Summary
A susprising little gem with varied gameplay for action fans.
The Good
I was astonished by how good the graphics were in this game. Not only drawn well, considering how the original graphics from the C64 and Spectrum were so colorful, but by how fast the graphics routines were. I played Savage on a 4.77MHz machine and it was completely playable (and very fun), even though there was moderate game action and quarter-height sprites. (There are other "demo" and "in the know" programming tricks as well, like using verticle retrace for smooth scrolling of game text.)
The music is good and uses an arpeggio technique for simulated 3-voice music out of the PC speaker.
Of course, I should really talk about the gameplay, since that's why we play games, right? :-) The first two sections were fun and fair: Section 1 is a side-scrolling fighting game with powerups to help you. Section 2 is a racing game where you have to shoot stuff in your way--except for the large columns that you threaten to smash into, which can't be destroyed.
The Bad
The third section was a little more difficult than the first two; it's a platform game that makes it difficult to dodge enemies and bullets. Also, the enemies are more difficult than in the first two sections.
I am hoping that an EGA conversion was done, but I don't know of one.
The Bottom Line
There's something here for every fan of action games to like.
