Previous Next

Law enforcement is a joke, and asking for a Coke at your local drugstore has taken on a whole new meaning. With the entire USA in a fix, the people turn to Hit Man and Max Force, two cops with major league firepower. The evil drug organisation, KRAK, and Mr. Big are about to be terminated.

Max and Hit are armed with machine guns and rocket launchers to take on the perps, although there are bonus points for making non-lethal arrests. Shoot some bad dudes and they drop extra ammunition, rapid fire power-ups, cash or packets of drugs.

Collecting the latter two is good for your end-level bonus, but you only get that when you've found the safe card. Usually this is hidden away in a sub-level, often tougher than the main levels! On the first load there's a door leading to a subway station where Rottweilers bite at your heels and perps fire at you all the way. Get the safe card and you've still got to return to the main level and blast your way through to complete it.

After this the slaughter continues on through Krak Street (where Spike Rush throws energy-sapping hypos), the KRAK drugs labs (destroy massive chemical vats), and bridges where helicopter gunships attack and the cops can ride in a red Porsche.

Massacre after massacre follows as the clean up continues through Sunset Strip, ganja plant greenhouses and more before KRAK HQ. There, Max and Hit face wave after wave of every baddie in the game before (literally) the head of the organisation puts in an appearance.

In both versions, graphic variety and attention to detail is high. Each scene is markedly different - junkyards, bridges and even a greenhouse! All the early levels have their own special perp, but later on you get more of a mix, which is a real challenge.

Accompanying both versions are ace sound effects: the Amiga dog yelps, voices and rocket effects are horrifyingly real, the music excellent. The C64 boasts especially good effects (the hypo, helicopter whirr and rocket blast). This version also copes well graphically with only a few less sprites than the Amiga. A real technical achievement considering there's a simultaneous two-player mode.

Gameplay is unsophisticated and twelve levels of the same game can get repetitive. The ideas are a bit limited, but it's a good blast and that's all it aims to be. The gratuitous violence has been toned down on the C64, with no flying appendages! Mind you, running over perps in the Porsche and blasting Rottweilers sure makes up for this!

The OTT effects of the coin-op, with legs and arms flying everywhere make conversion a tricky business, but The Sales Curve have the balance about right. The punter-pulling Rotoscope character movement has inevitably been dropped from the Amiga. Ironically, the blocky C64 characters are so well animated they look digitized! - and there's zero flicker.

Twelve levels plus sub-levels, which are complete sections in themselves within the load, and you get one massive challenge. The ideas are a little dated, and the C64 disk version I played had enough lengthy loading to make me wonder about C2Ners, but it's well-structured with big levels. The Amiga game benefits from a fast multi-load. And watch out for the scanner scenes before each level: they're great on the Amiga but on the C64 it's marvellous to see it matching the coin-op in graphic detail, complete with the portrait rapidly expanding in size.

All in all, two incredibly playable conversions.

Presentation 89%
Excellent scanner screens, continue plays and rapid multi-load.

Graphics 87%
No Rotoscope, but it's strong on graphic variety, action and detail.

Sound 90%
Realistic samples and a great in-game tune.

Hookability 83%
Major league challenge with new perps exhibiting quite different and deadlier methods with each level.

Overall 84%
Classic arcade action garnished with a torrent of gore.

Presentation 81%
Excellent scanner screens, continue-plays. Lengthly level multi-load.

Graphics 86%
Smooth scroll, well-animated characters and colour-varied levels changing dramatically in style.

Sound 81%
Decent main tune together with convincing FX.

Hookability 86%
Pace of the game is interrupted by heavy multi-load, but otherwise it's got the essential overkill of violence and game pace to get you hooked...

Lastability 87%
...with the challenge and graphic rewards of new Scanner pictures and backdrops to match.

Overall 86%
Technically impressive and extremely playable.