Human Killing Machine

At the time of release, the ZX Spectrum version of the game was generally well received, scoring 9/10 for graphics in Your Sinclair, who added "Possibly because of the memory used for the excellent background graphics and big - nay, hooge - sprites, the range of moves available in battle seemed relatively limited. It was, however, still fairly easy to beat opponents". The game scored 78% overall in Sinclair User, who summed it up with "backgrounds are static, but detailed... main graphics are nicely animated with slick arm and leg movements - maybe the best I've seen in this sort of game. The graphics may even be slightly better [than Street Fighter]". The 73% review in Crash stated "The scenery's really beautiful and the large characters are well drawn and animated", and thought it was "lacking in originality, but still very addictive". Other versions did not fare as well. Zzap!64 said of the Commodore versions "repetitive with little skill involved", and gave the game 31%. Maff Evans, a secondary reviewer in the magazine said it was "an incredibly weak program and one of the worst fighting games I've ever seen". Amstrad Action listed HKM and Street Fighter as "some of the most dreadful arcade conversions on the CPC". The Spanish magazine Microhobby valued the game with the following scores: Originality: 40% Graphics: 90% Motion: 80% Sound: 50% Difficulty: 70% Addiction: 80% Retrospective reviews of the game were more negative. YouTuber Stuart Ashen featured the Atari ST version of the game on his web series, Terrible Old Games You’ve Probably Never Heard Of, criticizing the shoddy mechanics, jerky control scheme and frame rate, unfair difficulty, poor graphics, lack of sound effects and animation frames, stereotypical characters, and overall lack of improvement from Tiertex's conversion of Street Fighter.