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Dismal attempt at joystick-waggling sports action

This is a conversion of an arcade game of the same name. You may not have seen the arcade original, and after viewing this reasonably accurate copy you'll know why. It bombed.

The original game was released to cash in on the sports simulation boom caused by Konami's Track and Field. Now released for the 64 after Decathlon, Summer Games and Hesgames, it seems rather a pointless exercise. Especially since it's a terribly inferior example of the genre.

The idea is to go through eight events of a decathlon, qualifying for each event by reaching a set standard. You do this by either hammering at a key or moving the joystick backwards and forwards as fast as you can. The faster you do so, the faster the hunchback will run, throw, or jump. In the field events you also have to time a jump or throw at the right moment.


The eight events are: 100m sprint, long jump, shot put, discus, javelin, 110m hurdles, and high jump. Each one requires a reasonable speed to qualify, although in the field events the speed of run-up is rather erratically judged: sometimes you have the maximum speed and perfect angle of takeoff and you won't qualify.

Graphics and animation are pretty appalling -- for example, none of the things thrown follow a realistic trajectory. Another laugh is at the long jump. Hunchy runs up to the board, makes a little jump and sails along about a foot off the ground on a perfectly horizontal plane until he lands.

In between screens, if you qualify, Esmerelda will come and give you a great big smackerooni. If you don't qualify there's an amusing screen where Hunchback is attacked by something or other. The first time you see this it's quite funny, the second time yawn, the third aaagh and after that the temptation to reach for the off switch is huge.

JR

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh! Just when I thought tacky Decathlon games were finished, they come up with this. I found nothing new to it and the humourous interrupt screens became unfunny very quickly. We all like Decathlons, but I'd prefer even DT's to this.


PRESENTATION
55% Humorous interludes annoy after a while.

ORIGINALITY
10% Another decathlon game-yawn bore.

GRAPHICS
38% Ridiculous main character animation even for a hunchback.

HOOKABILITY
37% Waggling fans may get some pleasure from sussing events.

SOUND
31% Bad event noises and tacky tune on high score and title screen.

LASTABILITY
22% The humour and events will rapidly bore you.

VALUE FOR MONEY
24% Even at this price it's old and bad.