It could be called a Double Dragon clone. It could also be called a River City Ransom clone. But one thing is certain: there’s no better game of this kind on an 8-bit computer than Imagine’s Target: Renegade. Well, the Spectrum version, at least.
T:R isn’t a very complex game - in fact, it’s a sequel to Imagine’s previous “Renegade”, which was a port of the Taito arcade game (but the Spectrum version was much better than the original, which had one of the worst control schemes in history. Don’t believe me? Try the arcade version in MAME, and weep.) The sequel, however, is a completely original game for 8-bit computers, although, as I said, derivative of Double Dragon and others.
So, why is it so special? First, it had awesome playability. It was fast, fluid, easy to learn but hard to master. Although the premise was simple (go through a bunch of levels, fighting everyone in your way, until you get to the boss, then defeat him), the enemies themselves were varied, and each one was a surprise, often requiring you to change tactics. For instance, the flying kick was one of the most efficient moves early in the game, but later on most enemies simply ducked when you tried it on them. The second level, with the women, also had a surprise: the gunman. I bet everyone was surprised at first, and died. Later, of course, you would use it to your advantage… 
And what about the dog?
The best part of the game, however, was the 2 player mode. Later games used and abused it, but, on 8-bit computers, T:R was probably the first game with it (the Double Dragon port came later, and was a much worse game.) Unlike other games of this kind, however, the 2 players could actually work as a team. There were many ways to do so - one of the best was for one of the players to be the “bait”, while the other actually killed the enemies. And the final boss? You made a mistake and he killed you in seconds - unless the other player intervened.
One last note: although the ZX Spectrum version was, in my opinion, the best game of its kind for 8-bit computers, the Commodore 64 is quite a different beast. The graphics and music are better; however… the lesser processing power of the C64, and the game’s dependence on sprites, caused it to have three huge flaws:
- it was a 1-player game
(there goes the best feature…) - there were never more than 2 enemies on screen at the same time
- the sprites seemed… weird - in other word, if you punched or kicked, your arm or leg had to “stay” in the sprite, instead of really moving forward and, you know, actually touching your enemy.
Don’t get me wrong, this is not “fanboyism” (I had both computers): many games were masterpieces on the C64 but not on the Speccy (Myth, Last Ninja 2, Mega Apocalypse, Tusker, IK+, The Great Gianna Sisters, Wizball, Turrican, etc.). But this game was really a joke on the Commodore, while the Spectrum version is still fun to play today.
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Arguably THE best game of it’s era.
I remember a particularly tough female ‘boss’ (one of the earliest games to feature females in such roles?).
A flaw in the AI meant that if you trapped her on the left side of the screen she became defenceless to your kicks. Amusingly enough however, if you continued your attack until she expired it revealed a fatal bug in the program, since she was so big and fat the game crashed as she tried to fall out of the screen (Spectrum 128 version only).
10/10 (for it’s time)
This game if marketed correctly could have sold a good few more spectrums at the time, When a game was this good you wanted to own it the first Renegade was impressive and TR did what was thought to be the impossible and topped the original. This type of game was a hard act to follow and I commend the programmers behind it. Without doubt the spectrum version was the best by far there were “special moves” in the game which pre cursored the likes of the combo system in later games seen on the Playstation such as Tekken. It’s still a very playable game by todays standards and will stand the test of time 10/10
Goatlips: the game you’re remembering is the original Renegade (also a great game), not T:R, the sequel.
I stand corrected Dehumanizer.
I seems her name was Suzy: http://www.mobygames.com/images/shots/original/1107618445-00.png
I recall now that I preferred the original’s ‘henchwomen’, with their whips, bras and nice trousers.It’s amazing what a handful of pixels could do for an adolescent boy back then.
…Anyway, at least I didn’t confuse it with that hideous ‘Renegade III’ thing (which I just had the misfortune of being reminded of on the net)!
P.S. Click on my name and run the slideshow to get yourself a great Target Renegade. gif…t.
Maybe we should bombard chronosoft to make Renegade 3 as it should have looked .. basically the gameplay was sound just make an even bigger game with the game open ended so new levels can be added from extra add on packs? (chronosoft sell new games for the spectrum the link is http://www.cronos.toucansurf.com/ ) excellent site btw
Target: Renegade has been remade for the PC - http://www.ys3.org/?page.id=2
It’s really well done, however, I couldn’t get the flying kicks to always work. It seemed, to me, that you can usually only press 2 keys at once and if you press up, left/right and kick (to perform a flying kick) the controls jam up. But the assigned keys were fairly awful (Cursor keys + Right CTRL, and WSAD + Left CTRL), so it may have been me getting them confused. Perhaps you’ll have better luck, or you could use a game pad (Xbox 360 pads work on PCs don’t forget).