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Originally, Sai Combat was the sensible way to use your body and weapon as one in defence. Through the ages it was stylised and became more of an art form and method of Zen contemplation. Now these contemptible barbarians have the impudence to take this ancient and noble art, only to put it on a despicable Korean-manufactured heap of sorry about that, but the game gets to you after a while.

This looks remarkably like the Commodore 64 version of Kung-Fu. The characters involved in combat are very large sprites, moving rapidly and gracefully across the screen. Sai is not usually limited to any particular weapon, but in this case the Japanese quarterstaff or bo has been chosen. The combatants swing them about in circles and an agressive manner when not really doing anything else particularly violent. Unless, that is, you happen to count approaching someone while swinging a quarterstaff as violent.

One or two players can take part in the ancient art of trying to take someone's eye out with a blunt stick or a kick in the head, or fighting your way through the nth Dan, fluorescent orange belt and so on under the watchful eyes of two wizened Sai masters. Apparently they ignore the small amount of shuriken or fighting stars that get thrown about - but not by you - in the higher levels.

The only problem I found - apart from not being able to get past grey belt - was that any strike that went off one side magically appeared on the other, but I think we can forgive them that.

Either player can use keyboard or joystick to inflict perfectly harmless GBH on each other, or get creamed by the computer. The amount of oomph you have remaining is shown as two dragons' heads. One is clearly very ill (yours), and goes green rapidly. The other (the computer's in the solo game), seems to have high blood pressure and slowly turns red.

After being kicked in the neck for the last time in that round, you can gamble a bit and go to the last level, but with only three falls left. Saves a bit of glief velly occasionary.

I'm not normally a fan of this sort of game, but this one is as good as the Exploding Fist, if not better. Music and sound effects, together with the changing scenery, help hold interest when your spirits and energy levels are low. It is very easy to build up a graceful and effective routine of attack. Knowing that certain hits cause the other guy to back off a bit, you strike close, then further away.

Velly leckomended for a bruddy good punch-up.

Just as I was starting to get bored with combat games, Mirrorsoft produces the most playable one yet and fires up my enthusiasm. Sai Combat may not have the pretty backgrounds of Way Of The Tiger but it is better than all the predecessors. The sprites move smoothly and accurately, so much so that it almost hurts when the computer pokes you with his bo. There are odd problems with the sprites not being sure who should be in front but that may be finger trouble on my part and doesn't affect the gameplay.

Sai Combat is Exploding Fist with a stick. It takes a while to pick up all the moves that can be made, like all these martial art games, but once mastered the game really takes off. The sound effects in the game are very good with a realist squish when your stick makes contact with your opponent's eyeball. (I think I'm gonna be sick.) One of the best features of the game is the ranking system where defeating your opponent at one level promotes you to the next. Being defeated by your opponent brings you down a level. I think this is the best combat game of this genre that I've seen and you should all go out and buy it.