the action on screen; the characters are undetailed and move around the screen very badly. The sound is about the best thing going for this one - there isn't a tune but there are some nice meaty spot effects when you mince your opponent. It looks like there were some problems with this game that weren't discovered until it was too late...

Ladies an' Gennelmen, welcome a newcomer to the ring, Melbourne House's Rock'n'Wrestle. In the blue corner, Tommy "Giant Hayfever" Nash (boo hiss) wrestles up a review...

FAX BOX
Title: Rock 'n' Wrestle
Publisher: Melbourne House
Price: £7.95
Joystick: Kempston, Sinclair, Protek etc
Keys: Player 1 - Up - W; Left - A; Right - D; Down - X, Player 2 - Up - U; Left - H; Right - K; Down - N

Quiz time. If you'd been in a deep coma for, oh say at least eight hours and you woke up not knowing what day of the week it was (let alone how you came to be sleeping head first in the linen basket), how would you work out it was Saturday? Turn on the telly for starters. Right. And watch Mike Read make a complete prat of himself on Saturday Superstore? But Mike Read makes a complete prat of himself every day of the week. Watch out for Saint and Greavsie? No chance. The hardest thing of all is finding at time when they're not on. The wrestling? Got it in... er, just over one. Yes, the wrestling, of course. The show in which two EEC-subsidised food mountains (why else d'you think he's called Giant Haystacks?) start knocking the stuffing out of each other. Wrestling equals Saturday. And don't start telling me that you can go down the Civic and watch wrestling any night of the week. Have you ever been? No, of course you haven't.

Except that now, grappling fans, you can have wrestling on your telly every day of the week. Rock'n'Wrestle is the first 3D wrestling simulation to head-butt its way onto your Speccy. But be prepared for a few changes from the real thing. For starters, our man-mountains look as though they've spent a couple of weeks with the Weight Watchers - Big Daddy would have three of them for breakfast before tucking into his Shredded Wheat. And the referee's gone walkabout, so there's none of that a-one-a, a-two-a, a-three-a plus copious amounts of palm slapping on the canvas - the countdown appears as plain old numbers on the screen.

In any case the ref would have great difficulty with the rules. The only way to win a contest is by one pinfall if you're playing the computer or two if you're mashin' up a mate. There are no knockouts and no submissions.

The other big difference is the visuals. A real wrestler would have to get beaten about a bit to look as bad as this. The graphics are definitely on the naff side of awful, especially after the clean lines of Melbourne's last big hit, Way Of The Exploding Fist. And until you've got a fair few back breakers under your Lonsdale belt it's a trifle tricky in some of the grapples picking out which pixel belongs to which player.

But it won't be long before you're used to the blockiness of the graphics and you can tell at a glance the difference between the Missouri Breaker and Redneck McCoy. Then you can get on with the business of mastering the moves - all twenty-seven of them. It's an idea to put some practice on the two-player mode - that way you can be certain of an opponent who keeps still even while you're throwing him around the ring.

Rock'n'Wrestle is not a megagame but it's not far off in its gameplay as looking at the screen shots might suggest. And as a wrestling simulation, it's not bad at all bad. All the major moves are there and it feels pretty accurate when it's your head making contact with the canvas. You'll even lose control over your character as he reels about the ring after a bad knock. But in the end there is one vital element missing. How could the programmers leave out everyone's favourite handbag-wielding granny?

Label: Melbourne House
Price: £9.95
Memory: 48K
Joystick: Kempston
Reviewer: Gary Rook

If you've ever wanted to beat Giant Haystack or Big Daddy at their own game, then here's your chance.

Fresh from its success on other micros comes Melbourne House's Rock 'n' Wrestle, an attempt to do for the grunting, sweaty passion of wrestling what Way of The Exploding Fist did for Kung Fu.

You control one of two fairly sizeable sprites - representing the Masked Terror, or the Pink Punk - and you have to wear down your opponent by variously nutting him, punching him in the fundament, and throwing him to the floor.

Each of these manouevres, if executed properly will, score you points and, reduce your enemy's energy level.

If you are playing the computer, beating the first opponent means you move on to the next challenger, who is of course tougher, meaner and graphically different. So far I've seen a punk with a mohican (bit like that twerp from Sigue Sigue Sputnik), a real weirdo with a wizard's hat and a black beard, and someone who looks like Dallas' very own JR.

Movement is either via keyboard or joystick, and is fairly standard left/right up/down. Performing any of the offensive actions involves getting close enough to your opponent to smell his breath, then pressing fire followed by one of the movement controls. This results in your character reaching out and hopefully hurting someone.

As yet I haven't worked out if particular moves score more points, but so far I've got a neat line in instep stomping.

There is a two player-option, and which I recommend for practising - your foe stays still, and you can sneak up on him.

The graphics are reasonably good, although at one point I did notice a disembodied head appearing for an instant in the centre of the ring as I was being jumped on in a corner. Still, they do say that being kicked in the head with sequinned boots for any length of time tends to make you see things...

Rock 'n' Wrestle didn't grab me straight away but now, after a while, I have to say I suspect I will be persevering with it.

ALL THIS VIOLENCE AND NOT A NINJA IN SIGHT - MELBOURNE HOUSE ARE SET TO PUMMEL YOU INTO SUBMISSION WITH THIS GRAPPLING PACKAGE.

Melbourne House
£7.95

Melbourne House with Way of the Exploding Fist and Fighting Warrior have been the trendsetters for combat games and Rock 'n' Wrestle is yet another simulation that seems destined to enhance their reputation.

There are no mystical depths to plumb, no other aim except annihilating all opposition with a bewildering variety of wrestling moves. You play Gorgeous George the tenth ranked contender for the world title who must head butt, forearm smash and drop kick his way to the top.

As with Melbourne House's previous combat games the different moves and combinations of moves are initially very tricky to master and playing in a two player mode against a stationary opponent is very necessary to sharpen up your repertoire of devastating blows.

There is a keyboard option for both one player and two player mode but this could cause fingers to become severely knotted during a difficult bout.

Altogether there are 25 separate moves and holds. Moving around the ring simply requires joystick control. A single trigger press will give you some softening up options such as a sharp lift of the knee, forearm smash and kick. But it is the grab (pushing the joystick forward and pressing the fire button) that will lead you on to the more spectacular (and satisfying) moves.

Once you've grabbed your opponent one option is to spin him around the ring and throw him onto the ropes. On the rebound pressing the fire button and moving the joystick will produce a nice range of flatteners such as the body check, drop kick and flying body press.

If you grab your opponent from the front it gives you the chance to inflict a head butt or a lift which again gives you a choice of masochistic options - a body slam or pile driver with an aeroplane spin for starters if required.

Grabbing your opponent from behind opens up the possibility of a backbreaker or 'Atomic drop' (dropping your opponent feet first onto the canvas). When you get some of these moves working smoothly Rock 'n' Wrestle is a joy to play and the complexity of moves you can make gives the game plenty of mileage. Due to the number of movements included the graphics do seem to be under strain and realism of the wrestlers seems to have been sacrificed in order to cram in as many moves as possible. On balance this was probably the right decision as having well depicted wrestlers with fewer moves would not have made a better game and in the end there are few if any of the well known wrestling holds omitted.

There are no knockouts, two pin falls are needed to secure victory and when you are playing against the computer you could well find yourself pinned before you've made a move. Trying to escape a hold depends on your strength level but you are not entirely helpless and furiously jiggling the joystick can force your opponent to break the hold.

Overall the furious action of Rock 'n' Wrestle more than makes up for less than startling graphics and almost non existent sound and if you are bored with martial arts games it makes a good alternative for venting aggression. If you are a grappling connoisseur it's definitely for you and even if you aren't it may still exert an addictive hold over you.