Crash


A Question Of Sport

Author: Phil King
Publisher: Elite
Machine: Spectrum 48K

 
Published in Crash #61

A question of programming...

A Question Of Sport

Err.. I know it, I know it! Well, not exactly - fans of the BBC quiz show will know that the squeaky-voiced Emlyn Hughes has been replaced by Ian Botham. But still hosting the show is the perennially grinning David Coleman. If you've watched the so-called sports experts getting easy questions wrong, now's your chance to prove how knowledgeable you are.

As Ian Botham or Bill Beaumont, you can choose the other two members of your team - each has a specialised sport for the 'Home Or Away' question. After loading in one of five blocks of questions, David Coleman introduces 'the show' via speech bubbles. Answers are made by choosing one of four multiple choices, if you're wrong the question is offered to the other side.

First round is the Pictureboard: team members takes it in turn to choose one of twelve numbered panels to reveal a question category. Another round is Mystery Personality, in which the identity of a sportsperson must be guessed from text clues. Home Or Away involves each team member choosing a question, either on his/her own sport for one point, or on any other for two. Guessing 'What Happened Next' is the objective in the round of the same name. Again, fans of the TV show will be disappointed to find there are no graphics, just a text passage.

A Question Of Sport

The final two rounds are the Quickfire round in which nine questions must be answered in 45 seconds, and the Pictureboard again.

What is really lacking in A Question Of Sport is variety: all the rounds are multiple-choice text questions whose answers can soon be remembered as they repeat themselves. Even worse, TV sports buffs will probably be disappointed to find the questions are rarely that hard in the first place.

PHIL ... 46%

The Essentials

Joysticks: Sinclair
Graphics: only the digitised pictures of Mr Coleman et al
Sound: a fair 128K title tune, but only a couple of in-game effects
Options: one or two players

Mark ... 50%

'Great, not only do we have David Coleman's banal wafflings assailing our ears on the TV, now we have a computer game version. And yes, all of your favourite rounds are here, the Pictureboard, Mystery Personality, and What Happened Next? pop up when you are least expecting them. I personally can't stand the TV show, but the game's even worse.'

Phil KingMark Caswell

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