There was a time when Olympic simulations were all the rage. Konami's Track & Field game lead the way but other offerings like Summer Games and Winter Games from Epyx were also popular on the many personal computers of the time period. Obviously Hudson wanted to get in on the action so they created this often forgotten but actually very enjoyable Olympic game called World Sports Competition. World Sports Competition certainly doesn't stray very far from the button-mashing game play of most other games of this genre, but what it does do is feature a few unique game play elements along with a staggering number of events to form a game that's still a lot of fun for gamers who can still appreciate this overly simple type of game play.

Since there's really no storyline going on in this game, I'll use this space to list the many different events World Sports Competition has to offer.  TRACK: 100-Meter Dash, 110-Meter Hurdles, and 400-Meter Dash. SHOOTING: Rapid Fire Pistol and Trap Shooting. FIELD: Long Jump, Triple Jump, High Jump, Discus Throw, Hammer Throw, and Javelin Throw. ARCHERY: Individual Archery. ROWING: Single Scull. SWIMMING: Freestyle, Breaststroke, Backstroke, Butterfly, and Individual Medley. That's 18 events in total so there's obviously no lack of variety in this one.

Much like most other Olympic simulations, there's not a whole lot to the game play. It's mostly a challenge to see just how fast you can press each of the buttons. World Sports Competition does up the ante a little bit by adding in some interesting game play twists to make things a bit more realistic. One good example is the swimming events. While fast button mashing is involved, the game also requires you to take random breaths in order to keep your oxygen level up. Failure to do so results in loss of strength and speed, which can cost you dearly in these events. It's small details like this that at least gives the game a little more challenge and a little less feeling of just randomly pressing buttons. With so many events, there is a pretty steep learning curve in becoming familiar with all of the many events, but once you get it down, the game is actually a lot of fun to play, especially if you have 3 other people to play with. It's a fun single player experience, but World Sports Competition really shines with multiple players. It's certainly not an overly deep game play experience, but the little extra play control additions do add an extra dimension to the entire package.

As you can see from the screenshots, this game is obviously more visual than Konami's arcade hit Track & Field and seems to share more graphical similarities with Summer Games from Epyx. The game doesn't do much to push the TurboGrafx-16 system visually, but a game like this really doesn't have much need for fancy graphical effects anyway. If there's one thing that really stands out in World Sports Competition it's the extremely realistic movements of the players in the game. Every athlete features very authentic movements and they have the frames of animation to back it all up. This game might not set the TurboGrafx-16 world on fire graphically, but it's one of the best looking Olympic simulations ever made so I guess that should be good enough.

Here's where things go downhill a little. The music in the game is pretty substandard. Now keep in mind, there's not much need for fancy music in this type of game, but for some reason the developers felt the need to force feed some very annoying musical tracks into each of the game's events and these musical pieces can really become repetitive after you've played the game for a long period of time. The sound effects are about what you'd expect from a game like this with even the announcer sharing a striking resemblance to the one found in the Track & Field arcade title. Hudson even managed to muffle their announcer's voice to match the one in Track & Field more closely. The mediocre music in the game certainly doesn't do much to damage the overall experience, but it will make you wish that they would have just left it out altogether rather than tack on these very mediocre tunes.

Fans of these types of games will definitely find a lot to like about World Sports Competition. It's got everything you could want plus a large number of events to take part in. Sometimes it's nice to be able to pick up a game that doesn't really require much thought and just have fun with it. Invite some friends over and see how much fun a game like this can be. Just don't blame me when your thumbs cramp up and fall off.