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Realistic summer sports simulator

Usually, when a sports game gets into my hands my initial reaction is "oh damn...". Since I started playing games about 25 years ago I've mostly been disappointed in sports games. And it kind of makes sense, since the software companies used to get a big license from an Olympiad or summer/winter games or get a big contemporary star athlete to sign and deliver a rushed game which would go and sell lots, but would be of little substance (usually very nicely presented but mostly unplayable). There are a few exceptions to this of course (of course!) like Activision's Decathlon or Atari Olympics (which of course was a piss take if you didn't select the man or woman as your character), but try as I might I couldn't think of any more, and that's a bit worrying. (Okay, The Games: summer edition was quite fun, especially when you missed in some events). So what about this?

Well, it's got 15 events so you get enough variation in them. The graphics as you see are blocky and very simple and the sounds barely functional.

But the gameplay is really fun!

Instead of the usual "waggle till your arm comes out of its socket and press fire at the right time oh wait that wasn't the right time you fool!", you just use your mouse (or touch screen). The athlete has inertia, so dragging him across the screen he won't just follow your pointer, but he/she'll gradually gain speed. A power bar is at the top so you can give your athlete unlimited kinetic energy. Also, this bar recharges but you have to leave the athlete alone to cool down for a few moments.

Of course, having an athlete behave like a rigid body, trying to make him compete in an event is dead funny to watch and play! In the first event I tried (Javelin) you have to drag the athlete along with the javelin up to a point and then pull him/her back so that the javelin won't be affected by him/her anymore and go on its way. It took some tries to even make him and the javelin follow my movement, which was fun. But when I started laughing was when I realised that I could lift the athlete suddenly, then lower him down - the javelin would simply go higher and then start coming down, which gave me plenty of time to pull the athlete to the left and give him a good swing to the right to set the javelin racing across the screen :D. Needless to say, the rest of the events are like this and don't repeat themselves - each time you have to find the trick to score higher.

And that's about it I suppose. I had a really good time playing this so I thoroughly recommend it (get it here for Windows, here for iOS and here for Android)

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