Big Trouble in Little China

Big Trouble in Little China is a side-scrolling beat 'em up released in 1986 by Electric Dreams Software, based on John Carpenter's cult film. The evil sorcerer Lo Pan seeks to regain a mortal body by marrying and sacrificing a green-eyed woman. His henchmen kidnap Gracie Law and Miao Yin, taking them to his underground empire beneath San Francisco's Chinatown. Players control three heroes: Jack Burton, Wang Chi, and Egg Shen, switching between them at will. Each character fights unarmed but has a preferred weapon—Jack uses a gun, Wang a sword, and Egg fires magic bolts. The game features four stages, and energy is restored by finding food. The game scrolls from right to left, an unusual orientation for the genre.

Amstrad CPC

Released in 1987, the Amstrad CPC version was programmed by Mev Dinc. It is a direct port of the ZX Spectrum original with slightly more colour in the graphics, though noticeably slower. The development was rushed to completion in just two months. The game received 64% from Amstrad Action, praising large animated characters but criticising repetitive action, dingy backgrounds, and minimal sound effects. Critics found combat tedious and lacking impact, with poor animation making the fighting laughable. The game offers a long scrolling challenge but rapidly becomes repetitive, with few interactive elements beyond endless enemy encounters. The sound is limited to a title tune with few in-game effects. Despite its ambitious multi-character switching mechanic, Big Trouble in Little China remains a disappointing movie tie-in.