Almost the original 'waggle your joystick until it chokes and dies' game, Hyper Sports was a brill sports simulation for it's time. Originally released in 1985 by Imagine, it includes six wholesome events to get stuck into. Each one is controlled using just the left, right and fire keys.
Swimming comes first, and the budding athlete must perform a racing dive into the pool and move the left and right arms with the corresponding key. This is great fun, tapping away and going jolly fast, when suddenly the swimmer begins to choke and you find out that FIRE makes him breathe!
Skeet Shooting is next on the menu (what did the poor Skeet do then?). The controls for this are weird at first. You must use left to move the sights up (!) and right to move along then fire at the target. Fast reactions are needed to pass this event.
The Long Horse is welcome relief from the Skeet Shooting. All you have to do is lump on the springboard and somersault over the long horse. Timing is essential because otherwise you will do yourself some terrible damage! Archery, Triple Jump and one for the macho men (and women), Weight-Lifting, are also in the line up. The question is, will you have the energy to take them all on?
The graphics were outstanding in 1985, but you can hardly expect them to keep up with some of today's. Colourless sprites of the players leap and bound around the screen with the more colourful backgrounds scrolling by. They're still pretty good though.
Hyper Sports is a classic Spectrum game. If you didn't get it first time round, this is a chance you cannot miss. Definitely one for the collection.