C&VG
1st January 1988Combat School
Get fell in you 'orrible little games player. What do you think you're 'ere for? To enjoy yourself? To 'ave fun? Well, laddy, let me put you straight. *You're here to be a solider. A killing machine. Got that?*
Well, now we've got that straight, it's on to some tough training in the Combat School, Ocean's conversion of the excellent Konami coin-op before undertaking a dangerous mission to rescue a hostage at the American embassy.
There are eight training courses to conquer. Points and time bonuses are up for grabs:
1. Assault Course By waggling the joystick, you must build-up and maintain your running speed while jumping over the numerous fences. Towards the end of this event you will be confronted with a horizontal ladder; jump onto this ladder and waggle as fast as possible to complete this course. You are up against the clock.
2. Firing Range One Various targets appear at random throughout this event and you must move your cursor and shoot as many as possible within the allotted time. You have a minimum number of targets to hit.
3. Iron Man Race You must build up and maintain your maximum running speed whilst avoiding the various obstacles such as rocks and mines, as you try and negotiate the terrain.
4. Firing Range Two In contrast to the fixed gun emplacements you had in the first firing range, this event presents you with a chance to practise your skills with a hand-held machine gun. Robot tanks descend at random from the top of the screen and you must knock out as many as possible in the allotted time.
5. Arm Wrestling You must try and build up and maintain maximum power to defeat your opponent. In the one player game you will be pitted against the computer, while in the two player game you'll be competing one on one.
6. Firing Range Three This is similar in control to the first firing range, but you must avoid shooting any of the red targets. If you do inadvertently hit one of these, your cursor will freeze until the next batcj of targets appear.
7. Combat With Instructor Here you are one-on-one against your instructor and must use all your martial arts and combat skills to defeat him.
8. Chin-ops If you fail to qualify in the first six events by a very narrow margin, you will be given a second chance to continue. This will take the form of a number of chin-ups that need to be performed in a specific time.
It's then time for the mission...
Combat School combines all the ingredients that make the coin-op so successful. The training events are highly playable but I wasn't too impressed with the final mission.