Karateka

The graphics are CGA, but they still look nice (they don't hurt your eyes), you can easily recognize what's what suppose to be,and so on. It even doesn't look pixelated (which is an excellent achievment). The sound is PC speaker, but not unpleasant and the game features something I think no other game before ever did – CUT SCENES!!!

The keyboard control could be more responsive - your fighter lags behind your commands somewhat. The fights require patience and skill, and can be lengthy because fighters recover health as time passes. While Karateka is basically just a series of one-on-one battles, there a few surprises thrown in, such as Akuma's attacking hawk. And the ending(s) are truly classic. All in all, Karateka is a stellar achievement that stands as a showcase game for the Atari 8-bit system.

Karateka was once a very popular, one-player karate game back in the early 80's. Kids in my high school used to play it on the Apple II, and the graphics used to astound me. Your warrior has to defeat a series of ninjas before facing the boss and saving the girl. In addition to the kung-fu action, sharp, realistic graphics were a big part of the game's appeal. In this version, the graphics aren't bad, but the animation is jerky as hell and the control is utterly poor. The controller is not responsive at all. Your fighter may or may not react to a button or joystick push you made three seconds before. Karateka was originally designed for keyboard control, and it shows. This implementation of joystick control is ill-conceived and completely counter-intuitive. For example, in order to punch right you need to press the joystick left. Just be glad that I've gone through this torture so you don't have to.