After necking a few ales in Tapper yesterday it’s only right that we take ourselves off and attempt to bring order and control to our lives – and this can only be achieved by dishing out a few roundhouse kicks into somebody’s to the face. We’ve arrived at Way of the Exploding Fist number #67 in the Your Sinclair Top 100.
Way of the Exploding Fist was published by Melbourne House back in 1985 – the same publishing company responsible for the awful Gyroscope and the just as bad Sir Lancelot. However they’ve clearly redeemed themselves with the sheer brilliance of this martial arts game which came with a real-life Karate champion – Jeoffrey Thompson – telling the world to “Beat this!” on the front.
Having two animated figures slowly walk up to each other and gradually perform a move that wields a devastating crunch to the head, gut or shin doesn’t sound overly exciting, but it truly is. Hours were lost sat in front of the game of Kung-Fu kicking! You would sit there in your darkened bedroom spinning a round house, or hoping for a hit in the nether regions to score a solid yin-yang point so you could further increase you grading.
The characters looked great, though monochrome – black & white – to remove any chance of clash with the background colour, and the scenery never entered the play area to remove any graphically errors. It was a well thought out game and it played extremely well, especially with a joystick as the keyboard was a nightmare.
Way of the Exploding Fist is a real gaming classic on the ZX Spectrum and should be played often.
Originally published June 22, 2016. Updated October 25, 2022.
