Zeppelin
£3.99 cassette
091 3857755
Reviewer: Linda Barker

In my younger days, ie not very long ago, I used to get dead confused by the word martial. I always read it as marital. I used to think that there was such a thing as marital arts but cos I didn't like to ask, I was never told that those classes were all about fighting and there was no kissing involved at all. Kissing's not big in martial arts circles, they don't really bother with social niceties.

The Sword of the Samurai is the latest shuriken-throwing, social niceties-ignoring, Shinobi-'em-up from Zeppelin and it's pretty darn darn. The plot is as far-fetched and fantastic as one would expect, but I'll give you the details anyway. You are a member of an honourable martial arts gang, a noble warrior who has been brought up to defend all that is true and good. Luckily, the forces of good and truth are under threat from a gang of renegade Ninjas. It's lucky because this means that you can go out there and flash your shiny sword around. Y'see, the naughty Ninjas have kidnapped tonnes of good people. These hostages have been locked up and put under the guard of some very big baddies. It's time to polish that sword, sharpen those shurikens, brush up on your martial lore and go slash some nasties.

The Sword of the Samurai is, basically a monochrome shoot-'em-up with platforms to jump on and it's teeming with baddies. You've only got a few minutes for each level and each three hostages to collect and keep. As soon as you've freed the first two, it should be a bit easier to get the third cos you get cut-throat daggers to chuck at them. Of course, it doesn't quite work out like that cos the guards get more and more violent and getting that final hostage within the time level can be frustratingly difficult.

SLASHTASTIC!

There are seven levels to get through, including some sewers, a holy mountain and a dragon temple complete with magical dragons. As I've said before, the whole thing is oozing with baddies and, even better, playability. It takes a couple of goes to get your eyes properly focused, at first it seems as if the nasty Ninjas have appeared from the trees or rocks. As soon as your eyes have adjusted themselves to the simple colour scheme (black and a single colour) you too will be able to spot an ape man at 500 yards.

So if it's slashability you're after, thin simply pop out to the nearest trading post. Just make sure it's one that sells Speccy games and you'll be well pleased. In the originality stakes The Sword of the Samurai isn't exactly Top of the Pops, but even though we've played the game before in various different guises it doesn't hurt one bit to have another go. In fact, it's quite a pleasurable experience. I think I'll just go and finish that level, this martial business is alright (One Last thing, is a married Ninja a marital martialist?) (No, he's a married man who's well versed in martial arts. Jon) (Sounds a bit rude, if you ask me.) (Oh please! Jon)

Label: Zeppelin
Memory: 48K/128K
Price: £3.99 Tape
Reviewer: Steve Keen

Curse those ninjas, they just won't leave decent, innocent people alone. One day, while walking around some tasty graphic backdrops, a busload of Zeppelin sprites got kidnapped by a group of fiendish martial arts experts. And at this very moment they're being held hostage until Zeppelin return to a policy of producing more martial arts games and of those blasted sports sims.

As usual, it's the task of a samurai warrior to rescue the hostages. Somewhat stumpy and armed with a cheap version of Strider's sword this samurai also has several dozen shurikens, which, unfortunately aren't very powerful (it takes several hits to have any effect). Fortunately, though, once he's rescued two hostages, someone gives him a sackload of cut-throat knives which are much more useful... Yes, the samurai warrior is an awesome force, but you must be careful not to underestimate your opponents!

There are loads of ninja patrols out to halt the rescue attempt and any sort of contact with these baddies will sump sam' off. Some are easy to defeat and don't really fight back, but others come well equipped with hand-to-hand combat weapons, guns or shurikens.

Each hostage is protected by an armed guard whom you must defeat in hand to hand combat. The fire button will only activate your sword when you are close to an enemy, otherwise you will fire shurikens or knives., Unfortunately neither of these are any use against the hostage guardians so you need to judge the distance very carefully to defeat them.

The kidnappers have set a deadline for their demands to be met - so you have 100 seconds to rescue the three hostages on each level! If you don't rescue them within that time, your failure will have brought such disgrace on the Samurai name that you lose your life (and, even worse, have to start all over again).

There is a magic crystal which the samurai can drop by pulling down on flat ground. Having done this, if he is then killed he will return to that spot in his next life. However it is essential to remember where you leave the crystal as you may start again in a very dangerous place! Each game starts with four lives in store.

Although the general standard of the graphics isn't bad by any means, it can be very difficult to make out the sprites against some backgrounds, especially on the second level. Overall this game is rather dates in concept and look, and it's not too difficult either. Younger or newer players might enjoy it but hardened ninja specialists should stay away.

ED LAURENCE:
Everything about Sword Of The Samurai is o.k., but nothing is really special. Basically it's an enjoyable enough ninja bash but not really up to modern standards. A pity.