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I loved The Way Of The Exploding Fist when it came out on the Commodore 64. It was magnificent. A joy forever. Other versions on other machines, however, failed to match it.

The long-awaited Fist II on the C64 was quite frankly a disappointment. Gone was the frantic action, replaced by a lot of pointless wandering broken up by a few fights. There was no sparkle, nothing to make you gasp. The legend of Fist was tarnished.

Sadly the Spectrum conversion of Fist II does nothing to restore that legend. If it had just been a mediocre game - which it is when compared to other martial arts games - that would have been just about acceptable. But other things conspire to make Fist II really annoying.

First of all, the cassette case distintegrates on first opening. The flimsy plastic hinge had broken. Okay that happens a lot these days. Side One of the cassette contains the game program. Side Two a combat practice program. Fairly straightforward you would think - except that the cassette label has been stuck on the wrong side of the cassette. So when you load the main program you get combat practice, and vice-versa. Very annoying. I was quite pleased I hadn't forked out any money for this.

The idea of the game is to rid your land of an evil warlord. Again, you get the same pointless wanderings - or rather running about - broken up by a few flights, attacks by panthers, collect scrolls, blah, blah, blah.

The fights at least are similar to the old Fist. All the same moves, punches, kicks, leaps etc. That's some comprehension - except that during one fight my opponent appeared to seize up giving me an easy - and very boring - target.

Fist II is too lightweight to stand comparison with The Way Of The Exploding Fist. All things must pass. Sad but true.