Death Sword Download (1988 Arcade action Game)

The evil magician Drax is terrorizing the jeweled city and cast a spell over the beautiful princess Marina who is forced to obey him. From the lands to the north, a hero is sent to help the city and free the princess. He is Gorth, the strongest of the barbarian warriors. With his sword in hand, he has to beat eight of Drax's best warriors and at last the magician himself. He will fight them in the woods, on the mountaintop, in the dungeon... finally reaching Drax's palace itself.

This is essentially a one- or two-player fighting game where you control a big barbarian and fight another player or a computer AI. There are several kinds of hits, and some hits take off half a point while others take off a whole point. Each player has six of these "power points". They also have a special hard to perform "death sword" which decapitates your opponent, killing him with one fell swoop.

Death Sword is a PC conversion of Barbarian, a huge hit at the end of the 80's. I first played it on my C64: two powerful warriors with their swords fighting one against the other. Characters in the game were big and able to perform many moves and attacks. Barbarian was published in the times when epic movies and comics were quite popular and it was more than obvious what was the inspiration for this game.

There were two versions that both carried the same name, and their gameplay was identical. In one of them, you fight beside some sort of lake and in the woods, but the other has a different story. The evil wizard Zack has kidnapped a beautiful princess, and it will take a real hero to save her. You must defeat eight of Zack's warriors and then Zack himself in his own castle and rescue the princess. What better story do you need? Well, if anyone finds this story similar to the first part of Conan the Barbarian (starring Arnold Schwarzenegger) he's not wrong. The main music theme sounds like the theme from the same movie.

Death Sword is actually the union of both Barbarians. At the beginning you'll get to choose which game you would like. The PC conversion is no match for the C64 original, but it's fun to play. The graphics and music are good considering the limitations of CGA and PC speakers, but the sound effects consist merely of a few beeps. The controls are the biggest problem and were created to model a joystick. Like in many other conversions, you once again meet with eight buttons ("U", "I", "O", "J", "K", "N", "M", ",") and left Shift as fire. If you don't have a joystick, you'll probably find this game too hard to play due to the controls.

So, if controls are no problem for you or you have a joystick, give Death Sword a try and don't be surprised if you find yourself hooked to the monitor, swinging the sword while the challenge is releasing floods of adrenaline into your blood.

This is one of the oldest fighting games ever. This is the predecessor of today's fighting games and it is still a nice game to play. You can make lots of moves and you need quick reflexes in this game.

I remember this game on the ZX Spectrum and it's fun. I don't know for sure if it's based on the Arnie Film of the same name (in Europe the game was released as Barbarian while everywhere else it was Death Sword). The game consists of a series of one on one sword fighting bouts against ever more difficult opponents. Use a range of moves (blocks, thrusts and the ever cool overhead chop) to defeat your opponent and and win the game. Not a whole lot more to it than that.

However, what is really great about this game is the two player option where you and a friend compete to against eachother. Some of my fondest memories involve decapitating the kid who lived down the street.. (you know how the rest of this joke goes, so I wont bother). Great fun.

A barbarian fightgame. Kill your opponent by attacking him with different moves. The scenery is quite alright for this CGA graphics it displays..

This is actually a game I played the original of on the Amiga when Palace Software were churning out similar titles and, not meaning to offend any PC fans, the Amiga version is a lot better than the one here. That said though, its still a fan little game to anyone who is a fan of the wooly-pants slash-em up genre and has a few elements in it that have never really been repeated in games since. You can decapitate your opponent with a single blow. That's right kiddies, pressing back and fire on that joy stick launches your wooly-panted, mulleted barbarian into a death blow spinning chop with Conan-esque style. If the attack lands clean, the head of you opponent will bounce away for a little goblin to kick around while dragging away the body.

Just for this alone the game is worth a try although I wouldn't go expecting A-grade beat 'em up action, although it is fun to sit down with a friend and try to see who can decapitate first. A five minute amusement. Though if you're looking for a similar game with better AI and strategy (blood too) I'd recommend Moonstone for both single and multiplayer.

How to run this game on modern Windows PC?

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