C&VG


Supersports
By Gremlin
Amstrad CPC464

 
Published in Computer & Video Games #86

Supersports

Supersports bills itself as "The Alternative Olympics". Alternative. Yes, you could say that. Just get to look at what's on offer.

First up is the Crack Shot event. You have a gunsight, a six-shot rifle, and an ordinary, everyday, city alley. You gain points for blasting away at the bounding tin cans and pop-up targets that appear from drains, and the round targets that mysteriously float across the alley. Now and again a friendly Alley cat will pop up somewhere and sit on a wall or bin. Don't shoot at these, or you lose five points.

This event isn't too hard once you get the hang of positioning your gunsight in the path of the target and then blasting away. The only things that make it difficult are that after every six shots you have to reload which is a time waster, and you only get one and a half minutes to score as much as possible. After each event, you are shown a league table, showing who's in the lead, and told if anyone has broken any records.

Supersports

From the elegance of a dirty alley, to the murky depths of an Olympic size bidet. The Dare Devil Dive. The idea behind this little barrel of laughs is that you climb a ladder (anything from 40 feet to 400 feet) and then attempt to jump from it, perform as many flips and tumbles in the air as possible, and then land in a kiddies' inflatable paddling pool.

The slate smash is a laugh and a half. Two sumo wrestlers stand either side of your karate champ and hold up pieces of slate. You have to punch or kick in the appropriate direction and try to break as many slates in the 60 seconds.

Cross bow has you at the end of a field, with a target at the other side. Waggle your joystick to build up pressure, then press fire. Aim the bow using the little sight provided, taking care to compensate for the wind and distance and everything.

Supersports

You don't have a time limit, and you don't have a specified number of lives. Not much of a challenge really.

Finally, it's the underwater assault course. Swim the length of the black lagoon avoiding clams, jellyfish and mines and collecting coins, occasionally swimming to the surface to get a bit of air. Amazingly tedious, this bit.

All this is overseen by your zany commentator, Gilbert, whose face remains perpetually in the corner of the screen, a little speech bubble appearing now and then and his mouth moving amazingly out of synch. Not as good as Bobby Yazz.

Graphics are nice and colourful, as seems to be the norm with Amstrad games these days. The sound is jingly, but becomes grating very quickly.

Although there is technically nothing wrong with Supersports, I still don't think I can heartily recommend it. I just didn't have much in the way of fun playing it. And when it comes down to it, it's the fun that counts.