Daley Thompson's Decathlon - there must be 50 ways to break a joystick
Ladies and gentlemen, all hail the destroyer of joysticks, the trasher of keyboards and the mangler of finger joints , I give you Daley Thompson's Decathlon.
One of my favourite sports simulations on the ZX Spectrum . This game was split over two sides of a cassette , so double the fun for your money. 1st Day - 100 meters, Long jump, Shot-put, High jump and 400 meters. 2nd Day - 100 meters Hurdles, Discus, Pole-vault, Javelin and 1500 meters.
Back in the day everyone knew Daley Thompson, the athlete who could do pretty much everything and excel at it. So to see him in truly epic form on the loading screen , you just knew you were in for a humdinger of a game! My father and I were rubbing our hands in glee , uncoiling that joystick cable , sticking it firmly on a suitable table and sipping our Lucozade in anticipation. Bring it on!
Back in the day everyone knew Daley Thompson, the athlete who could do pretty much everything and excel at it. So to see him in truly epic form on the loading screen , you just knew you were in for a humdinger of a game! My father and I were rubbing our hands in glee , uncoiling that joystick cable , sticking it firmly on a suitable table and sipping our Lucozade in anticipation. Bring it on!
This game has three controls, left , right and jump. To make your athlete run it was a case of ...left, right, left, right , left .....you get the idea? Pound those keys as quickly as you can ....in fact ...humour me...experiment now , dear reader, press n then m and then repeat as quickly as you can. Fingers hurting yet? Ours were ( and Daley I Blame YOU) , so after a few games we had decided that the joystick was a better option. There is something so simply addictive about this game, the drive to do better, to get a world record, to make Daley proud.
In the throwing events you were given three attempts, this provided a spot of in house competition between my father and I, as we attempted to launch javelins, discus, shot puts at the magic angle to get the world records. Although it must be noted it is a little bit of a novelty to have to run with the shot put. Very soon the house was alive with shouts of 'throw...throw it now...no...no ....NO ' as a foul was achieved by not letting go at the correct time. Thankfully it tended to be the little sprite on the screen that got the verbal abuse and not the person playing!
But the most hated events ( with the exception of the 1500 meters , where you didn't have to key press to run) were the sprinting and hurdling. Having decided that to preserve the life of the dear little rubber spectrum keys we were going to use the nice shiny new joystick , a whole new world of pain opened up. A brief look at the instructions for this game has confirmed that no wrist , arm or shoulder warm up instructions were included for the joystick athlete. No health and safety rules for positioning of joystick were offered , this was the early 80's , dear reader and we were still presumed to have a smattering of common sense.
Within a few weeks our nice shiny new joystick was not as shiny or new feeling as it had been, in fact it had developed some sort of wheezing, squeaking noise. On one fateful hurdling session it moved right no more . An emergency operation was carried out by my father the electrician and it returned briefly mummified in electrical tape , only to find itself with the embarrassing problem of turning right randomly . Which was then joined by the habit of firing by itself ( possibly as a result of being thumped for not turning right.) It was a sad shadow of itself ( and Daley I blame YOU.)
Within a few weeks our nice shiny new joystick was not as shiny or new feeling as it had been, in fact it had developed some sort of wheezing, squeaking noise. On one fateful hurdling session it moved right no more . An emergency operation was carried out by my father the electrician and it returned briefly mummified in electrical tape , only to find itself with the embarrassing problem of turning right randomly . Which was then joined by the habit of firing by itself ( possibly as a result of being thumped for not turning right.) It was a sad shadow of itself ( and Daley I blame YOU.)
We did eventually have to replace it, and it's replacement did survive our fixation with the game. However after one fateful 400 meters race the table that the joystick was attached to lost two of it's legs, shedding the spectrum, cassette recorder , joystick and glasses of orange squash onto the floor and getting me sent to my room (and Daley I blame YOU.)
But was there another reason I loved this game, besides the chance to beat my father at most of the events, I'm sure he will tell a different story of course! At the time I was starting a new school, where for the first time we were doing these athletic events ( with the exception of the pole vault, the 80's did still have some health and safety. ) Somehow after playing these events on the computer they didn't seem so difficult , most athletes now imagine themselves doing well before an event to improve their performance. Perhaps this was a crude way of carrying out this technique, perhaps I was psyching myself up to succeed.
I never did compete outside of school and I was in fact pretty rubbish at any sport that didn't involve a racket or a swimming pool , but I was able to keep up with the rest of the class, even with my lack of coordination. Even the high jump won me a merit award certificate, in fact I managed to get merit awards at most of the sports featured in this program. Perhaps I had just learnt to stop falling over my feet , or had the little black box helped me once more ?
I like to think it was the little box ( and Daley I blame YOU...Thank you )
But was there another reason I loved this game, besides the chance to beat my father at most of the events, I'm sure he will tell a different story of course! At the time I was starting a new school, where for the first time we were doing these athletic events ( with the exception of the pole vault, the 80's did still have some health and safety. ) Somehow after playing these events on the computer they didn't seem so difficult , most athletes now imagine themselves doing well before an event to improve their performance. Perhaps this was a crude way of carrying out this technique, perhaps I was psyching myself up to succeed.
I never did compete outside of school and I was in fact pretty rubbish at any sport that didn't involve a racket or a swimming pool , but I was able to keep up with the rest of the class, even with my lack of coordination. Even the high jump won me a merit award certificate, in fact I managed to get merit awards at most of the sports featured in this program. Perhaps I had just learnt to stop falling over my feet , or had the little black box helped me once more ?
I like to think it was the little box ( and Daley I blame YOU...Thank you )