Karate Champ

"I'd rather hammer nails with my face."

''RED! FRONT KICK!''

Sometimes life teaches you a lesson in a funny way. Make fun of a kid for wearing pink, get hit by a bus. Poison the environment, get a flesh eating virus from a hamburger patty. Murder someone, get jailed and become the wife of a big man named ''Bubba,'' even if you aren't a woman. My situation is somewhat different. I stole. It wasn't technically stealing, as I had borrowed three games from my uncle. The technicality is that I never really gave them back, per se.

Because of this, I suppose that God himself decided that these three games would be among the worst that the NES had to offer: Bad Dudes, Gyromite, and of course the worst of the trio: Karate Champ. Even though I only rediscovered the games a few weeks ago, they continue to haunt me.

I don't think I'll ever borrow, much less steal anything again.

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STORY
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''The blood feud continues...''

In some secluded location, two warriors are about to fight. These warriors represent the best that Karate has to offer: speed, power, confusion. They are the best of friends, but they are the worst of enemies. They are ....

RED GUY and WHITE GUY!

Yes, twins perhaps separated at birth, distinguished only by their karate gis. NIPPON! Their story begins now, where they are forced into a power struggle with not only themselves, but also an instructor that looks like a muppet and his legions of flying vases. IZUKE! Who will be the one to triumph in the face of the other guy, the muppet, and the flower pots?

I think the answer is, ''who cares?'' All we know about the game is that Red guy and White guy are fighting, so you can make up your own story. I think maybe Red guy should have been the Black guy, that way he and White guy can fight out battles of racial tension. Malcolm X-tastic!

Now, although it does seem to have a little to do with Karate tournament regulations and what not, I fail to comprehend what real-life significance I can glean from the flying vases within the game. It's not clicking, sorry. Karate Champ does list the moves that you finish the other guy with, and has an interesting concept of 3-knockdowns in order to score a win. I think. Other than small maybe-attention to detail, KC trips over itself as you'll soon see.

Aside from this, there really isn't much by way of story, but there are other things that I'll let ruin this game for you. The story is small potatoes compared to the frustration at hand! DO YOU DARE CONTINUE? Don't answer right away, let it sink in for a second. Okay, let's roll.

At any rate, the story has no use of the too-common nintendo logic, or the ''one man against all of Texas'' storylines I've since come to love and expect. Because there's no way for it to disappoint by way of a coherent story, it's disappointing. Red guy, White guy. Draw your own damned conclusions.

Story: 2 / 10
It's here, it's bad, get used to it!

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GRAPHICS
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''Before Scorpion and Sub-Zero, there was Red guy and White guy.''

Well, I have to hand it to Data East, as the backgrounds are above and beyond everything else in the game. You have varying locations like a castle, beach, desert, and a dojo. That's all I can remember before I blacked out. Aside from the backgrounds, we have:

.Red guy
.White guy
.The Muppet
.Flower vases

That's all you can expect to see, really. You have Red guy fighting White guy, and they fight until one guy wins and has to dodge flower pots hurled at his testicles or his face. I'm not sure which of those fates I would personally want for Christmas. At any rate, Red guy looks exactly like White guy, as I'm sure you've inferred. They also have gigantic noses. Scratch that: huge noses- which extend about three inches past the Karate gi. This is assuming that the fighters are blown up to ''me-size'' proportion, which for the love of god I hope never happens.

So, let's get to item 3: the muppet. What's he do? He raises or lowers his arms, looks confused, and shuffles back and forth during the epic color-battles. I think he looks confused because he's weighing the benefits of continuing his job as a Karate ref, or stopping the match entirely to say, ''Hey dudes, let's make... PINK guy!'' I don't quite know how this guy looks more confused than any other game character ever, but kudos to Data East. I guess the need for the ref is so that he can raise and lower his arms and proclaim the finishing move, because let's face it, who else is going to do it? Perhaps the ref was put in game to make sure that Red guy and White guy don't whip out MAC-10s and start rounding off at one another mid-fight, which would of course be both interesting and violate the rules of Karate, two things which Karate Champ will not have!

I've digressed. The pots are pretty! They fly from the sides of the screen and have two-frames of ''wobbling.'' let me tell you ladies and gents, wobble they do as they careen towards your gigantic nose. Considering everything else that can defeat you, namely the inept Red guy, those pots are an intimidating force.

If there's one thing that I can say about Karate champ however, it's the sheer amount of versatility in the graphics. You have a variety of punches and kicks, all animated with 2-3 frames of heavenly greatness. It's about the only thing in the game that steps up above ''bad'' to the level of ''pretty bad.'' There are several animations, from high kicks to low kicks, to kicks that unexplainably turn your fighter around to be further pummeled by the merciless Red guy. More on this aspect later.

All in all, the graphics for the characters are fair in quality, the backgrounds are large and detailed, and the Muppet looks confused. However, I might be a little harsh on things considering that THERE ARE 4 SPRITES IN THE WHOLE GAME AND TWO OF THEM ARE PALETTE SWAPS. This isn't an impressionist game. Less is not more, and aside from the background we have a total of four sprites that are entirely unimpressive in every possible way. I CAN COUNT TO FOUR ON ONE HAND. Does that put things in perspective?

Graphics: 3 / 10
4 crappy sprites, but love them backgrounds!

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SOUND AND MUSIC
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''Can you count to nothing on one hand?''

I shouldn't say nothing. Karate champ has about 3 sound effects and some poor theme music. To answer your question, yes, I can still count to 4 on one hand. Perhaps 4 was a lucky number at Data East. Perhaps after exceeding the dread number four, those who dared toy with nature would be eaten by the ghost of digits. The reasoning is simple, and only an idiot would fail to grasp it: 666 rounded down instead of up to the nearest hundred is 600, and since zero is nothing, we're left with 6, and six minus one produces the offending five, never to be surpassed by Data East for fear of ''heavenly divine splitting justice''. Sounds like a translated SNK super move! Kyokugen Karate is absolute!

Enough pot shots at the low number of sounds, and the single musical ditty that plays during the title screen. Quality over Quantity, right? Err.. not exactly. I'm sure that the Data East sound guy had a good reason for not including any good sounds, like total drunkenness, or perhaps he died halfway into the game and had to have his work finished by a computer, like Brandon Lee in The Crow. Lazy bastard.

All 3 sounds are bad, there's a generic kick, punch, and the ref saying something incomprehensible. If it's Japanese, it's an unforgivable attempt at digitized speech. If it's English, I think he says ''Bof!'' The title theme gives a lot to be desired, especially considering that it showed up once and I didn't like it. WAY TO GO! I think there's some poor kid that might have ''rocked out'' to the Karate Champ theme, but I can see that kid choking on a solid brick of ramen right now in my mind. Either that, or perhaps that kid grew up to become one of those guys you read about that dies trying to play Russian roulette with a .45 automatic.

One thing that we can safely say Karate Champ teaches you is that any way out of this mortal coil is a viable one.

Sound and Music: 1 / 10
''Whatchamatta? Aintcha undastand da woid, Bof?''

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GAMEPLAY
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''But my fist WAS STICKING THROUGH YOU!''

Karate Champ delivers all the excitement of having to pick up a loved one from an airport. This game, unlike other bad NES games, is incredibly boring. I'd say it was glitchy too, but have a feeling that what I might call a glitch, Data East might call ''a fighting engine.''

You see, the style of Karate that Red and White guy practice is one of mystery and intrigue. I say this because most of your attacks have no effect on the other character. You can hit him a few times, but only random chance will dictate whether or not you actually connect with an attack. Fortunately, it works both ways. The computer can keep swinging at you like a blind guy with a flyswatter, and his attacks might not work as well. So really, seeing as how each character can stand in front of one another and execute random moves for an awkward period of time before anything happens, the winner is ultimately the one that... is arbitrarily chosen as the winner.

The one way that I found maximized my chances to lose was by turning around, so that the back of my karate gi taunts Red guy to the point where he hits me, much as he would should I be facing him and able to attack. So there is some strategy, namely in not intentionally doing the back-kick that turns your guy around while you fumble with the god-awful control. In the case that you do the back-kick, you do it again (hopefully) to turn around. I don't know why this certain move exists in the context of either the game or even real Karate.

The only things that have clear hit detection, interestingly enough, are the flower pots. Pick a fight with a flying vase, and you're done for. Every time I've ever tried to make a flower pot my victim, it smacks me and I hit the ground like a sack of hammers. Brilliant, Data East, brilliant. At least there's no penalty for losing the ''hit the pot'' bonus games. I suppose you have enough to be mad at as it is.

The buttons are worth a mention, as it seems that if I try to figure things out, they only make me more angry by defying any sort of recognizable pattern. First, I thought it might be a punch and a kick button, like the universal 2-button NES fighting game standard. After seeing that this was not the case, I thought it might be a left-attack, right-attack system like Double Dragon II, or the abysmal Renegade. Not the case. In actuality, it seemed to be a combination of the two configurations taking turns where it would least benefit me.

You see kids, Karate Champ existed in the days before things like collision detection, fun, and the number 5.

If you really want a blast, play it two player like I did with my friend. I'm not sure if he is my friend any more, as bringing the game into his house might have been the equivalent of saying, ''for a big strapping man, you have delightfully soft features.'' Then again, I'm sure he saw some humor as both of the characters onscreen had either a foot or a fist through the cranium of the other guy which lead to absolutely nothing happening until the next volley of karate mishaps. Perhaps this is the cause of sensei muppet's intense confusion.

The only interesting thing I figured out I could do is hold down a button after a move to strike a pose. Hold down punch, and your fighter will stand there with his mouth open and his fist sticking out, much like characters from interesting fighting games. There were all too many deaths in the 2-p mode when I would get kicked in the head while I struck a pose and yelled ''YEEARGH!'' at my friend. The collision detection while posing is primo.

Given all of this, there are four (jesus, how many times is this number going to occur?) ways to maximize your chances of victory in Karate Champ:

1. Get close to the guy.
2. Mash either button.
3. Don't turn around.
4. Don't do any posing.

With the exception of rule number 2, the other three provide valuable advice on how to win a real life Karate fight. People might say that this is the worst fighting game ever created. It is. Violence Fight was funny.

If you think I'm not going to blow this game away with a shotgun blast of venom, you're sorely mistaken. Karate Champ is the NES equivalent of a tire fire.

Gameplay: 1 / 10
About as fun to play with as a rusty bear trap.

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OVERALL
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''Let us never speak of this again.''

Karate Champ could be the best game to prove that violence doesn't solve anything; this could be because your acts of violence DONT DO ANYTHING to the other guy that looks and fights exactly like you. Karate Champ takes the appealing premise of hitting another man and screws it up. It isn't funny outside of its numerous shortcomings, unlike many other bad NES hellspawns where the horrible is immediately recognizable.

Karate Champ is a dull, throbbing pain. It's not a sharp, noticeable pain, but a pain that drags on and makes you think that it might improve... which is obviously not the case.

I played this game twice, once as a kid, and again later in my life. I don't think I'm ever going to go back and play it again. It's so incredibly ironic that the games I took from my uncle would turn out to be the most irritating and tiresome pieces of 8-bit garbage I've come across. However kids, this is the price that you pay when you steal things.

Learn from my lesson. If you're going to ''borrow'' something for an undisclosed amount of time, make sure that it's not Karate Champ, because I'm beginning to think that there might be a reason my uncle never asked for it back.

Overall: 1 / 10
Digitized backgrounds aren't going to haul this game out of the cesspool.

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*I bet Red guy thinks the White man has been the cause of all his problems.

Reviewer's Score: 1/10, Originally Posted: 01/18/02, Updated 02/18/02