Previous Next

The TV licence is a curious sort of game, always bought in droves because people who love the TV show will obviously want to play it at home, but there is always a tendency with this sort of thing for the programmers to take the 'it will sell whatever' attitude and not write the game they could have done. This is very true of A Question Of Sport, it is nothing if unspectacular, and I find it hard to get excited about this game when it is so obvious that it is not up to the usual standards of Superior.

Of course it contains graphics of Bill, Ian and David (although all three have now been replaced several years ago by Sue Barker, John Parrot and Ally McCoist) and you get to answer questions about sport - but it is hardly ground breaking in format or style. It contains most of the rounds that they do on the TV show - but as the BBC is not exactly suited to video style graphics the 'What Happened Next' round has been changed to just being asked a question about what happened next rather than seeing a film clip - fair enough, but couldn't they have done something more interesting? Basically, every round is the same - no picture board for the same reasons, just a question behind each square, and this format stays the same all the way through - it is just which question is asked that changes. Also, the number of questions available is not particularly huge, it is possible to get asked the same question more than once in the game, and this happened frequently to me when I played. Now you see what I mean about shoddy workmanship?

The graphics, sadly do not look very credible, and when you consider that two other games, namely Elite and Revs are the same price as this, you start to laugh at it - or, if you bought it, cry. Simple blocks and lines are used, save the pictures of the various celebs faces (although they are out of date now). Sound is very minimal, not even any applause when you win the game! Sorry about this, but it is just very boring both sonically and visually.

If you were absolutely nuts about sports (and you would have to remember quite a bit about 80's sporting events) then you might buy this game - but if you just wanted some fun, then I find it hard to recommend over something like Play It Again Sam 1 or for that matter any of the Sam's. Definitely not Superior at their best.