Hi there!

Beware! Another case of "don't judge a game by its graphics" ahead!

This production got me puzzled a bit, since the original Amiga version of Switchblade was Core Designed, yet the C64 version was converted by Gremlin themselves. Normally Core would handle the C64 version on their own, we even saw some Arcade games they converted to it, like Action Fighter or Dynamite Düx. Regardless, Gremlin did a pretty good job here.

Switchblade is a platformer in the tradition of the classic Bruce Lee game. You're a Ninja exploring a giant map mostly fighting enemies with bare hands. Occasionally you find some throwable weapons like darts, shuriken or knifes, but they're only required when fighting against the stronger door guardians like the one in the screenshot above.

The huge map comes with a severe trade-of: The graphics aren't the greatest to begin with and they're staying the same all the way through the game. The tiles only use 3-4 colors and they're not too varied, so all screens in the game look similar. The enemies are rather ugly sprites too, so I've to blame the artist as well, not just memory shortage. The music is immediately recognizable from Benn Daglish, yet there's only a single tune playing during the game, so it gets annoying fast.

What is saving the game is it's playability and level design. It simply is fun to play and to explore the map for a while. In the end it gets very hard though and I assume few people beat it back in the day. I certainly cheated with state saving and consulting a map:

Some future day the "Playing..." series may see another platformer from Core Design and Gremlin in the form of "Impossamole", but first it'll continue with something else.

Greetings,

Manuel