Pocket Athlete

.: By: Jason Surguine :: Device used: E-125 :: October 20, 2001 :: Buy this game :.

Pocket Athlete. It's like having an athlete in your pocket! No wait, that can't be right. It's like having an Olympic tournament in your pocket... sort of.

This game combines the athletic events of: 100 meter Sprint, Archery, Long Jump, Skeet Shooting, Javelin Throw, 110 meter Hurdles, and the Hammer Throw. In other words, the exact same games that were included in Konami's Track and Field I for the NES (substituting the hammer throw for the triple jump... which was my favorite).

For those of you that haven't played (or even heard of) Track and Field, and you think that the NES is some old relic that you saw next to the Spectrum in a gaming museum, I'd suggest finding the game/ROM and trying it out in an emulator such as PocketNES.

The main difference between Pocket Athlete and Track and Field is the play control. That's about it. Instead of button mashing (Track and Field), Pocket Athlete implements a power bar of sorts in which you try to time the pressing of the button to the maximum the bar can fill up without over-swinging. The latter results in a miss and detracts from your power. I can't help but feel that this technique is very similar to the power bar found in ZIOGolf (1 or 2). Hmm...

The graphics at their best are way below par (pun intended). Most of the graphics in the game are about the same or perhaps 1% better than the game's NES counterpart. There is even a completely unacceptable blurring effect on the javelin throw stage. One exception is the Skeet Shooting stage, in which the background looks as if it is directly taken from ZIOGolf 2. Another exception is the very professional quality menus, with nice scrolling backgrounds and such. Of course, ZIO has always been known for their nice menus.

The play control using this power bar method is awkward, but usable in some of the events. However, in the 110m Hurdles, it is completely ridiculous to have to control the ongoing power bar and the jumping with a separate button at the same time. The control in Archery and Skeet Shooting are just like the NES, so no problems there. The Hammer Throw control is just stupid and frustrating, and makes absolutely no logical sense. It's more of a guessing game as to when to hit the button correctly.

The sound in the game is decent. There are quite a few quality sound effects and voices, but they all get really annoying and on your nerves real fast. There is some music, a few bad drum loops thrown together; long enough for you to get through the menu screens. Sound doesn't appear to have been a high priority in this game.

So what was a high priority in this game? I don't know, but I have noticed that my golf swing in ZIOGolf has gotten considerably better. And the menus are pretty. That seems to be the extent of it. This game somehow feels like ZIOSoft didn't even create the game themselves (except maybe the menus) but instead published some bad student programmer's homework project and slapped their name on it.

I just didn't enjoy this game, which isn't to say that it's a completely bad game. It's not; its just very bland. This is a very old concept yet it doesn't present anything new, especially for the Pocket PC platform. ZIOSoft could have easily added a few more events, at least as many as Track and Field 2 (it had a base of 12 regular events), especially bearing in mind that Pocket Athlete is 13 years newer. In all honesty, I would rather play Track and Field in PocketNES on my Pocket PC than this poor imitation.
 

Pros:

• Nice Menus!

• Acceptable graphics.

• Decent Sound.

• Semi-innovative control.

Cons:

• Graphics are almost as good as Track and Field I for the NES.

• Play control is horrid on some events.

• Old concept, with nothing new added.

.: Game category: Sports Games :: Reviews Index :: Buy this game :.