Bruce Lee

aka: Lee
Moby ID: 191

PC Booter version

Not so good on PC as it was on 8-bits

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).

by Vladimir Dienes on April 28, 2023

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