The version that came out for the BBC was unfinished and cost more to buy than all versions that were available at the time. Priced £9.99 to £14.99 and close to £50 or more with todays inflation. People forget how expensive retro games actually were and especially for kids who were only 7 or 8 years of age when they started to play computer games. 8 bit machines had computer game developers who were not much older and shared their code in magazines. It's hardly surprising that the Rasberry Pi is a hit amongst school kids today. Unfortunately a lot was lost but luckily I found the Stardot forum.
I was born in a country formerly known as Burma and its main media broadcaster is called Skynet. The colours used on BBC computer games made our avatar look like a magenta umpa lumpa. If you could imagine James Cameron's Avatar and how that would look on the Beeb eg terrible you could also imagine a computer from the future sending another Terminator to kill the teenager responsible for these hacks that would turn Bruce Lee a lighter shade of rasberry topped with yellow hair.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCR6sruI7zU
You can imagine James Cameron magenta-faced with his hair died yellow and running around half naked chased by a giant green Asian baby that was supposed to represent Bruce Lee's friend Sammo Hung. All that is missing is an invisible Ninja that didn't make their blackfaced screen sprite chops.
The poor graphics and the gameplay has to be readdressed. As the Ninja was missing all that stood between Bruce and Sammo was the infinite white wooden dummy or ladder that meant that he never had to fight his best friend. The game designer must have known that a wide ladder like the C64 version would make it too easy as Sammo never gets a hit. Bruce can also duck and wait for Sammo to climb the ladder to go steal all his lanterns. If Sammo climbs the ladder or jumps off a platform Bruce can wait to one inch punch him to death. I think if there was a two player option for the Beeb you could end up killing your best friend in real life. That Ninja needs to be there and the multiplayer options need to comeback so that 1UP graphic and the two scores at the top of the screen actually mean something. I suppose with the current Beeb version of Bruce Lee a player could practice the art of not fighting and avoiding Sammo at every turn but even that can become tiresome as you have to jump flames with limited falls where its all about timing or you have to start the game all over again. That made this game too hard.
Anyway what US Gold or Datasoft did to Bruce Lee even a babyfaced David Cameron would have had to resign from the game but it does deserve a James Cameron inspired sequel. Could you imagine black ninja Corbin getting kicked off a platform in 8 bit graphics. Or even a green half naked Keir Starmer as player two. A modboy BreaksIt is on the cards if this retrogame is ever going to be popular amongst Acorn fans worldwide.
I am grateful to Rob Coleman for providing his VideoNULA solution to fix the colours.
But I am reaching out to Mark Moxon and Dave Footitt to advise on any available tools and techniques that could be used to get into that Bruce Lee code. I would like to redraw the graphics, adding more colours to the seven used, reanimate the sprites, speed up the falls from platforms, slow down the flames and add a ninja opponent or several so that we can play two player eg Bruce and Sammo fighting together to beat the game.
