The best sports games money can buy on the ZX Spectrum!
Posted by sirclive1 on Jun 22, 2010 20:13 (Jun 22, 2010 20:13)
Number 10 – ‘ 180 ‘
Just making it onto the top 10 list is the ever popular ‘180 ‘released in 1986 by Mastertronic at an incredible £2.99. The Pickford Brothers took the game of darts to a new level - easy to play but hard to master , especially at the higher levels of the game. The game was also very humorous with large sprites, cut scenes and a very well animated hand that made other darts games look very dated and boring.
Number 9 – Footballer of the Year
Good old Gremlin, they took one genre and mixed it with another and came up with the excellent ‘Footballer of the year ‘. All the player has to do was choose their team and country and then step out into the big wide world of football - the main aim of the game being to simply score as many goals as possible and progress through to the dizzy ranks of the 1st division or European super league. Maybe, just maybe, you could even play for your Country.
The aim of the game – to be named as footballer of the year preferably without breaking a leg or getting married. The game is completely engrossing and very addictive to boot (pun intended).
Number 8 – World Series Baseball
Imagine, re-imaged and reborn by Ocean software released, ‘World Series Baseball‘ in the spring of 1985. At the time I didn’t expect much of it - how wrong could I be!
The US glamour of the game was captured perfectly with half time cheerleaders, adverts and a big screen to watch the action unfold on. Gameplay was slick and again, whilst easy to pick up, the game was hard to really master. World Series Baseball was Crash Smashed and spent months in the charts – deservedly so.
Number 7 – Daley Thompsons Supertest – 128K
Slightly controversial choice here, but as much as I love the original Daley Thompsons Decathlon and Supertest 48K, I felt that this 128K version of Supertest was ultimately more polished. The loading time was worth the wait as you got twelve events compared to the standard eight in the multiload 48K version. Not surprisingly these added immensely to the final game as did the amazing rendition of the Chariots of fire theme bursting through the Yamaha 3 channel sound chip.
Number 6 – Emlyn Hughes International Soccer
Bringing arcade football and management ever closer together was the innovative Emlyn Hughes soccer by Audiogenic. This game had a great front end enabling the quick set ups of tournaments , players, and teams. You could also adjust each player’s name and statistics to suit each role.
Once a tournament was underway the game actually kept count of matches played per player and goals scored - seems petty nowadays but this was a great touch. The gameplay was very quick, the players could foul, score, take throw ins, corners, penalties and it was very well animated if a little frantic. The game was later updated and released on the Commodore Amiga and CD32 as Wembley International Soccer.
only just noticed this article *shame* Top list by Sirclive1 - pretty much agree with all of the although never played the baseball game. Matchpoint still one of the best tennis games ever.
Jun 10, 2011 01:02:55 (
243 days ago
)
