Your Sinclair


Cyberball

Author: Leigh Loveday
Publisher: The Hit Squad
Machine: Spectrum 128K

 
Published in Your Sinclair #81

Cyberball

I'm not a huge fan of sports sims (with the possible exception of a bit of tennis), nor do I have a great love for complicated games. So when Cyberball, probably the world's most complicated sports sim, glared up at me from the Jiffy bag, my initial resentment quickly turned to horror as I realised I was going to have to try and play the blimmin' thing.

After a brief period of blubbing, I gave it a shot. Discarding the feebly superficial instructions, I flunked my way through a series of bewildering tactics screens only to flounder in the turgid gameplay.

Loads of beefy robots chugging around smashing lumps off each other and trying to score a touchdown before the ball explodes - great in theory, crap in practice. The presentation is fine, but as the game plays more slowly than a half-dead inebriated sloth with chronic verrucas, by the time anything starts happening you've completely forgotten the tactics you'd chosen. Not that they meant much in the first place.

So, unless you're one of the world's top American Football players or a whopping great fan of the original coin-op, I'm afraid you'd have more success trying to decipher a rap by MC Kinky.

Leigh Loveday

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