Uncle Buck
Ghost Writer
- Jul 7, 2003
- 28,076
Taken from todays Guardian;
1) Football Manager, (Addictive Games, 1982)
Sure it looks basic now. But back in the day, Football Manager was more revolutionary than a particularly uppity French peasant circa 1789. When it arrived on the fresh-rubber scented ZX Spectrum, proper sports computer games didn't really exist - no, Pong and Horace Goes Skiing don't count - so it was no surprise that Football Manager, which featured match highlights in glorious 3D, promotion and relegation, transfers, different skill levels, and let you take the team of your choice from the Fourth to the First Division, sold by the gazillion. Comments from hopelessly addicted users soon began appearing in the game's adverts (including Mr A Wright of Lancashire who wrote: "It's my own fault - you did warn me. I am totally and completely hooked on FOOTBALL MANAGER") - but they were nowhere near as prominent as pictures of its creator, Kevin Toms - whose wavy Princess Di perm, thick beard and smug smile, took pride of place on every cassette box and ad. Amazingly, sales - at £6.95 a pop for the ZX Spectrum and £5.95 for ZX81 version (with no graphics) - remained unaffected. Sean Ingle
2) Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! (Nintendo, 1987)
You can keep your Wii Sports and your fancy motion-sensitive technology - any gamer worth his salt knows Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! will always be the king of console boxing. If the game's addictiveness came from glorious, reflex-oriented simplicity, its genius lay in the (shamelessly politically incorrect) characters. Through 14 fights, 4ft 8in, 107lb 17-year-old Little Mac took on such greats as Germany's Von Kaiser - "Surrender! Or I will conquer you!", Japan's Piston Honda - "Sushi, Kamikaze, Fujiyama, Nipponichi ...", and Russia's Soda Popinski - originally Vodka Drunkenski before Nintendo decided it was unfair to stereotype Russians as drunks. Confusingly the latter retained such catchphrases as "I drink to prepare for a fight. Tonight I am very prepared!" and "I can't drive, so I'm gonna walk all over you!" Also worth remembering are the bizarre top-down approach taken by Activision Boxing, and the thoroughly playable Barry McGuigan World Championship Boxing. Paolo Bandini
3) Track and Field(Konami, 1983)
Unless you're counting Pong as a tennis game, which we're not, this is arguably still the only sports title which ranks alongside seminal and iconic arcade classics like Pac Man, Space Invaders and Missile Command. The frantic button-pressing mechanism - which sent crippling RSI pains shooting all the way up to the armpit in the days before anyone knew what RSI was - influenced a swathe of Olympic-themed games over the following couple of decades, the most advanced and enjoyable of which were surely the classic runnin', divin' and skeet-shootin' Epyx series which included Summer Games, Winter Games and California Games. Daley Thompson's Decathlon is also worth a mention, but for the genius of its simplicity, Track and Field's button-pulping card of 100m dash, long jump, javelin, 100m hurdles, hammer throw and high jump remains the original and best. Scott Murray
4) Kick Off (Anco, 1989)
Yes, Match Day came first. And yes, there are people who'll argue blind that International Soccer or Emlyn Hughes International Soccer were the best football game of the 1980s. But Kick Off by Dino Dini surely trumped them all.
At first glance it was 1,000mph kick and rush - which arguably reflected the First Division at the time - but delve a little deeper and you realised that it brought a whole set of tricks to the table, including yellow and red cards, fouls, action replays and even referees with different moods. What really set Kick Off apart, however, was that the ball didn't stick to the player's feet, and could be trapped or knocked forward depending on the situation. The critics were universal in their praise, with Amiga User International going as far to call it the "best computer game ever". Admittedly Player Manager and Kick Off 2 (and arguably Emlyn Hughes on the Amiga) were even better, but by then the innocent 1980s had made way for the grungy 1990s. SI
5) Leader Board Golf (US Gold/Access, 1986)
Flick through the credits of the latest Tiger Woods offering and you'll find a glaring omission. For it, along with every decent golf game in the history of mankind owes a John Daly-sized debt to the Carver boys, Roger and his late brother Bruce. The pair mastered the ground-breakingly simple three-click swing function to which World Tour Golf, Microprose Golf, Greg Norman's Ultimate Golf: Shark Attack and EA's numerous PGA Tour-to-Tiger titles all remained true. "It's not just a golf simulation on a computer - it is golf on a computer," raved Zzap magazine, awarding the game a 97% rating despite its sole shortcoming: a total absence of bunkers. Still, with four courses and more water to navigate than Christopher Colombus, there was plenty of durability to keep gameplayers busy until Access released the first of several sequels, Leader Board Executive. Leader Board II and World Class Leader Board ensued, before the Carvers switched their attentions to creating the brilliant Links series. So the next time you do this, spare a thought for the game that made it possible. James Dart
6) Jack Charlton Match Fishing (Alligata Software, 1985)
These days the thought of young boys sat wide-eyed in front of their computer screens, rods in hand, would alarm most parents. But the 80s were more innocent times and Jack Charlton Match Fishing swept the nation. Players chose their rod, bait and hook size before heading to a theoretical lake to catch some theoretical fish. But this wasn't all about fun, the game taught valuable lessons. The stunning pixellated scenery gave youngsters a love of nature, the multi-player element promoted friendship and the fish were weighed in imperial and metric, creating an early bridge to EU integration.
Caps should also be doffed to Peter Shilton's Handball Maradona for cashing in on a national tragedy. The game didn't feature Shilts or El Diego, just a rather shoddy game in which you were a goalkeeper with no control over your players - not unlike Shilton's managerial career, then. For sheer repetitive boredom Eddie Kidd Jump Challenge is worth a mention, featuring as it does, perhaps the most anus-clenchingly painful soundtrack of all time. The same can't be said for BMX Simulator, though. If Mark Ronson remixed this bass-tastic number and slapped Amy Winehouse's vocals on top, he'd have a hit on his hands. Tom Lutz
1) Football Manager, (Addictive Games, 1982)
Sure it looks basic now. But back in the day, Football Manager was more revolutionary than a particularly uppity French peasant circa 1789. When it arrived on the fresh-rubber scented ZX Spectrum, proper sports computer games didn't really exist - no, Pong and Horace Goes Skiing don't count - so it was no surprise that Football Manager, which featured match highlights in glorious 3D, promotion and relegation, transfers, different skill levels, and let you take the team of your choice from the Fourth to the First Division, sold by the gazillion. Comments from hopelessly addicted users soon began appearing in the game's adverts (including Mr A Wright of Lancashire who wrote: "It's my own fault - you did warn me. I am totally and completely hooked on FOOTBALL MANAGER") - but they were nowhere near as prominent as pictures of its creator, Kevin Toms - whose wavy Princess Di perm, thick beard and smug smile, took pride of place on every cassette box and ad. Amazingly, sales - at £6.95 a pop for the ZX Spectrum and £5.95 for ZX81 version (with no graphics) - remained unaffected. Sean Ingle
2) Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! (Nintendo, 1987)
You can keep your Wii Sports and your fancy motion-sensitive technology - any gamer worth his salt knows Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! will always be the king of console boxing. If the game's addictiveness came from glorious, reflex-oriented simplicity, its genius lay in the (shamelessly politically incorrect) characters. Through 14 fights, 4ft 8in, 107lb 17-year-old Little Mac took on such greats as Germany's Von Kaiser - "Surrender! Or I will conquer you!", Japan's Piston Honda - "Sushi, Kamikaze, Fujiyama, Nipponichi ...", and Russia's Soda Popinski - originally Vodka Drunkenski before Nintendo decided it was unfair to stereotype Russians as drunks. Confusingly the latter retained such catchphrases as "I drink to prepare for a fight. Tonight I am very prepared!" and "I can't drive, so I'm gonna walk all over you!" Also worth remembering are the bizarre top-down approach taken by Activision Boxing, and the thoroughly playable Barry McGuigan World Championship Boxing. Paolo Bandini
3) Track and Field(Konami, 1983)
Unless you're counting Pong as a tennis game, which we're not, this is arguably still the only sports title which ranks alongside seminal and iconic arcade classics like Pac Man, Space Invaders and Missile Command. The frantic button-pressing mechanism - which sent crippling RSI pains shooting all the way up to the armpit in the days before anyone knew what RSI was - influenced a swathe of Olympic-themed games over the following couple of decades, the most advanced and enjoyable of which were surely the classic runnin', divin' and skeet-shootin' Epyx series which included Summer Games, Winter Games and California Games. Daley Thompson's Decathlon is also worth a mention, but for the genius of its simplicity, Track and Field's button-pulping card of 100m dash, long jump, javelin, 100m hurdles, hammer throw and high jump remains the original and best. Scott Murray
4) Kick Off (Anco, 1989)
Yes, Match Day came first. And yes, there are people who'll argue blind that International Soccer or Emlyn Hughes International Soccer were the best football game of the 1980s. But Kick Off by Dino Dini surely trumped them all.
At first glance it was 1,000mph kick and rush - which arguably reflected the First Division at the time - but delve a little deeper and you realised that it brought a whole set of tricks to the table, including yellow and red cards, fouls, action replays and even referees with different moods. What really set Kick Off apart, however, was that the ball didn't stick to the player's feet, and could be trapped or knocked forward depending on the situation. The critics were universal in their praise, with Amiga User International going as far to call it the "best computer game ever". Admittedly Player Manager and Kick Off 2 (and arguably Emlyn Hughes on the Amiga) were even better, but by then the innocent 1980s had made way for the grungy 1990s. SI
5) Leader Board Golf (US Gold/Access, 1986)
Flick through the credits of the latest Tiger Woods offering and you'll find a glaring omission. For it, along with every decent golf game in the history of mankind owes a John Daly-sized debt to the Carver boys, Roger and his late brother Bruce. The pair mastered the ground-breakingly simple three-click swing function to which World Tour Golf, Microprose Golf, Greg Norman's Ultimate Golf: Shark Attack and EA's numerous PGA Tour-to-Tiger titles all remained true. "It's not just a golf simulation on a computer - it is golf on a computer," raved Zzap magazine, awarding the game a 97% rating despite its sole shortcoming: a total absence of bunkers. Still, with four courses and more water to navigate than Christopher Colombus, there was plenty of durability to keep gameplayers busy until Access released the first of several sequels, Leader Board Executive. Leader Board II and World Class Leader Board ensued, before the Carvers switched their attentions to creating the brilliant Links series. So the next time you do this, spare a thought for the game that made it possible. James Dart
6) Jack Charlton Match Fishing (Alligata Software, 1985)
These days the thought of young boys sat wide-eyed in front of their computer screens, rods in hand, would alarm most parents. But the 80s were more innocent times and Jack Charlton Match Fishing swept the nation. Players chose their rod, bait and hook size before heading to a theoretical lake to catch some theoretical fish. But this wasn't all about fun, the game taught valuable lessons. The stunning pixellated scenery gave youngsters a love of nature, the multi-player element promoted friendship and the fish were weighed in imperial and metric, creating an early bridge to EU integration.
Caps should also be doffed to Peter Shilton's Handball Maradona for cashing in on a national tragedy. The game didn't feature Shilts or El Diego, just a rather shoddy game in which you were a goalkeeper with no control over your players - not unlike Shilton's managerial career, then. For sheer repetitive boredom Eddie Kidd Jump Challenge is worth a mention, featuring as it does, perhaps the most anus-clenchingly painful soundtrack of all time. The same can't be said for BMX Simulator, though. If Mark Ronson remixed this bass-tastic number and slapped Amy Winehouse's vocals on top, he'd have a hit on his hands. Tom Lutz
