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Time to put on your gi, tie your belt, and join sensi on the dojo. Yup, it's karate time. All you budding bone-breakers will love this, fists and feet everywhere with (if your joystick can take the strain) two opponents. And, as they say, balls. More of that later.

The manual tells you what the areas to aim for are, but misses out the groin - from practical experience, it's a target often accidentally hit in practice sessions! Oh and this has nothing to do with the balls mentioned earlier.

For some strange reason, attacks from behind score you half, In competition karate you deserve all you get if your opponent gets behind you!

Anyway, you're too busy beating silt out of the other guy to worry about such minor details as scores, though there is a system for it; head butts and double face kick give the most points.

Upon biting the dust, your opponent obligingly shows you the score your reverse-twisting-gedanmegathump scored you. Enter the novice karateka in his white gi, treading nervousLy on the sacred, Spectrum sized, Mode 1 ballbashing ground in front of a tasteful art-deco arch, which spans a sunrise shimmering in the bay.

Sudden frantic (and largely random) activity, and there he is: lying on the floor with stars swirling above his head.

Up you rise, trying out one joystick manoeuvre that you know does something useful, and the red and blue opponents bite the dust.

On comes the sensi, and says "White did hell, but red and blue could do better." Eh? Sorry, I think that's supposed to read "did well", but you never know...

Other helpful, messages spring forth from the mouth of this wise old sage. The most memorable being the one after a few laps of demo mode: "Where's everybody gone?"

Three rounds, several pints of blood, a galaxy of stars and five loose teeth later, if you are still around, the other guys go away. Not good news, in fact, it is the load of balls mentioned earlier.

You have to deflect these balls with a shield or dodge them. They start off fairly slow to start with, but build up to a fair clip as you get better, filling the air like the office party bunfight!

Maybe my score would be helped if I turned off the pay three-voice sound that continuously wavers on in the background.

When you go in for a round of combat with this one, you definitely need the right kind of joystick. As the instructions tell you, big floppy sticks aren't very good. The best ones are the really sensitive things with a handle the size of a dog-end. Autofire is right out.

The manual recommends that well-known marital art weapon: The original Atari joystick and, for this game, they aren't bad.

You certainly won't miss out on anything you normally expect to get from a game like this, and having two opponents to beat up certainly makes it different.

On the higher levels, the high score table really is a distant goal, so don't pull your punches, kicks, sweeps, head butts or whatever.

Starts off with a naff, cheapo, non-existent loading screen while the tape loads for an awfully long time.

It needs the time. It then makes up for it with the clarity of the graphics, their total lack of flicker (though the balls flash a bit), and the shadows. A classic example of how to spend more time on the game, and less on the title screen.

The effects when someone goes down are great. I love the stars, the flickering sunset, and the way they sit on the ground holding their guts after a stomach kick.

The real boost is having two opponents at once. Even if they do sometimes spend their time bashing one another up, they make up for it later by both going for you simultaneously. I haven't enjoyed one of these games so much since that one where they beat one another with sticks.

I saw the Commodore 64 version of IK+ before the CPC game was ready. That features a spider crawling on the gate like object in the background, and a fish which jumps out of the sea.

When I was told that they had been omitted from the Amstrad version due to memory constraints I argued that this left it as just another Karate game, even if you do have two players.

I was wrong. IK+ is the most playable karate game ever. It is as refreshing to play as The Way Of The Exploding Fist was, so very many moons ago. Don't fight it, part with the cash.

International Karate was hailed as a wonderful, playable game. I found it boring and unoriginal. The only thing it made me feel like fighting was the Ed's attempts to get me to review this.

Once clamped into the reviewer's chair, the wooden one with metal bits that plug into the mains, I gripped the joystick. Six games later I had to admit the truth. I enjoyed a fighting game, after resisting for years. IK+ had me hooked. It's even more fun two-player.