Cage Match, ZX Spectrum, Entertainment USA – IS 0199
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Score - 0.5/100.5/10
Summary
Cage Match is a truly awful game and is no fun at all. If Mastertronic had had the equivalent of Firebird’s “Don’t Buy This” compilation of trash games, then this surely would have been a contender to have gone on there.
Its seriously a real brand and reputation destroyer and although it talks a good game within instruction inlay card, that is where it ends.
This is purely for collectors only. Unlike the software label, the programmers forgot to add any “Entertainment” to the game and was a total waste of money.
User Review
( votes)The Six Opponents
Regardless of which opponent you fought against, they all play the same and have no other fighting attributes to their abilities. You’ll just see a different character and therefore there is no variety in tactics at all.
I feel a change to the speed or strength for each of the characters would have improved Cage Match (but no effort was made to do so). Effectively once you’ve played one character, it’ll feel like you’ve played them all in that respect. There is just no addictive qualities whatsoever.
Lack of Playability
It didn’t seem to matter where you moved to, the computer opponent seemed to either walk directly alongside you or was just a couple of steps behind. Fair enough, it’s a fight after all so you’d expect little breathing space. The problem is though, it’s far too easy to get in a muddle with which way you are facing. This frequently meant pointing in the wrong way direction, which is extremely frustrating.
What in principle (sounds like a good idea) is that you can either walk in any direction, facing towards (or away) from your opponent. Getting it wrong (like I did the vast majority of times!) meant hitting in wrong direction and being hit from behind.
The only way to change direction is to quickly tap up or down and then left or right to change direction. Note that no wrestlers can move diagonally so it is purely horizontal and vertical directions only.
One or Two Players
You can either play against the computer or in two player mode. Although this may sound good, it really isn’t fun at all regardless of whether are playing against the computer or a friend. There is no option to choose how many matches you’d like (eg. best out of 3) as it’s literally a battle to the death.
The inlay card for Cage Match advises you what happens when certain keys are pressed. These are labelled as in combat, while grabbing opponent, while lifting an opponent and climbing the cage.
If you wish to try and practice moves, you can choose 2 players and just use player 1 to learn how to move around the screen etc. Even after a while, I just couldn’t get to grips on how to grab, head butt, head slap or neck chop your opponent. Very rarely would you tend to be able to lift your opponent and if you did, when it came to throwing them, it just seemed that they fell vertically for a second or so onto the mat (more a fluke than skill).
Scoring Points
The way you scored points didn’t seem to make any sense either. The reason I say this is because most of the time, it just seemed that you could just neck-chop or kick. If you did somehow manage to get another move in, you couldn’t really see what you’d done to get a different score on the board.
Winning the match by climbing up the cage did score 100 points. There is no hi-score shown and therefore nothing to aim for once you have finished a game.
Graphics
As the two wrestlers move on the screen, it can be very difficult to tell what each on is doing. This especially is an issue when you both opponents play as the same character.
Understandably, due to the Spectrum’s colour palette, the characters are both white with black backgrounds (to prevent any colour clash). There is some colour used in the crowd, the score bar near the top and each players energy strength displayed in red and cyan.
Winning or losing a match resulted in magenta and blue flashing on the floor and even that had a slight bit of colour clash around the side of the cage.
Sound Effects Only
From the start, there is a missed opportunity as there is no tune on the opening screen or anywhere else for that matter. As you choose which one of the six intergalactic characters you wish play, there is a beep as you cycle through each one.
During game play, there is short zapping noise when attacking your opponent and a sliding octave noise when either you or your opponent lose a match.
Despite the Popularity of Wrestling….
Cage Match only sold 7,004 copies. Unfortunately, Cage Match on the ZX Spectrum is very uninspiring and damn right frustrating. You’ll be wishing to pull the power lead out of your Spectrum and reset for something else sooner rather than later.
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