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Daley Thompson's Decathlon vs Hypersports

JuanF. RamirezJuanF. Ramirez
edited October 2008 in Games
Maybe the best multi-sports games for the Spectrum. They both were published nearly the same time (1984 and 1985) and they both were a great success.

Which is your favourite? I go for Hypersports.
Post edited by JuanF. Ramirez on
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  • dm_boozefreekdm_boozefreek
    edited October 2008
    JuanF. Ramirez wrote: »
    Maybe the best multi-sports games for the Spectrum. They both were published nearly the same time (1984 and 1985) and they both were a great success.

    Which is your favourite? I go for Hypersports.

    What would be perfect would be a megamix incorpaorating the best events from each (although you know that would cause arguments). Also including a 2 player mode where you could actually have Hyper Bill compete against Daley Thompson.

    I'm just drivelling that fantasy out because I really can't decide which is my fave, I feel stronger towards Hypersports, but then I stop and think Decathlon had some really good fun events also.

    Sorry that's too much of a fine line I'm afriad and I don't know which side to step onto :D
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  • Matt_BMatt_B
    edited October 2008
    JuanF. Ramirez wrote: »
    Maybe the best multi-sports games for the Spectrum. They both were published nearly the same time (1984 and 1985) and they both were a great success.

    Which is your favourite? I go for Hypersports.

    Hypersports is better, but a year was a long time back then in terms of the advancement of Spectrum games development so it ought to have been. Decathlon was very good for its day, if ever so murderous on rubber keyboards.
  • psj3809psj3809
    edited October 2008
    Great poll ! Had to go for Daley Thompsons though, LOVED Track n field back then and Decathlon was our very own version and was superb.

    Hyper Sports is the more polished one, love the swimming/archery/skeet shooting but weight lifting/triple jump i was never keen on. Plus the horse was a complete bugger.

    Both superb games though but when i hear the 'jingle' before the first event in Decathlon i'm instantly back in '84/85. Brilliant game
  • sirclive1sirclive1
    edited October 2008
    I think both games are fantastic , if you were playing games at the time of Daleys release then you can appreciate the feeling of playing " Track n Field " at home which for me gives it the edge over hypersports which came along the following summer.

    Both games are in my top 20 speccy games anyway .
  • eypeyp
    edited October 2008
    I go for Hypersports, technically it is several light years over DT, smooth, fast, and have more funny games. I think you can't compare one to each other, it is more fair to compare Hypersports with Supertest.
  • psj3809psj3809
    edited October 2008
    Good point. Skeet shooting was superb in Hyper Sports though, many people disliked the archery but i thought that was a great test of skill.
  • ewgfewgf
    edited October 2008
    I was never a fan of this type of game, but I did quike like Hypersports a bit, so that gets my vote.

    To be honest, though, I think they were both good examples of the genre, and I seem to remember that both were very popular. And DTD at least was responsible for many broken keyboards and joysticks!
  • NickHNickH
    edited October 2008
    Hypersports is more fun, gives good atmosphere. DT just seemed like a wagglefest.
  • GreenCardGreenCard
    edited October 2008
    Both classics, but of the two, it's gotta be Hypersports.
  • ToxieDoggToxieDogg
    edited October 2008
    Love them both, but I slightly prefer the selection of events in Decathlon, TBH.
  • jdanddietjdanddiet
    edited October 2008
    Hypersports for me too...loved skeet shooting and archery, great when you got the hang of it.
  • zxspecticlezxspecticle
    edited October 2008
    JIF
    JAF
    JOF

    Hypersports!
  • SpectorSpector
    edited October 2008
    I'd just like to pointlessly point out that the Atari 2600 has a conversion of Track and Field from 1984 that beats Daley Thompson's Decathlon into pulp and in terms of gameplay is virtually identical to the arcade! It's the best arcade conversion on the 2600 ever in my opinion. Because of that, I can't say that Decathlon is great when a machine from 1977 smashes it into the ground.

    I liked HyperSports, though I was always a bit scared to play it in case I damaged the keyboard.
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  • RNDRND
    edited October 2008
    Much preferred the first one.
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  • thx1138thx1138
    edited October 2008
    Activisions game on the 2600 is a chore to play.
  • JuanF. RamirezJuanF. Ramirez
    edited October 2008
    If only Hypersports had got 2 sides on the tape, as in Decathlon, with more events...
  • NickHNickH
    edited October 2008
    JuanF. Ramirez wrote: »
    If only Hypersports had got 2 sides on the tape, as in Decathlon, with more events...

    Oh I dunno. I quite like looping through it with increasingly difficult qualification levels.
  • VampyreVampyre
    edited October 2008
    Great question. I've voted for Hypersports as the events are more enjoyable than DTD's, but back when they were first released I played DTD a lot more on the actual Speccy. I loved Track and Field and DTD was the first game to really give the same feel in the home. Both brilliant games although Hypersports has aged much better and is still a superb game to play. DTD seems a bit rough nowadays, but is IMO an undisputed classic.
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  • chop983chop983
    edited October 2008
    Spector wrote: »
    I'd just like to pointlessly point out that the Atari 2600 has a conversion of Track and Field from 1984 that beats Daley Thompson's Decathlon into pulp and in terms of gameplay is virtually identical to the arcade! It's the best arcade conversion on the 2600 ever in my opinion. Because of that, I can't say that Decathlon is great when a machine from 1977 smashes it into the ground.

    I liked HyperSports, though I was always a bit scared to play it in case I damaged the keyboard.

    Have you tied Double Dragon on the VCS, although it should be called Single Dragon.
  • chop983chop983
    edited October 2008
    In Hypersports Infoseek listing it's listed as No.2 in a series

    1 Track and Field
    2 Hypersports

    I realise that the Arcade games were released in that order but on the spectrum it was the other way round Hypersports was first.
  • zxspecticlezxspecticle
    edited October 2008
    If only Joffa Smith could find the long lost "poll vault" event from Hypersports - apparently it was programmed but lack of memory prevented its inclusion.
  • NickHNickH
    edited October 2008
    zxspecticle wrote: »
    If only Joffa Smith could find the long lost "poll vault" event from Hypersports - apparently it was programmed but lack of memory prevented its inclusion.

    I couldn't do that in the arcade, so I'm pretty glad it didn't make it to the Speccy version :)

    The weightlifting was a good choice for final event, I thought.
  • zxspecticlezxspecticle
    edited October 2008
    Incidentally - and I hope my memory isn?t playing tricks with me here as I don?t have a copy of the original cassette inlay to verify this, but............

    Mr. Smith used the 3 high scores for each event to hide fairly innocent messages e.g.

    FIN
    EEE
    GAN

    Which I presume refers to Paul Finnegan who was at Ocean Software at the time and went on to form Special FX with Joffa.

    But if you look at the back of the cassette inlay - one of the screenshots shows a event with the scores:

    ACG
    ARE
    POO

    Obviously referring to Ultimate Play The Game.

    I'm pretty sure that these particular high score names never actually made it into the finished mastered game.
  • RickardRickard
    edited October 2008
    zxspecticle wrote: »
    But if you look at the back of the cassette inlay - one of the screenshots shows a event with the scores:

    ACG
    ARE
    POO

    Here is the inlay, but it is impossible to see the text - if it is there.. :smile:

    It would be interesting to see a higher resolution scan of this.
  • dm_boozefreekdm_boozefreek
    edited October 2008
    Staring my less than reliable eyes and working with the shapes of the available letters in would appear that it is the first screenshit.....I mean shot :D
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  • RickardRickard
    edited October 2008
    dm_boozefreek wrote: »
    Staring my less than reliable eyes and working with the shapes of the available letters in would appear that it is the first screenshit.....I mean shot :D

    I am not saying you are not correct, however for me it looks something like:

    ALG
    AME
    POG

    (Which might mean something too!) :D
  • zxspecticlezxspecticle
    edited October 2008
    dm_boozefreek wrote: »
    Staring my less than reliable eyes and working with the shapes of the available letters in would appear that it is the first screenshit.....I mean shot :D

    Can anyone solve this great screenshit mystery?

    ;-)
  • dm_boozefreekdm_boozefreek
    edited October 2008
    zxspecticle wrote: »
    Can anyone solve this great screenshit mystery?

    ;-)

    :lol:

    The screenshit was a genuine typo I made :lol:

    But I figured I couldn't just leave it at that :D
    Every night is curry night!
  • VanTammenVanTammen
    edited October 2008
    Actually... I was always more of a sports hero fan...
  • zxspecticlezxspecticle
    edited October 2008
    POO PROOF EXCLUSIVE!!!!

    I can't find the ZX Spectrum inlay image but the C64 hitsquad re-release version has the same ZX Spectrum screensh(i)ot in the top left hand corner on the back of the inlay.

    See this link:

    http://c64tapes.org/scans/1037_if_1.jpg

    ACG
    ARE
    POO

    ;-)
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