The MAME/Arcade version of the game is pretty cool.
The game has a lot of very cheesy samples - the "Wwise fwom youw gwawe" is pretty horrible, as is the "Welcome to your doom!" when confronting the end-of-the-level boss. But who can forget the most inspiring video game quote ever: "NEWEW GIW UP!"? Not kidding: That single quote saved me from the depths of depression in one dark night!
But the best part of the game... the weird enemy graphics. Those are insane.
I've only played the first three levels (ran out of patience and hey, I need to sleep, too), but here are some of the highlights:
- When you hit the two/three-headed dogs/wolves/whatever those things are, they turn into small fur balls that shrink until they disappear. (I use that metaphor in my FurryMUCK teleport message =)
- The second level has blue flesh bags that have huge mouth and eyes. They tend to bite your head off. When you kick them, they suck their mouth in, leaving a huge pit (too bad that isn't accompanied with "ooph, that hurtphf" sample)... That looks pretty strange...
- In the third level, you turn into a werebear. It can do a Huge Furball Jump™. That looks pretty cool.
Looks like the third level also has one enemy that got recycled to Golden Axe...
AB isn't a hugely great game, but for anyone who likes werebeasts, it's a must-play. I loved the first level's werewolf form, and the second level's draconid form...
By the way, the Commodore 64 version sucks (this sort of games need three fire buttons, and the graphics aren't that good either), but has definitely much better version of the music than MAME version... The SIDtune just rocks! (Incidentally, same can be said about the C64 version of Golden Axe, even when that is better game-wise...)