Computer + Video Games - Commodore Is Awesome

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Ak Watch out for the gunman!
1 993 is a dirty era in world his-
' tory, with drugs. prostitution
and similar unsavoury practices
more rife the ever Look on the
bright side though. at least
there's only one man controlling
the lot. Snag is. the bloke in
charge is President Bangler. who
has the police and armed forces.
as well as the entire criminal
underworld in his grasp. Although
he has crushed almost
every uprising against him and
his government, one rebel organisation,
led by Mulk. continues
the struggle against this
vile ruler's despicable acts A
plan is drawn up to infiltrate the
dictator's ranks, with the intention
of assassinating Bangler,
using two state of the art robots,
the Ninia Warriors
Six seedy areas stand between
the droids and Bangler.
and these must be cleared of
hostile forces before the President
can be reached Intelligence
has informed Bangler of
the threat to his life however
and extra troops have been
drafted in to each area, with a
super-strong guardian at the end
of each one to ensure the quick
demise of the robots.
Disguised as knife-wielding,
shuriken -throwing ninja. the
droids can withstand only a
limited number of hits before
they explode into shards of metal.
And if that isn't enough, a selfdestruct
device has also been
built into the robots, destroying
them should they fail to com-
plete each level within the given
time limit.
Nina Warriors began as one
of those ultra-trendy triple-monitor
coin-ops, and the elongated
look of the arcade machine has
been represented surprisingly
well on the ST. the overall
playing area being compressed
into the middle third of the
screen. Although this means a reduction
in the size of the
graphics, everything still looks remarkably
similar to the original,
especially the robots which lose
parts of their skin when hit by
bombs and bullets. uncovering
their metallic frames underneath.
Animation of all the
sprites is first class, with a
charrning little spurt of blood
when enemy soldiers are
downed by a shuriken. Sound is
also a delight, using a combination
of crisp samples and bogstandard
(but still very palatable
to the ear) ST music throughout
to great effect.
The simultaneous two-player
option of the coin-op has been
retained for the computer
game, and rightly so; Ninia War-
V Taking on the hordes solo is tough
V Dodge the cyber-hunchback!