After The War

STORY / GAMEPLAY
The story takes place in a destroyed city, after a nuclear war. You are a commando and try to reach an airdrop platform called XV-238 in order to survive! The game is split into two different parts. On the first part you are wandering around the city's streets and defend yourself from every attacking enemy by using your martial arts techniques. But you must be careful because there are some enemies hiding inside buildings and throw hand grenades at you! Towards the end of the first part, you find a big boss, a man that's a few feet taller than you and will prevent you from ending the part. Of note: The game's hero looks much like the great 80s action movies actor, DOLPH LUNDGREN! On the second part, you roam in the railway station of the city's underground transport but this time you have the extra advantage to use a weapon that looks like some kind of a Sci-Fi machine gun and will surely make your life much easier. Actually, no! This time the enemies are not humans! You'll have to combat against robots, flying machines and computer controlled machine guns! After The War is a great action game, although it's frustratingly difficult to play!

GRAPHICS / SOUND
As in all the other 8bit versions, After The War offers some nice and detailed visuals. On the Sinclair Spectrum version, the sprites and the backgrounds are nicely done and look almost identical to the CPC counterpart (except of the color palette, since this version is in black and white). The game features large sprites but the frame rate is pretty low! Comparably, among the 8bit versions, the Commodore 64 version looks and plays better mainly because of its smoother sprite animation and background scrolling. Regarding the game's sound, there is nothing special as it features a few "dull" sound effects and no music at all (while the CPC and C64 versions at least offer a nice intro music score).