Previous Next

A quick glance at the cassette inlay of Shao-Lin's Road had me gulping. The screenshots were stunning. Too good in fact for the Amstrad. I read the blurb: "Screen shots from the arcade version - home micro version smay differ" it read.

May differ? Who are they trying to kid? Is there a difference between chalk and cheese? Do pigs fly? Do System 3 games come out on time?

The truth is that Shao-Lin's Road does have a passing resemblance to the arcade version. For a start, the name's the same, both are from Konami and the storyline is roughly the same.

The game is a follow-up to Yie Ar Kung-Fu and finds the hero Lee as a master of Chin's Shao Lin. That means he's able to kick and punch people with devastating effect and able to perform magnificent leaps and bounds. He's also got some magical powers at his disposal.

Lee has been trapped in a temple by hordes of Triads and must battle his way to freedom using everyone of his skills.

It's all very much standard martial arts stuff, good fun but I find that because there are so many of these types of games around nowadays, they don't keep me playing as much as they used to.

In the general slaughter and carnage, the death of one of your opponents will release an energy ball. Catch this and you get a magical power for a while.