WILD STREETS
Publisher : Titus
Release date : 1990
Genre : Action
Players : 1
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"Terrorists have kidnapped the highly powerful head of the C.I.A. You master the Worlds' most lethal Marshal Arts techniques. Your faithful black panther and a MAGNUM 357 are at your side to combat this hostile environment and find teh C.I.A.'s No1 man."
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Programming :
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Graphics :
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Music/Sounds :
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Download ROM
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Download Manual
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Editors review...
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Is this the easiest game of all time??! And you thought Tin Tin On The Moon was easy, wait till you see this...
In this flick screen scrolling beat-em-up, you play James Taylor and you're joined by your companion a Panther (who's pretty much useless) called the "Black Virgin" ?! John Steven, the head of the CIA has been kidnapped and you're off to rescue him.
In the first half of the game make your way 10 screens at a time to the end of the level and kill the boss (who looks identical to everyone else you encountered!), then after getting to John Steven you need to take him all the way back again.
An absolutely pathetic game. In the first half just jump over the heads of the bad guys and shoot the boss, then on the way back ..... do NOTHING but hold the left direction key!!! Imagine paying £25 for this on cart back in the day! To add insult to injury this was already released on tape/disk for half the price and there's no difference except a nicer title screen! No point in playing 'properly' and dispatching the bad guys, because they just respawn anyway DOH! It's so bad it appears the programmers did not want to be credited with this!
The graphics are garishly fabulous in an old-skool CPC style, chunky and colourful, in a strange way I quite like them - but come on, this is on the GX4000 surely a quick update to them from the original game wouldn't have hurt? Anyway, any pleasant nostalgic thoughts about the graphic style as small as they might be are destroyed when you witness the jerky animation and sprites that flicker, disappear and move in blocks sometimes leaving distorted ghost sprites behind them (like when the panther turns a different direction) - it's clear the programmer didn't care much about this game. Throughout the sprites are repeated and if you bother to make it to the end all you're rewarded with is a frozen gameplay screen and some plinky plonky music, that eventually turns into the 'game over' screen. Talking of music, it's that same Titus music guy again! So average, annoying and repeating music throughout, and some pathetic sound effects.
I'm torn between this and No Exit being the worst game on the console, and for a long while I held the opinion No Exit was ... however on reflection at least No Exit held some challenge, had a 2 player option and longevity - so OK decided....
WILD STREETS IS THE WORST GAME ON THE GX4000! Congratulations!
If you don't believe me, check out the YouTube video below...
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Graphics
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I have a strange liking for the graphics, probably as its gloriously colouful and blocky old-skool CPC graphics. In reality though, given the context that this is a full price cart release they're incredibly basic and childish. Just far too blocky and naff animation.
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Music
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Typical Titus music - did they always have the same music programmer? Sounds like it! Not as good as Fire & Forget / Dick Tracy, but not too bad. Gets a bit repetitive like most of Titus's music.
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Sounds
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Couple of naff splats and bangs, but that's about it.
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Presentation
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Lovely title screen, so-so graphics, but not much else going on here.
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Programming
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Amateurish all round! Bad animation, dodgy collision detection, flip screen scrolling, flickery (and sometimes) jerky sprites and whats with the useless panther? Once in a blue moon will it attack someone, run off too fast and it takes ages to catch up. Maybe it's really old and has arthritis!
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Playability
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There appears to be a large range of moves you can use, but there's little point as you'll either just hammer the fire button shuffling forward flinging tons of punches - or why not just leap over everyone on every screen to you reach the baddie? Then just shoot him with the gun you haven't used yet. Pathetic.
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Lastability
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You'll either complete it within a couple of goes, or playing 'properly' (ie not just leaping through every screen) you'll soon tire quickly.
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Concept
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Simple flip-screen beat-em-up. Really - it can't be that hard to pull off a decent game? Heck, if Target Renegade back in 1988 could manage it... although the idea of having an animal companion like Shadow Dancer, in this case a panther to attack badies is quite cool, but only if the programmers could pull this off...
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AI & Challenge
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It's gotta score badly this ... purely on the 'leap over the baddies' dodge. If played without doing this ... well the enemies have some deal of intelligence and response to your moves, but if you're quick with your punches whilst moving forward you'll quickly brush through them all.
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GX4000 Features
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Sod all used, another dump of a tape/disk game with no updates apart from the lovely overscan title screen. So I'm being very generous not giving this zero marks...
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Summary
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Just an average tape/disk game re-released that shouldn't have been. Titus should have given us Titus The Fox or Blues Brothers at least! Sadly it was all too late for Prehistorik 2 and Super Cauldron to get a cart release.
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Final Score
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35%
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Cheats...
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Multiface:
Infinite ammo - &0B18: &3D -> 00
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Further more...
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Amstrad Action final score : 71%
GX4000.CO.UK game ranking : #
Game value (boxed + instructions) : £25 - £50
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Credits...
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Manuals and some sleeve scans by mochilote at cpcmania.com
ROMS taken from NVG FTP Site maintained by Nich Campbell, see his other site - CPC Game Reviews
Cheats (various) taken from CPC Zone contributed by Hermol, cpc4eva, Malc and others
Inspiration generally taken from John King's PCW King GX4000 site
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