Previous Next

From the spate of computerised cash-ins on the Olympics, Ocean's game stands out. Its ten different events are for ince correctly described as 'gruelling' in the game's blurb - the four running competitions culminate in a 1,500 metres so exhausting it might induce permanent muscular fatigue. As for the pole vault... well, visually, this is pretty much a straight cop from the summer's arcade hit Track & Field. Your competitor is given speed by your ability to slam the joystick to and fro at maximum velocity: officials trot out to measure the long jump; and the crowd roars for success and remains stonily silent at failure. Four blunders and you're out. The graphics look comparable to the original on both the C64 and the Spectrum.

But this is really a game where you're fighting against hardware limitations. I wouldn't like to say how long the average joystick will stand up to the pounding necessary to complete the 1,500 metres (a touchpad model is probably the most suitable) and it really calls for no imagination or instinctive skill to score well at the game, just a kind of miniaturised brute force.

My scores also seemed to carry over from game to game. Good copy but the scaling down doesn't do much for a micro.