FALLEN ANGEL
Original Release: Screen 7, 1989, PC/Amiga/Atari ST/C64/Spectrum
A clunky late 80s beat-em-up that failed to keep pace with genre developments and doesn't really offer anything
Fallen Angel (PC, Screen 7, 1989)
Where to Buy: eBay
How to Emulate: DOS Emulation Guide
Review by: C. M0use
Emerald Software, a short-lived Irish outfit probably best known for the insane PC version of Moonwalker, gives us this tale of some ex Special Forces guy who flies into London and is immediately beset by hoodlums and knife crime, and also accosted by Hitler Bobbies for not having a Fighting Loicense as soon as he defends himself. So modern London basically.
Anyway, it teases you with a snippet of cool digital MOD music on the title screen but then hits you with the honking PC internal speaker once in-game ... bait and switch :(. From a little reading about Emerald it seems like they really worked on this as an intentional technique to make their games look good when running on a demo in shops of the time.
So this uses the "Amiga joystick" control style of having just one action button (the space bar), and you hold it down to stop moving and make your guy do the various attacks by pressing arrow keys. Kids karate class punches, a shin kick, etc. Mostly the shin kick is the way to go, but occasionally a knife or roundhouse kick guy stays just out of range and requires you to use those karate class zuki punches or a clumsy jump kick to hit them.
Now, the gameplay is primitive and enough to dismiss the whole thing by itself, but that's actually not what makes it really bad. It's the structure. You start the game wandering into some subway station, fight about half a dozen mooks and then wander back into the subway car you just got off of. Fight another half dozen of the same mooks, then pick another station (which looks identical and has identical mooks) to go to. Repeat process forever because this seems to literally be the entire game, just going from subway car to station fighting the same idiots over and over and over. The game never communicates any goals to you, but from reading around online it seems you're supposed to just randomly search stations until you find a plane ticket (?).
Add in the particularly ugly CGA graphics of the DOS versions (does look better in other editions such as Atari ST but still not great) and you have a real loser not worth any kind of time. It's kind of a fusion ape of Bad Dudes and Kung Fu Master, but so much worse than either. Had some tight box art though I'll give it that.
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