Blade Warrior

-This is not the same game as the similarly titled Amiga/ST release-
(First Appearance: Blade Warrior, 1989)
"Blade Warrior" is one of the most non-heroes ever. The unknown barbarian from a small, budget release game for the Spectrum, C64 and Amstrad is a generic "Conan" style muscle man who must traverse a series of dangerous screens for reasons known only to him, well, and you if you bothered read the instructions.

This plot is like the storyline of games I'd play with friends when I was about six years old. The "Death Demon" has shattered Blade Warrior's magic sword and our hero must collect several un-swordlike ingredients in order to restore it. This boils down to running from screen to screen AVOIDING all the bad guys. You're a Blade Warrior, it says so on the cover and the loading screens clearly show you BEING a "Blade Warrior" except upon loading, you discover that the hero has no weapon.
EXCEPT FOR THE SWORD HE IS CLEARLY CARRYING.

The hero of Blade Warrior is a man who has lost his blade, but carries another one, but you cannot use it. Hit the fire button all you like, the guy will only perform a meagre leap. "Jump Warrior" would be a far more appropriate title, or maybe just "Shit Warrior"
At a time when a hundred thousand games were being released a week with every one competing for our attention, putting us in the furry boots of a hero who had no weapon, or rather, had a weapon but didn't use it, was baffling to me as a child and that bafflement is tenfold today.

(No)Blade Warrior ran around in silence save for some ultra loud fuzzy speech when he crashed into a skeleton, goblin or other such creature, "ARRRGH!" and our man turned into a gravestone, followed by a gravelly "Rest In Peace" This was pretty much the only sound in the game.
But this project is about heroes, not fuzzy speech and I'm afraid Blade Warrior doesn't cut it, literally. BW's false advertising and promise of a sabre-fuelled massacre is never delivered upon and as a child I simply had no time for any half-naked madman who looked like a steroid and rage filled He-Man but chose to leap over his opponents than strike them down with bloody swathes of steel. Shockingly, our loincloth clad superhero dies if he TOUCHES A BARREL, not a Donkey Kong-esque rolling barrel, just a barrel, sitting there, minding it's own business..


Blade Warrior was a hero who couldn't even live up to his own name, let alone my violence-loving childhood expectations, even "Dizzy" was deadlier than this guy.