Reviews

Wonderful beat'em up which works equally well with either one or two players. The levels are nicely varied, and the whole thing is well balanced, with the possible exception of the scoring system which heavily encourages just whacking people with the weapon.

The best horizontal beat-em-up on the Spectrum IMO. Best played with 2 players, the solid feel of impact as you lay into your enemies and excellent collision detection was never bettered on the Spectrum.

A multi player beat-em-up with nice music, nice graphics and perfect playability. Possibly it's best multiplayer beat'emup of zx spectrum.

This is a decent beat 'em up and a worthy follow-up to the earlier Renegade, and the high point in the series before the disappointment of Renegade 3.

The Spectrum's inability to handle multicoloured sprites inevitably makes it look a bit drab compared to the better fighting games on other formats at the time. Still, even when there are plenty of big sprites on screen it all moves pretty quickly and it's well programmed within the limitations of the hardware.

In gameplay terms it's pretty good too; you've got a good selection of moves and can even work combos on multiple enemies sometimes. However, they're all quite easily dispatched once you work out which moves they're most vulnerable to and you can even go quite a long way on the flying kick alone, so it's perhaps a little lacking in terms of variety.

On the whole it's a pretty good game, and easily amongst the better beat 'em ups, but it just comes across as trying to do too much with a genre that the Spectrum isn't particularly well suited to.

I think it's a playable, well programmed (as you would expect from Mike Lamb), but rather dull beat'em up, with very easy early levels - although the common opinion among speccy people is quite enthusiastic.

It surely gets better in two players mode.

Not as good as the first Renegade, in my opinion.

Having done a stellar job of converting Renegade to home computers, Ocean bid for the rights to convert spiritual successor Double Dragon. They were outbid by Melbourne House for those, but (perhaps because Double Dragon was not the official sequel to Renegade) their contract allowed them to release a Renegade 2. Imagine everyone's surprise when it turned out a bit like Double Dragon!

Ironically, faced with Double Dragon's plethora of moves, throwing weapons, climbable scenery, big fellers called Abobo, etc., Melbourne House turned out a garish, sluggish, buggy mess, whereas the Target Renegade team were able to cherry-pick the advances they wanted to work into the game, and dump things that didn't suit the hardware or the visual style established in Renegade. So we got the two-player mode and the crucial ability to nick the enemy's weapons... who cares about scrolling? And the opening motorcycle attack is far more thrilling than DD's first wave of grunts.

In retrospect the gameplay is rather unbalanced, which prevents me from giving this game a 5 - the jump kick is overpowered and you can complete the first half of the game with it alone. The graphics, by Ocean regular Dawn Drake, are lovely and full of character - level four probably being the high point, for gameplay as well as looks, as enemies who can duck are suddenly thrown into the mix (along with an adorable but deadly doggie). Although the prequel is the more balanced one-player game, you can't beat Target Renegade for Speccy-based co-operative pummeling.

Excellent continuation to Renegade.

Uses the same polished style (good graphics, movements, sounds, etc.) but this one is easier, what is a plus for me (it could be a less for others, though). I love the 128k music and overall the 2 player cooperative mode: Awesome.

Absolutely stunning! One of the best games ever to grace onto the Speccy! Stunning graphics, superb music and sublime gameplay.

At the time of release this game was lauded but now it seems slightly inferior to the original ZX Spectrum version of 'Renegage'. It's relatively slow and, for a beat-em-up, feels remarkably sedate, especially when compared to its spiritual successors such as 'Streets of Rage' and 'Final Fight'.

Having said all that, this is still fun to play and has plenty of nice features like the bikers on stage one, the gun-toting pimp on stage two and the excellent music.

Great stuff. Graphics not very colourful but well drawn with no clash. Nice 128k tune with some spot effects for the humble 48k player. The game flows nicely, is easy to control and has a very sensible difficulty curve. Start playing this and you will not want to stop. Definitely the ebst beat-rm-up on teh speccy EVER.

Well, what to say about one of the most reviewed games here?

I'll try to be as clear as I can. Target Renegade is good, but not as good as the first chapter. The action feels somewhat over-extended, in sharp contrast to the quick and brutal Renegade; sprite graphics are good but the backdrops aren't quite on the same level; weapons do make the fight far too easy.

On the other hand you can play it with a mate for more fun, making it in the end what Double Dragon on the Spectrum should have been, and sadly wasn't.

Good, but not excellent.

1988 Imagine Software (UK)
by Mike Lamb, Dawn Drake, Jon Dunn and Gari Biasillo.

'Target: Renegade' is a step forward to the already magnificent 'Renegade'.
To be honest if you played the prequel enough you wont be so inclined in giving this a fair chance specially with all the beat-em-up's around. The graphics overall are very similar and this feels a lot as simply a sequel and not a novelty. Anyway, it delivers enhanced gameplay and beats the original in my opinion, making this probably the best game in its genre.
A classic.

The sequel to what was already one of the finest beat-em-ups on the Speccy, and this is even better.
The look and feel of the game, and just about everything that made the original so good, are here in the sequel. But we now have more variety, and the addition of cooperative two player mode, which is awesome.

Responsive controls, a decent pace even with multiple sprites on screen and a two player mode. What more do you want from a scrolling beat-em-up? Perhaps a little on the easy side but this is a minor quibble in what is probably the speccy's best brawler.

The best beat em up on the Speecy. It's got everything needed to be a true classic. It's one of those were 5/5, 10/10 and 100% isn't enough it's so good.

I'd rather renegade, but this allow 2 player which is an adventage.

If this had been the first version it would be considered not an excellent but a masterpiece.