
	Platform Apple II Genre Action Publisher Broderbund Developer Jordan Mechner ETA 1984
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Karateka

Back in the 1980s, I remember martial arts was all the rage. There were more karate and kung fu movies than you could shake a stick at. Everything from Karate Kid to various ninja adventures were getting kids interested in the stuff. On the computer game front, one title that was gaining in popularity was Karateka from Broderbund. It was a simple enough game with a hero punching and kicking his way to a damsel in distress, but it still kept a lot of gamers glued to their seats playing the thing.

Interestingly enough, this was the first game made by Jordan Mechner, the creator of the Prince of Persia series, while he was still studying at Yale. If you look at the level of detail in the animations for Karateka, one can start to see the similarities. There was quite a bit of detail in how the game’s warriors moved around, which is something that certainly carried over to the Prince of Persia games, and was improved upon over time.

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The premise of the game was simple enough, with players storming the fortress of the evil Akuma in order to save the princess Mariko. This entailed facing off with a slew of guards one by one, and beating them down through a selection of high, medium, and low punches and kicks. The whole thing was a bit of a guessing game, as players hoped they could land a blow on their opponent, which

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wasn’t as easy as it seemed because enemies could back off out of range. Eventually, players will make it through the grunts, and had to face off against Akuma’s eagle. After defeating the eagle it was off to fight Akuma himself, and this guy had quit a lot of hit points, so it took some doing to get him down. If players were able to beat him, they would proceed into the next room where Mariko was held. Upon entering the room players would have to get out of their fighting stance and run to her. If they didn’t, she would kick the hero in the head, killing him instantly.

Fighting itself was fairly slow, and victory felt more a matter of luck than skill as players tried to land blows, but the whole thing was still engrossing. I must have spent hours trying to get better at beating up bad guys on that game when I was a kid. After playing way too much Wizardry, and Alien Typhoon, Karateka brought a much different experience to the table.

Mr. Nash

May 18, 2010