This game is based on those very primitive PONG-type home video consoles of the late 1970s/early 80s. For me it is particularly reminiscent of the standard game cartridge that came with the "Grandstand colour programmable" aka "Grandstand SD070" console endorsed by Kevin Keegan in the UK. This was the first video console I ever owned.
Truthfully these games could keep you occupied for five minutes at most, or perhaps a little bit longer if having a two-player game, but even by ZX Spectrum standards, they are incredibly primitive. It was at the time just amazing though to see an interactive video game actually being played on the home TV set!!
The games available on Video Sport are selectable as follows:-
1: Tennis against the computer
2: Tennis (2-player)
3: Football (2-player)
4: Hockey (2-player)
Although, true to the original consoles, they all look and play pretty much the same. For example don't expect "football" to have any footballers in it, just bats and the ball, exactly like "tennis".
Keys are
P1: Q=up, A=down, Z=left, X=right
P2: P=up, L=down, N=left, M=right
It is unfortunate that the only game available to the single player against the computer is "Tennis" and the others can only be played in two-player mode. As such, I find the single player tennis variant completely unplayable. This is either because I'm not very good it (quite probable) or because the game doesn't work too well with digital inputs such as keys and a really fast ball. The original console version had hard-wired analogue joysticks allowing a variable speed bat and I'm pretty sure the ball was not usually quite as fast as it is in this game.
I score this two though just out of pure nostalgia value. The general disappointingly simplistic feel of the game is quite well done and of course the memorable completely plain green background is present in all game modes.
Although I loaded this game up several times under emulation without problems, I once got a "disk sector read error" which after a "(R)etry" loaded the game fine. How that can seemingly randomly happen using an emulated disk and drive I'll never know.
In summary, I like the game even though it's dreadful. It's just the sort of quirky title I like to faff around with for a few minutes. If nothing else it embodies the spirit of ultimately hollow yet somehow appealing early home video gaming, which predated the home computer revolution of the early 80s by a good few years.
