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GAMES OF MY YEARS: SPORTS - by Mr Biffo

2/8/2016

17 Comments

 
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Hey - remember that 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony? You know: when Mr Bean was ferried around the Olympic Stadium on Prince Phillip's shoulders, while The Queen ate fish and chips off of a Union Jack picnic blanket, and Stephen Fry filled a red, white and blue bowler hat with chicken korma, as Coldplay - dressed as Beefeaters and Pearly Kings - performed Jerusalem with JK Rowling?

Remember how proud we all were to be British, for a month or so? Never mind, eh.

Anyhow... later this week, we can all be proud to be Brazilian instead, when the 2016 Rio Olympics kicks off (what's their opening ceremony going to be? A load of carnival performers in thongs eating Brazil nuts, while Pelé gives a talk about the country's rich biodiversity? Pfffft!).

I can't say I'm hugely thrilled at the prospect of several weeks of sport filling the telly schedules. Still, I'll probably watch some of it, time differences permitting, just to say I have. You know: so I don't feel like a complete leper.

As I've previously stated on here... that gene which makes people interested in, and good at, sport... well, I don't have it. I have the opposite of that gene. I have a big hole where that gene is meant to be, and it's filled with Star Wars trivia, and pictures of sloths, and the list of controls to Far Cry Primal.
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LET'S (NOT) GET PHYSICAL
My family love to watch sport, but none of us have ever been particularly physical.

My dad apparently played basketball before I was born - he tells the story of how he competed against an American team the night JFK was assassinated - but since I've been alive he has always been a passive spectator.

Growing up, I tried so hard to like football, to show an interest, but it just wasn't there. I had a Watford FC scarf, I went to the 1984 FA Cup Final, I had the Panini Stickers, and a pair of football boots.

But none of that made me a sports fan any more than standing on a rock with a bucket on my head, shouting "NEIL ARMSTRONG!", makes me an astronaut. When it became apparent that football slid off me like butter on a heated iron, I would tell myself that it was my way of rebelling against being raised in a family where football was religion.

That way it could feel like a conscious choice, rather than what it really felt like: a defect. Y'know: in the way that some people don't like ketchup. And it isn't just football - it's all the sports. Every single one of them.

Believe me, I know - I worked for Ladbrokes, then Wembley Stadium; two of the most sport-heavy environments it is possible to conceive of. It was the equivalent of a ketchup-phobe working for Heinz, in addition to coming from a family where in lieu of breakfast, lunch and dinner, they just ate ketchup from a trough. 

It seems I just can't escape sport. Heck, I'm even in the process of acquiring a former Olympic athlete as a father-in-law, adding further insult to injury. I mean, I'd rather it wasn't the case; I take no pride in having no interest in sport. It'd make life so much easier, socially, if I was able to engage with other people about the... y'know... the thing about the footballer who did the thing at the weekend..

​But I can't. Unfortunately, when writing Digitiser it meant that, sometimes, I had to. 

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PONG PING
The first sports game I ever remember playing was - I suppose - Pong. Or whatever variation of it I had on our Binatone TV game. That scarcely counts though; it was as much a convincing simulation of tennis as a worm writing on a sandwich would be a faithful recreation of the Battle of Agincourt.

The next one I can remember was World Games on my mate Phil's Commodore 64, and that's only because it made me laugh when the guy doing the cliff diving hit his head on the rocks.

​The rest of the sports on offer in that collection... I couldn't handle the way you had to tap the buttons like a mentalist over-squashing an ant, and waggle the joystick back and forth (please... we're past those sort of jokes, aren't we?).

That button-mashing was also in evidence on the Track & Field cabinet at my local leisure centre. Boys - that's not sexist; they actually were boys - would gather around it after games, and do their tapping.

I hung around on the fringes, still sweaty from my judo lesson  - the one sport I was ever any good at, (because all it basically involves is falling on top of people and just laying there while they try to push you off them) - knowing that this tapping was a skill beyond the dexterity vacuum with which I'd been blessed.

PictureDONALD TRUMP?
HOCKEY HOCKEY OI!
I would do whatever it took to get out of reviewing the sports games on Digi. 

The first time I enjoyed a proper sports game was EA Hockey, but I enjoyed the fights more than the hockey... and lost interest in the series when EA signed a deal with the NHL, who insisted that the fights should be removed.

I bought John Madden Football, but never really knew what was going on. And I tried various racing games, but I've never been very capable at them (unless you count Mario Kart - even then, I enjoyed the balloon-bursting more than the racing). 

When I used to freelance for other magazines, I once got commissioned to write a 3,000 word lead review for a motorbike racing game, the name of which escapes me.

Without the necessary knowledge of the sport, or any incentive in learning about it or the intricacies of customising and fine-tuning my bike, I struggled. I'd pretty much said all I wanted to say within the first 300 words. What followed was an exercise in padding that turned a 32AA into an unconvincing and lopsided 42FF.

Super Tennis on the SNES was different, though. It was a gateway to an enduring appreciation of other tennis games. I also discovered - through reviewing them for Digitiser - that I liked snowboarding games, much to my surprise. That was as much the aesthetics of the setting as anything; I liked the sense of isolation, the sounds, and the feeling of gliding. As snowboarding games became increasingly sort of 'ski dude-y' I drifted away from them. 

​Snow-drifted away from them. Ha ha. HAHAHA.

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NO MATES
We rarely got invited anywhere when we were writing Digitiser - despite our impressive readership figures, few PR people really wanted to believe that Digitiser had the reach it did.

It probably didn't help that we often insulted them on our pages.

That wasn't a huge issue, mind; Mr Hairs and I are chronically unsociable people, and wouldn't have wanted to go to most things. It just would've been nice to have been asked.

However, we did get an invite - thanks to our celebrity stalker Violet Berlin - from US Gold, to attend a press trip to Norway in support of their 1994 Winter Olympics game. 

I didn't care about the game; I just enjoyed that we got to go on the bobsleigh, and was stunned that somebody would've paid us to go to another country for a weekend.

​In fact, it might've been the first time we had any direct contact with other games journos. Violet - though I don't think she had yet started writing her column for Digi - would remain our conduit to the rest of the industry for the remainder of Digi's life.

MONIC THE PLUMBHOG
I've yet to play any of those Mario & Sonic Olympics games, and I won't be bothering with Rio 2016.

In part it's because it makes me feel a little nauseous and sad seeing Sonic and Mario in the same image together - let alone fannying around with one another in a stadium. It's a bit like H from Steps being awarded with a guest vocal spot on a Muse album.

And is my perception wrong, or are they just button-mashers, and d-pad wranglers? I don't want to have to do that. I already know my sense of rhythm is about as consistent as a trapped and panicked fox tapping his muzzle on the inner wall of a skip.

​Sports and sports games, then. Probably not for me. 
FROM THE ARCHIVE:
GAMES OF MY YEARS: FOOTBALL - BY MR BIFFO
GAMES OF MY YEARS: ROLE-PLAYING
GAMES OF MY YEARS: PC BY MR BIFFO

17 Comments
Reversible Sedgewick
2/8/2016 12:01:25 pm

I don't like ketchup.

I do like your musical metaphor. Those whiney pretentious Muse boys aren't fit to lick the boots of a polymath like H.

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neil
2/8/2016 12:09:55 pm

Blimey Biffo grew up not far from me(I've read that on here before right?), does that make me in any way famous?

I've really gone off sports games despite being the perfect audience for them. I have grown up playing and watching football but the last football game I bought was over 10 years ago.



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RG
2/8/2016 03:09:55 pm

"I already know my sense of rhythm is about as consistent as a trapped and panicked fox tapping his muzzle on the inner wall of a skip."

Are you like me in that rhythm games leave you utterly flummoxed? Any kind of dance or Guitar Hero type games feel like I'm rubbing my belly and tapping my head while trying to fly a helicopter, paint with my feet and juggle fish. In particular I remember having to drag a friend round to my house to help with a game because I'd gone on a date in GTA: San Andreas and had to dance with a girl...

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Bruce Flagpole
2/8/2016 04:07:35 pm

I liked to play 'the sports' for real, and enjoyed the games of the sports too....but in recent years I just don't enjoy the games anymore (and my legs are getting too old and knackered to do them for real). For me, sports games were great back in the day cos they were fun games that looked and felt a bit like the sport...but now they're so far up the simulation chuff that they're just too much like hard work.

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Chris Wyatt
2/8/2016 04:42:40 pm

I remember one time someone asking me what team I supported, and when I told them I didn't watch football or support a team, they gave me a look like I had passed gas in front of them. Sometimes, I wonder if it's easier to pretend to like sports, so that you don't have to deal with those awkward situations.

I don't mind going and watching sports in a pub, but only because it's an excuse to get drunk and the atmosphere can be quite good sometimes, as long as you aren't just with a load of louts.

I've discovered that I much prefer sports played by single people rather than teams. I can't get interested in England playing a football match, because it's just a bunch of guys kicking a ball around, that just so happen to represent this country. Darts is probably more up my street.

I did try to get into playing football when I was a kid, and I went to football practice outside of school for a bit. I was always stuck in goal (because I was crap on the field), and I wasn't much better in the goal either. I lost all interest when, in the changing room, some bigger boys decided to pick me up and drop me on my head. My mum picked me up after, and we passed the 'bigger boys' on the way out. My mum told me to wave to them, so I waved rather sarcastically. Luckily, I never saw them again. Seem to remember one of them looking like Plug from the Beano.

I did used to take pride in being 'anti-sports', and then realised that was a stupid way to think, and now I have more appreciation for it I think.

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Spiney O'Sullivan
2/8/2016 06:15:01 pm

I know exactly how that feels. Everybody else likes it for reasons I just can't fathom. To me it's dull and repetitive, and yet I really feel like I'm missing out by not liking it. I just can't bring myself to be enthusiastic about it, though I do try, but every time I get bored after 15 minutes and quit.

But enough about Muse's Black Holes and Revelations, I'm not that fussed about sports either.

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Mrtankthreat
2/8/2016 11:08:23 pm

+1

Couldn't agree more. I liked Starlight and Knights of Cydonia but the rest of that album was utter rubbish. I've never seen a band collapse in quality to such a degree. Haven't heard anything from them to excite me in years except for the funky Panic Station. I do like sports though (and not just the Huey Lewis album).


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Mr Biffo
3/8/2016 07:11:37 am

For the record... I find Muse tedious in the extreme.

Reversible Sedgewick
3/8/2016 11:08:36 am

Back at the start of their career they released the same song as a CD single three times. You can argue about what's a single and what's an EP, but it was the same lead track on your Radio Ones. Three times. That's an unforgiveable sin in my book.

Kelvin Green link
2/8/2016 10:36:12 pm

I am not into sport at all* but I do enjoy the odd sporting game. Sensi Soccer is excellent, and I quite enjoyed Pro Evo on the Wii, but that was more because it was groundbreaking and clever than anything else. EA Hockey was fun, and the original FIFA on the Mega Drive was good because you could foul an opposing player then run away from the referee so he couldn't book you; the SNES version swapped the on-pitch ref for an omniscient overlord in a tower, so it was impossible to escape his scrutiny.

Now that I think of it, I'm not that interested in sports games at all. Oh well.

* I grew up in Wales so I have an ingrained interest in rugby, but (a) I've never been any good at it, (b) it's almost impossible to follow it without giving money to Murdoch, so I don't, and (c) all rugby computer games are terrible.

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Chris Wyatt
2/8/2016 11:05:19 pm

Wii Sports Golf is great fun and I've not touched it in years. *No jokes please*

Might whip it out again.

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nicholas john joseph taylor
3/8/2016 06:36:30 am

Speedball 2 is a favourite of mine, and is worth checking out if you have a CD32. Still waiting for it to become a live sport with real people playing. Even a film adaptation featuring John Goodman, Bruce Willis and Steve Buschemi would be pretty good.

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Ben Fansorder
3/8/2016 12:44:30 pm

NBA Jam: TE is still a great game. Is skateboarding a sport? Because the THPS games up to and including 4 were great too.

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Kelvin Green link
3/8/2016 06:40:51 pm

Oooh yes, NBA Jam TE is good, although I spent more time unlocking secret characters than I did playing the game.

See also Anna Kounrikova's Smash Court Tennis on PlayStation.

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Scott C
3/8/2016 09:15:22 pm

I actually thought that Daley Thompson's Olympic challenge was one of the best Speccy / C64 games because it was one of the few where the controls weren't clunky / bugged out and you actually knew what you needed to do to win (unlike so many games of that era). The downside was that it destroyed joysticks, fingertips, palms and patience.

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Scott C
3/8/2016 09:23:17 pm

Oh...just watched a video of the Amiga version, it looked two generations ahead of the Spectrum version... Still makes me feel so poor and inadequate.

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Skerret
10/8/2016 10:27:17 am

Athlete Kings on the Saturn was fantastic. With it's giant fro'd British character. I'm sure Usain Bolt stole his celebration from him.

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