Vendetta

About

Vendetta mixes beat 'em up action with top down driving challenges. You play as a hero armed with a knife who fights through flick screen levels collecting weapons and evidence. Each stage ends when you gather enough proof to bypass roadblocks, then switches to a behind the wheel chase. Avoid enemy cars and helicopters while using missiles to clear the way. Police pursuit adds urgency, show your evidence or risk being stopped. The game stands out for its abrupt genre shifts and tight controls. You start in shadowy back alleys, move through a rigged airplane, and finish in a crowded park showdown. Weapons upgrade from basic blades to guns but you’re always balancing combat with evidence hunting. Released in 1990 on C64 and ZX Spectrum, it feels like a prototype for action hybrids that came later.

Storyline

A group of terrorists have kidnapped a professor and his daughter. The professor is working on a bomb. The terrorists make impossible demands and threaten to detonate a miniature nuclear weapon if the demands are not met. The protagonist, initially armed with only a knife, decides to rescue both individuals. Along the way, he collects other weapons and evidence to convince other police officers to let him continue his work, as he heads to an army base, a booby-trapped airplane, and finally central park, where the terrorists make the last stand.