Producer: Silverbird
Retail Price: £1.99
Author: Probe Software

Older readers may recall a strange craze that caught on a good few years ago which involved standing on a stick with a spring on the end and bouncing around. This ancient art was known as pogoing.

Pogostick Olympics revives this weird pastime and elevates it from the pages of The Beano to the status of a sport. The game is divided into five events.

Event number one has you bouncing along trying to pop floating balloons with a spiked helmet. Next is the 110m hurdles which is closely followed by the triple jump, target practice and an obstacle course.

The player gets three attempts to qualify for each event before being eliminated from the contest.

If all three events are successfully completed with a high enough score, the player has himself into the elite hall a fame.

COMMENTS

Joysticks: Kempston
Graphics: simplistic sprites and samey backdrops for every event
Sound: sparse spot effects

After skateboarding in 720° and rollerskating in Skate Crazy, the designers of Pogostick Olympics had to look back a few years to find a suitable craze on which to base a game. I thought the only place where pogoing remained in fashion was within the pages of The Beano. The game itself contains five very tedious events, none of which is in the least bit playable. Progress is so easy that even a three-year-old could complete the game. Every event is very similar in both graphics and gameplay, with a simply drawn figure bouncing through a horizontally scrolling landscape and the controls themselves are very basic. This, along with the ease of completion, makes this a dodo instead of a pogo simulation. If this is what pogoing is about give me a skateboard any day!
PHIL [21%]

At least when you're pogoing out in the open air there's scope for a little variety: you can wave your arms about (look no hands!), perform daredevil hops, and hurtle headfirst into the flowerbed. This sort of action is painfully absent from Silverbird's simulation. In fact, it doesn't really simulate anything very much. All you can do is waggle the joystick, press fire every now and then, and hope for the best. Jerky graphics and simplistic backdrops mean that you can't even enjoy the scenery as you're bounding along.
KATI [19%]

BARGAIN BASEMENT

And down in the Cheapies Emporium this wee (nothing over £3 considered), is Bristol's answer to Billy Idol, Nat Pryce!

Silverbird
£1.99
Reviewer: Nat Pryce

There haven't been many joystick waggling games released for quite a while, but now Firebird has brought out Pogostick Olympics, and what a ridiculous game it is too. You control a bloke on a pogostick who wears a spiked helmet and must compete in five events, scoring as many points as possibile. Score zero points three times and you're out of the contest.

The first event is balloon popping, where you use the spike on your helmet. Next is the 110 metre hurdles and then the triple jump where you must pop a balloon, jump over a bush and long-jump into the sand pit. After that is target practice where you fire champagne corks at bouncing balls and finally there's an obstacle course.

The presentation of Pogostick Olympics is excellent, but the game itself is boring and unplayable. If you like waggling your joystick, you might like this, but I didn't find it that much fun.