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Bruce Lee

on ZX Spectrum

Platformer where you control the titular Bruce Lee as he works his way through a maze and beats up all the baddies he encounters.

Bruce Lee

This is a standard platformer, where you play the titular Bruce Lee, as he kicks and punches his way through a complex maze involving ladders, conveyer belts, hazardous fountains and electric arcs, all while collecting low-hanging yellow fruit. The fruit also double up as keys, with doors only opening after all fruit have been collected.

A screen with conveyer belts and electric arcs to avoid Bruce Lee has a variety of attacks and blocks, involving ducks, punches, kicks and flying kicks. Two baddies pop up on every screen, and always make a beeline for our hero; a short, fast-moving one who hits Bruce with a stick, and a taller one. Both are relatively easy to dispatch, but respawn immediately after said dispatch.

Once you get the hang of the keys and attach combos, going through this game is fairly straightforward. What I like about this game is the complex map. Several times you have to double back to take a path that has now opened up because you completed an action three screens away. There are maps you revisit, moving through an area of the screen which was inaccessible the last time through. Given the nature of the game, there is a definite end, and getting there involves facing a boss, a huge character throwing fireballs.

The graphics are quite classy, and the gameplay is smooth and the motion is fluid. As always, incredible stuff for a little 48K 8-bit spectrum.