Renegade: A celebration
Added 2023-04-29 12:16:44 +0000 UTCFew games in the 1980s were able to push the ZX Spectrum to breaking point. Many tried, but technology seldom achieved any kind of successful breakthrough. More often than not, the restrictive colour pallete of the Spectrum caused a bit of a mess and your eyes became lost in some sort of magic eye of monochrome vomit.
However, in 1986 Renegade succeeded where others had failed. Not only did you have a game that was lovely to look at, it was also great to play.
In Renegade you played as a vigilante. Not just any vigilante mind you, one who has to fight a variety of street gangs and save his girlfriend who for some reason has been kidnapped. There were four levels in the game, which in this day and age sounds ridiculous, but the game was so very hard. Save points were also a thing of the future. If you got to level 4 and died, back to level one with you.
This was gaming in 1986, unforgiving, simple, hostile and downright addictive.
The first level of Renegade was a nice and easy subway level. It allowed you to get a hang of the controls and get a handle of the various moves you could perform (if you had a 128k Spectrum there were more options, such as throwing enemies over your shoulder). In each level, one of the gang hangs back and watches the fight develop. No, he isn't a pacifist trying to talk you all out of fighting, he is the big boss of the gang who you have to face once you have got his hoodlums down to two or three in number. In the first level you have a serious advantage (only if you have a 128k Spectrum that is) as you can flip each and every gang member over the train platform edge to their death. While you were out manned, you were never out thought. If only kicking ass were always this easy.
The second level was a design that had jaws dropping in 1986. The background image had three different colours. A striking red, orange and blue as well as white, something you rarely saw in those days. This time you are faced against a mean gang of bikers. You would need to practice your flying kicks as the first bikers that come along will need dispatching from their hogs. Once you have kicked some wheeled ass, the gang begin to congregate around you and are just begging for a butt-kicking. Once again you have the advantage, as hidden in the left hand side of the screen is the edge of a large pier, a few flying kicks and shoulder flips later and the city is one biker gang short of a parade. At the end of level 2, you could be forgiven for thinking the game is easy.
Level 3. You are now in a red light district, but not just any red light district; The red light district from hell. This time the gang you fight consists of women with whips. Now these women are badass. Mysterious, sexy and highly advanced, like pixelated Raptors in bras. They whip you as soon as look at you and you spend most of the level getting up from the floor. A few flying kicks later however, and you have whittled them down to the bare minimum. Up steps their boss, a kind of bizarre looking man/woman who runs at you like a wild bull over and over again (sort of looks like Huffty from The Word in a bad mood). This takes a disciplined and steady stream of flying kicks, while also avoiding the unrushing man/woman. If (and that word is underlined heavily with three pens) you complete this level and kill the charging Huffty from The Word, the chances are you will only have one life left for the suicide mission that is level 4.
We are now into the lion's den. This is the final level, you are now just a few ass-whuppings away from getting your girlfriend back. It's at this point that you start to wonder exactly what it is about this girl that makes her special enough to fight all of these armed men and women? I can only assume that she does some brilliant cooking and cleaning. After all, we men are no good at either and a good cook is worth holding on to.
Level 4 is no easy task. Each of the guys you have to fight are armed to the teeth with knives. If you think that is easy, and if you get past them, the inevitable bad guy (who looks a bit like Boycie from Only Fools and Horses) lays in wait with a gun. Yes, a gun. He doesn't take any prisoners, apart from the girl obviously, and walks at you firing his gun.
Thoughtfully, he fires slow fat bullets that you can sometimes dodge, the kind of criminal that just doesn't exist any more in this cynical, fast bullet age we live in. A few well chosen flying kicks are enough to kill him and be reunited with your woman. Sadly, there is no end montage of happiness, just a cuddle between our hero and his woman. I would like to have seen her cooking one of her legendary meals and him buying her some new Le Creuset pans and some Mr. Sheen as a welcome home present.
Renegade was a highly addictive and rewarding experience. A fine example of early beat-em-up games that took over the home computer market and a game that even today is as addictive as ever when played on emulators. A lesson for modern game companies: if a game has got the basics right, graphics are simply not important.
