Barbarian II

STORY / GAMEPLAY
The game is a flip-screen action adventure game with hack and slash elements. You choose between a male Barbarian (featured on the first game) who uses a Battle-Axe or a female character who wields a Long Sword. You travel through four different places to find Drax and finish his plans once and for all. On each of the first three levels you must fight six different types of monsters who are willing to kill you faster than you think! Those monsters can be from little angry chickens to heavily powered giants using their...bat! During your quest you can also gain more lives (initially 5) by collecting any skulls you may find. A truly interesting arcade adventure game (rather than a fighting game as its predecessor) which will offer you plenty of gameplay time! You start from a volcanic land and you go through a cave complex, a dungeon and finally three levels in which you encounter 2 monsters guarding Drax, ending up in a final fight with him.

GRAPHICS / SOUND
The BBC Micro (and Acorn Electron) version plays and looks great considering the computer's hardware limitations. This version offers plenty of colors (up to 16 using the 8 physical palette colors + flashing versions of the physical 8). The game looks much better than the Sinclair Spectrum (ZX) in terms of colors and level design. I was very impressed with the nicely animated sprites, a great feature for a BBC Micro game. I also liked the sound effects as well plus the main menu music tune.