When Melbourne House software released this game the arcade game Karate Champ was very popular and at first this looked like being a home computer clone but it turned out to be a very different game indeed.
The Way of the Exploding Fist has you starting out as a novice Karate student who advances in belt color to black belt via competing against and beating students.
Your player has a good selection of karate attacks available to him utilizing all the possible directions a joystick can go in conjunction with the fire button.
The combat is rather slow (quite unlike the real thing) but it gives you a chance to plan your attack and execute it.
Each bout is scored via full and half points - get two full points and you've won.
A full clean contact will result in a full point being awarded whereas as a half point is awarded (half points are always awarded if your opponent is facing away from you when you hit).
It amounts to a bit of a tactical fight where you utilize low, mid or high strikes depending on what your opponent is doing.
Sweeps will knock your opponent down and score points but if your opponent jumps he can avoid the sweep and you're open for a counter.
The single player
game goes on forever once you reach black belt - you will be defeated not by the opponent but by sheer boredom of repetition in the end.
In an attempt to spice things up, every three bouts or so you get to fight a bull - this can be either avoided completely (by somersaulting over it) or you can lunge punch it in the head (which takes practice to get the timing right).
The graphics are very nice to look at and well animated and the sound consists of oriental chamber music plus sampled thuds, cracks and karateka yells.
As with most fighting games, repetition sets in - once you reach black belt you can defeat opponents (computer controlled ones) by using the same combination (sweep - opponent somersaults over you and lands behind - high back kick = 1 point - works every time).
That said it is still an enjoyable game - it was the game that inspired the International Karate series - and certainly was played to death when I had my Commodore 64 back then.
