From the Arcade game Bubble Memories. Who does’nt love a bit of Bubble Bobble? And no that’s not a twisted way of asking if you enjoy some weird sex game!
You know it makes sense. And of course you know that the Retro Review always endorses Co-Op games! ( unless they are crap! )
HELLO! Ahhh it feels good to be back behind the keyboard after such a long absence. Sorry about that by the way, with Christmas, New Year and a lovely infection which I am still battling to clear it’s all been a bit hectic and that’s not even mentioning that we have a Baby due in the next 2 weeks!!!!
I hope you all had a cracking Chrimbo and are tackling 2013 head on! Now, for today’s review, I had this game on the ZX Spectrum, so thought I would have a look at the arcade where it all began…
Tiger Road on the Arcade
Excuse me Mr. Rich?….yes?…..is there a plot? I’m glad you asked because here it is!
In Tiger Road, the player is placed in the shoes of a master of the Tiger Technique of Oh-Lin. Before the start of the game, the main character has been attacked by the warriors of the Dragon God, his sworn rivals. His soldiers have been killed, his secrets have been stolen, and the children studying Oh-Lin have been kidnapped. To win the game, the player must retrieve the stolen scrolls so that he can use the Double-Headed Tiger Fighting Technique to defeat the Dragon God, rescue the children, and reclaim his power.
There ya go, nice and simple, bad guys come and cause trouble, trouble must be made to pay. I enjoyed this game to be honest, it’s actually quite a challenge too which is never a bad thing when it comes to games, so many are a quick and simple eye candy fest but little game play these days ( Can of worms now open ). So you take control of Oh-Lin with your starting weapon which is a battle axe which seems to have an amazing range on it, this can be upgraded to other weapons through the levels, pole arms, axes and other weapons can be found. Health pickups are located inside golden urns along with power ups and bonus points too. The pace is pretty frantic from the start as well, with enemies flanking you from both sides throughout. Once inside the first building you are met with a giant man, who you could confuse with a boss, but no, this is just a tougher enemy to deal with and there’s a fair few of them to be defeated in this level too. Once past these behemoths you are met with little fat men throwing rocks at you, this was the first part of frustration I encountered as they come too fast to be able to avoid every one of them, I don’t remember that on the Speccy version, maybe need to play it again and write a comparison review. Your character has attack and jump in his control list, and that’s about it, no special attack or anything, so it’s no Shinobi. The pace as I mentioned is fast, with little to no slow down which is great to see for an older game even when there are multiple sprites on the screen.
Graphics:- Simple but nicely drawn sprites draw you into the game, with animations that for it’s time would have been acceptable. Backgrounds are nice and oriental throughout which adds a lovely colour scheme to the proceedings. Sprites are drawn nicely with many different types of enemy to encounter.
Sound:- Bog standard music track and strange WHAP sound effects will either amuse or annoy depending on what your tolerance level is on such affairs. It could have been better but then again, the game play outweighs the sound in such a way that you eventually just put it to one side in your head.
Overall:- A nice game that will keep you coming back for more. No multiplayer action but we can forgive that as I think it would have been a turn based game if there was an option to add more players. Sound could have been better but again, thats just a small point.
From the Amiga Version of Batman the movie, nice job on this actually. Captured Keaton’s version of Batman very well indeed here.
( Due to health issues the Review is on hold, back soon, I promise )
Another fantastic loader from the Amiga game - Agony. These level loader screens are amazing!
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