Action Fighter

The Good
The arcade game was a clever design, with a good variety in the gameplay as well as a good difficulty curve, well thought-out level layouts, good power-ups in both sections, and plenty of excitement. Darting between cars on your bike as you try to shoot them out, while ducking across into the Sega vans for bonuses and collecting the upgrade tokens made for good gameplay in the first section, while the second was an adequate 1942-style blaster.

Technically it wasn't a particularly complicated game, and Core Design were well up to the job of converting it. Graphics are crisp and sharp, the handling is precise, with a noticable difference between vehicles, and the road scrolls smoothly, at just the right pace

The Bad
The second section suffers a little bit from colour clash, and bullets are sometimes hard to see in the heat of the moment as a result.

Also, there seem to be a few graphical glitches at the top of the screen, which are occasionally enough to be a distraction.

The Bottom Line
A rather belated conversion of an arcade game in which you must rescue the President from terrorists. The game is split into two distinct sections, both vertically-scrolling - the first involves travelling down a road which occasionally splits across into junctions, while trying to destroy as many of the inhabiting vehicles as possible, and the second involves flying through the sky over the sea shooting down enemy air ordinance. You have 1000 seconds in which to complete all this, and are given 5 lives to progress through six levels with.

It makes for an enjoyable little game, which will take a while to get through.

The Good
Attention to details and enemies: On the ground, if you're not careful you can crash off the pier and into the water. Helicopters drop bombs on you while you're navigating the streets and enemy cars.

The Bad
It's a bit too hard. Without cheat codes, I have yet to complete it.

The Bottom Line
Some would say Action Fighter is a cheap Spy Hunter clone. The NES fanboys wipe poop all over this title. For some of us, we didn't have an NES and this was a top-notch game for those of us that didn't know what Spy Hunter was. Maybe it is a Spy Hunter clone, but it certainly is not a cheap clone. It's also difficult to classify. Is it a driving game? Is it a flying game? It is clearly a breakthrough title that breaks the barriers of what we know a game to be. Instead of it being either one or the other, it's both. At it's core, this is an unforgivingly tough game that throws all kinds of elements out at you. Battles take place on the ground, and in the air.

The Good
Imagine this scenario: you just brought a Sega Master System and decide to buy a few games with it, and one of these games is Action Fighter. After looking at the screenshots at the back of the box, you think "Oh no, not another Spy Hunter clone". So, is this game really a Spy Hunter clone? Well, yes and no. Like Spy Hunter, you have to drive on the road, shooting everything that moves, and enter trucks to upgrade your weapons.

What makes this game a bit different, however, is not only must you do the above, but to progress further through the game, you must also fight your enemies in the air. But in order to do this though, you also collect six letters to transform into a plane and quickly get to the nearest airfield.

From here on out, Action Fighter looks like something that was pulled out of Xevious. You have the little crosshair from the same game above you, every enemy that appears on screen fires at you from all sides, and the same type of background is present at all times. The enemies themselves do not fire real shots, as their shots look like white circles that approach you. These shots are very easy to avoid as long as you watch where you are going.

It is the "driving on the road" part that I enjoyed most about the game. While driving, I noticed how well the buildings and parks blend in with the road really well, and how the road itself is split into two sections. Unlike Spy Hunter, the game gives you warning signs before this actually happens. In Spy Hunter, you have no idea when there is a split in the road so you end up crashing all the time, but in Action Fighter, at least you can avoid crashing into something in the middle of the road.

The music is excellent. Although there is no Peter Gunn music that influenced Spy Hunter, it is really a joy listing to the game's music. Furthermore, it suits the game, whether you are driving on the road or flying through the air. The sound effects are good for the standard SMS game: basic explosion sounds, shooting sounds, etc.

The Bad
Nothing.

The Bottom Line
One more thing that makes Action Fighter unique is that you have to take down several bosses in the game, as outlined in the mission briefing. If I was looking to buy a SMS and had a choice between Action Fighter and Spy Hunter, I would pick Action Fighter, even if the latter has not got much to it and considered "more retro".

Rating: ****