How to play Karate online
Every attack is a direction plus the fire button.
- Up punch: Space alone, or Up + Space
- Straight punch: Down + Space
- Straight kick: Right + Space
- Up kick: Left + Space
- Player 2: T/F/G/H for directions, A for the button
- One or two players: F11 (the consoleās Select switch)
- Start a new game: F12 (the consoleās Reset switch)
- Game speed: F4 sets the difficulty switch to A (slow) or B (fast)
Gameplay
Each match lasts two minutes. Whoever has more points when time runs out wins and moves up to the next belt, while the loser keeps the belt they already have. Scoring 900 points also earns the next belt straight away. Kicks are worth more than punches, and the best-placed kicks score the most:
| Move | Points |
|---|---|
| Up punch or straight punch | 10 |
| Straight kick | 15 |
| Up kick to the side of the head | 20 |
| Up kick to the face | 25 |
| Knockdown | 60 |
Tips
- Practise first. Choose the two-player game but use only your own controls. Your opponent will just stand there, which is a good way to learn the ranges of each move.
- Go for up kicks. A well-aimed up kick scores up to two and a half times as much as a punch.
- Start on slow. Difficulty A slows the game down, which makes it easier to see which moves connect.
History
Ultravision was a small third-party publisher, and original Ultravision copies of Karate are now among the hardest 2600 cartridges to find. The game got a second life later in the 1980s when budget label Froggo re-released it. Critics were not kind: in 1991 the fanzine Digital Press picked it as one of the worst Atari 2600 games ever made.
