Al & Dave's Homebrew Hangover

The ultimate macho '80s location for a fight, on runway 2 at Heathrow

SWEET FIGHTIN' +2

(Presh, 2026)

AL "It seemed back in the '80s that everybody was kung fu fighting. It was indeed a little bit frightening just how many Spectrum games had you beating your mates to a pulp. We suffered from the hideously painful condition of exploded fists, were compelled to shout "Yie Ar" like an oriental farmer, and not content with having a single dragon, we had to go and buy a second one for some reason. You couldn't walk down the street without falling over ninjas, and down every dark alley there'd be gangs with outrageous haircuts threatening you to a kicky, stabby rumble. It was stressful.

Keen to recreate this martial atmosphere, Andy "My" Preciousss has gone and made a brand new duff-'em-up. Well newish, as it bears a passing resemblance to a famous sequel of old, but it's got a different title, so that should fool most lawyers. Even better, he's not charged us any dough as such for it, good egg that he is. His past hits include Hell Yeah and Rival Gangs, and he's got his own band too, so he's clearly a talented chappy. Wonder what black belt Dave, master of No Can Do, makes of it. Hopefully he's been able to chase the moths out of his gi and is ready to kick multiple butts."

Chun-Li beats the crap out of herself. Guy on the right could care less

DAVE "Shooooooryuken!!! Tatsumaki Senpukyaku!!! Ahem, sorry about that, just the old hay fever playing up. This game seemed to come out of nowhere but is a bit of a gem. I have a (Sheng) long-time fondness for the Street Fighter franchise - errrr, not that it's in ANY way related to this game of course... I'm very impressed by the controls, it makes it a breeze to pull off the dragon punches, fireballs etc. with amazing consistency. I'm not particularly good at any of the games though. It's cool how our humble Speccy handles those scrolling graphical backdrops, but for me as already mentioned, it's all about the controls, which are unbelievably slick. Remarkable work. "Take a bow, son!" Now who's going to make it into a network/online version so I can get my a$$ repeatedly handed to me???"

Balrog does a number on Eddie Honda. That'll hurt in the morning

AL "Whatever floats your boat Dave. Hang on, fireballs? Let me check the instructions again, this is new information to me. Okay - U,D,L,R, Fire, L, U, R then reverse all of that, and Oolong's your uncle. Ha! Eat my Flying Barcelona Attack and bow down to my mighty Lariat! Howdyalikemenow??? Yeah, there's a huge choice of characters to pick from, but I've mostly been using the mighty Balrrrrog of Morrrrrdorrrr, as his arms reach over half the screen's length. But each character has their own little box of tricks to learn. The controls are indeed spot-on and there's potentially a lot of game here too, if you fancy mastering all the trick moves and cunning stunts on offer. Oh, and there's the obvious fact that graphically it looks awesome too, so really there's nothing to fault here. Natch. I hate that."

A clash of styles here. Sometimes jumping to twice your height is the only option

VOICE "So mortals, do you prefer a wandery style beat-'em-up or a single screen affair?"

DAVE "Who said that? Well, in my olden Speccy days, I liked both. And you won't make me get off the fence either, so ner! Unless you flying kick me off it or something obviously...

IK+ is the best 'uno screeno' fighter I'd say. Very fast and slick. 3 players fighting simultaneously, trousers falling down... what more could you ask for? Silver medal (not that you asked) maybe goes to Sai Combat. It's like Fist with sticks. Maybe they should have called it "Way Of The Exploding Stick".

For multi-screen thrills, I loved Fist II (with extra dinosaurs) even though the running round was a bit pointless. Target; Renegade is possibly my fave of this type of game. Am I the only person in the retro universe who actually quite liked playing the port of Kung Fu Master? It was better than Renegade III anyway."

AL "I think you probably are, Dave. I don't recall anyone else admitting to that. You didn't like Fist II just because of the, erm, lady in the, erm, bush, I hope! The very thought...

For me personally I do enjoy a bit of a wander around, and start to get panicky when I can't get past the edge of the screen. You see, a large part of my approach to fighting is the noble art of running away. So when you've got no escape routes, it's sad times for us cowards. I enjoyed the likes of WOTEF (Worse Things Happen At Sea?) and Barbarian, if that counts, and if memory serves, Way Of The Tiger was quite a good 'un too, despite the lack of tigers.

However I do tend to have much more fun beating folk up while exploring places as well. Bruce Lee is a great example, and in recent times Mighty Final Fight and Angels were both great fun wandering fighty numbers. Does Skool Daze count too, since you could go round decking hapless little first formers?"

VOICE "Don't be stupid. Next question - what are the best or craziest moves in a martial arts game?"

DAVE "There it is again. Ooh, Speccy or modern? Speccywise perhaps the 'web of death' in Barbarian. The one where you just 'flappy flappy' your sword about in a way that's somewhere between sword fighting and expressive dance. Completely useless both in the game and real life, I would imagine. Come to think of it, rolling forwards towards your opponent while they're wielding a sword is probably not the best move either in real life.

Modernwise, I guess in the world of Tekken, Yoshimitsu's Harakiri move, where he turns round and stabs his opponent through his own body, is pretty daft. Along with his bouncing 'Flea' move. I'm sure some of the Japanese beat-'em-ups had pretty silly ones. Maybe one of those Samurai Shodown games. Heard of those?"

AL "No, Dave. Ah, you mention Barbarian, but surely the most memorable move in Speccy combat lore has to be the "separating head from body using sword" option. It's so well done, 'tis a thing of beauty. Sniff. The roundhouse kick in Fist was always a more realistic favourite, if hard to perfect without the opponent's cooperation. Most of my games involved doing it over and over until it worked right! In the realms of the more unrealistic, shall we say, big Buchu's flying jump towards you in Oo Ar Kung Fu is one for the ages, possibly inspired by Godzilla's never-ending flying kick in one of his monster flicks.

In recent times, I suppose the MORTAL KOMBAT (shout that please) games have the most gruesome finishing moves, revelling in plastering the world FATALITY on the screen. Bit strong innit? Also, I always feel a bit cheated in a fighting game when a magic fireball or some such flies across the screen and hits me. It doesn't seem cricket somehow."

VOICE "It's not meant to be, you wazzock. And now, in a possibly irregular feature, Dave and Al will discuss their "Desert Island Discs" with regard to the world of chopsocky. Starting with... Which Speccy fighting game would you take to your desert island, then, hmmmm?"

DAVE "He's got a proper attitude that voice, hasn't he? Anyhoo, you know what? I'm gonna take Sweet Fightin'! I think it's got more longevity than the others with the various playable characters and special moves."

AL "I find it hard to disagree, but it's in my job description that I must.... Gah, it's no good, this one really does set new standards in the Speccy world of pain. You have to hand it to the Presh."

VOICE "Cop out. So which non-Speccy fighting game would you take to your desert island?"

DAVE "Street Fighter 5 maybe, if I'm allowed the full roster of fighters, DLC etc. There must be about a million of them at least. Also do I have internet on this island? If so, I could play against other people who haven't been shipwrecked. Why I wouldn't be asking them to rescue me is another question though."

AL "Well who wants rescuing when you've got a solar-powered games console and a decent fighting game anyway, sounds idyllic? Erm, I'd probably opt for Super Smash Bros. as my kids play it to death and frankly I'm sick of it. BUT with lots of time on my sunburned hands for practice, I could hone my skills, then once I'm rescued I can go home and whup them at it. Gwahaha!"

VOICE "Evil git. Next, which martial arts related movie would you take?"

DAVE "I'm glad that guy always talks immediately after you rather than me, quite handy that. Movies then - it's gotta be Shaolin Soccer. An absolute classic and the utmost in sillitude"

AL "Aw man, that's a great one, as is Kung Fu Hustle by the same chap. But for me my all-time fave martial arts flick has to be The Legend Of Fong Sai Yuk with Jet Li. The stunts are original and jaw-dropping, if aerially assisted quite often, and the acting and story are top notch. It's a cracker, but apologies to poor old Bruce Lee, who is now sulking in the corner muttering "Charming, I only invented the bloomin' genre, y'know.... ingrates!"

VOICE "Now then. Which martial arts personality would you take to accompany you on the island? Please consider the question in a purely non-sexual way, otherwise let's face it, you'd just pick Cynthia Rothrock."

DAVE "Ah, dammit, strange voice, I wanted Cynthia! OK then, I guess I'll go fairly mainstream and say Jackie Chan. I'd be able to set up crazy obstacle courses on the island and watch him stuntily running around, jumping off things, through things, swinging around things etc. Now that I've said all that, it sounds slightly more weird and perverse than if I'd asked for Cynthia. Oh well..."

AL "Ha yes, things can get weird on a desert island. My own choice has to be the great (and sadly late) Mr. Chuck Norris. I've heard all these true stories about him, and it seems the things he can do are barely believable, so who better to alleviate the boredom? Of course, he'd probably tire of me early on and punch me to death, but still.... "What a guy!"

Oh Dave, before you go, pick a number between 1 and 15 if you would sir?"

DAVE "Let's go with 14."

AL "Coolio. Right, I can exclusively reveal that our next mission, should we choose to accept it, will be to review B... aaaaarrrrrgggghhh..."

DAVE "Al? Oops, a big blubbery blue dude has just flown through the window yelling "BUCHU SMASH!" and knocked him out. Well, thems the breaks. Quite a few of them possibly..."