International Karate - Atari ST (Playthrough / Let's Play)

Channel:

Village Monk's Gaming Memories

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Published on December 27, 2015 7:29:53 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2n450vVXWZI

Game:

International Karate (1985)

Category:

Let's Play

Duration: 13:28

295 views

1

International Karate was one of the first games I ever played at some time in the late 80's / early 90's. It came packaged with our first ST along with a bunch of other games such as Arkanoid and Super Sprint all on these little black floppy disks. I distinctly remembering playing it and not being very good at it, but then again the science behind this game isn't something you can easily master.

International Karate was created in 1986 by System3 and Archer Maclean, who would later do snooker games such as Jimmy White's Whirlwind Snooker. It was ported to the ST by Andromeda Software, but it is also available for virtually every computer format at the time as well as later releases for the Game Boy Color and Advance.

The game itself is a simple fighting game for one to two players where you simply have to beat your opponent at karate, with one hit winning the bout in a first to three points, with the referee deciding how many points you should get which depends on the move that you pull off. Like most games from 1986 the content is wafer thin, there is essentially only one character in the game, with the second player being an obvious sprite rip and each bout is virtually the same each time just with a different backdrop. Now if you win enough matches you will be sent to a short bonus round where you have to smash wood with your head or dodge projectiles coming at you which is a nice distraction and I wish there was more like this.

Now for 1986 this game looks fantastic with the character sprites having a large amount of smooth animation and the backgrounds are not only animated but they exhibit quite a bit of colour and detail which make them interesting to look at. It certainly is a good looking attractive title. Now game play wise you'll use the joystick to control your fighter and by pointing the stick and firing you can easily pull off a range of low, medium, high kicks and punches. Now the biggest problem come with the collision detection and attacking your opponent. I can't understand what the science is here at all. SOmetimes you can hit the guy and it will register, other times the blow will simply go through him. There's no block move so I'm guessing that you only have a chance of hitting x percentage each time. It makes it difficult to genuinely be good at this game because it sometimes feel like nothing more than good luck that you have won.

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