Bruce Lee

The Good
Bruce Lee is a decent platform game with a lot of action thrown in. Reflexes are needed to pass certain sections, as is a lot of timing to jump past obstacles. You're pursued by two enemies, who unrelentlessly come after you, snapping at your heels.

It's very fun for anyone who likes platform games.

The Bad
There is no "easy" mode to help novice gamers get used to the game. Also, fighting the enemies is relatively easy and just gets irritating after a while. Finally, Bruce Lee only runs at the correct speed on a 4.77MHz PC.

Well, one more gripe, actually--you're Bruce Lee, yet you only have two moves, punching and a flying kick. A little disappointing from a master of martial arts.

The Bottom Line
If you love platform games that require good reflexes and timing, Bruce Lee fits the bill. I mean, come on--you're Bruce Lee!

The Good
As with many of the games of it's time there was a thrill just clearing one screen to move to the next. If you were in the mood just to do some karate you could wait for the bad guys to re-spawn and keep beating them up. The platform action was top notch. And there was just the right amount of puzzle to figure out. The controls are simple and tight and perfect for the old one button joysticks.

The Bad
After finally figuring out how to get to the boss and then figuring out how to beat him, the game just rolls back around to the first screen all over again. It doesn't get much harder just more enemies come at you. There was not much incentive to work your way back up to the boss again.

The Bottom Line
Take a karate game where you get to punch and kick your way past your enemies and set it on a platform. Time your progress to avoid things when you need precise jumps. Throw in some logic puzzles where things need done in a certain order. And there you have Bruce Lee. Want some two player fun? The second joystick controls the bad guy which makes for a very challenging game. Make sure you get all the lanterns and try touching anything that looks out of place. Practice your flying kicks grasshopper, they will serve you well.

The Good
It's still solid fighting arcade game for the time, especially on PC (where good action games were scarce). Interconnected screens, pick up lanterns, there's action and challenge and you're happy when on your new run you reached one more screen further compared to your previous run.

The Bad
I didn't like gfx. It was not state-of-the-art even on other platforms, but PC was really ugly. Taking into account that Tandy was already available, using just smeary CGA-composite mode put the game to lower gfx quality compared to 8-bit platforms. Other options (CGA RGB, or monochrome) were even more ugly.

Edit: I found in the end, that it's possible to setup 16-color gfx by setting machine as PCjr in DOSBox/DOSBox-x, so plus point for Bruce Lee.

Sound was also PC beeper only.

Controller was really hard to setup. Bruce lot of times made different action than I desired, and I was not able to calibrate it (but maybe my argument is not valid as maybe it's controller dependent). Or in opposite, different attempts to calibrate joystick made sometime controller being insensitive in some directions. In the end, controls were always a bit clunky even after lot of attempts.

The Bottom Line
Not a bad game, but can't give it higher review score as I knew this game from 8-bit computers where it was way better in every aspect (gfx, sound, controls). PC port is IMO weak (to see what does mean good PC port of those times, check e.g. Pitfall II which I reviewed as well).

The Good
Although it's actually a very short game, beatable in well under 30 minutes of play, this works to its advantage; the frustration of losing your last life at the infamous "fireball room" (which comes up right before the final boss) is made up for by the fact that it features lots of varied environments and gets more difficult as you progress through the game at a fairly consistent pace.

Instead of having fixed enemies like in almost all platformers, the enemies(two of them) spawn at random in Bruce Lee. This is a source of much of the excitement, as many unpredictable things can happen when the AI starts chasing after you; your fighting abilities are equal, in that you can both perform punches and flying kicks, take a few hits before dying, and crush each other by falling. (The player can also go prone and become immobile but able to avoid hits, but that's his only advantage) What makes it interesting is that a lot of rooms have laser beams(or plasma or electricity or spikes or something) that require timing to get by, and they will zap you if your fall or run is disturbed by the odd punch or kick.

The Bad
The controls can be a bit unforgiving; being designed for a 1-button joystick, you had to press up or diagonals to jump. To do a flying kick instead of a punch you had to start running and then press the button. In fact, the fights are probably the poorest part of the game, although they had the satisfying aspect of being able to trick the simplistic AI into its doom in many situations.

The final boss is not even a fight - it's like a precursor to Bowser in SMB1; not bad for 1984, but dated today. You run across the room, not getting hit by the relatively slow-moving bolts he fires, pick up a torch and it's all over. It's the rooms before him, disappointingly, that are the hard part.

The Bottom Line
A short, reasonably challenging(but not insanely so if you are an experienced gamer) and satisfying adventure. Running around collecting lanterns and torches and escaping a ninja and a green fat monster doesn't have too much to do with Bruce Lee's movies, but it makes for a fun game.

The Good
What I probably remember most about this game was the music at the title screen, I really enjoyed this game as a kid growing up. Even when I finished the level and opened the gate to the next level, I'd still sit around and pound on that big fat green guy that chases you..

This game's atmosphere will surely bring you back to the 80's, I played the emulation of it recently and found myself playing it over and over again just like back in the day.... the game control was exceptionally good for its time. You could make him run real fast and do a flying kick and knock guys down :)

This game is a classic in my opinion....

The Bad
I remember in the game that you fall really slow for some reason, it was just an odd factor in the game, other than that, it was perfect for it's time!

The Bottom Line
Just an all around fun game, definitely was fun back then and surprisingly still fun today!