Vintage Athletes' Fame Lives On In Videogames

JoeCotellese writes "Salon is running an article (ad click-through required) discussing how athletes live on in video games long past their retirement. In some cases, the article claims: 'The fond memories that a particular fan may have for a sports star owes more to the performance of his pixelated version than his actual on-court heroics'."

Comments

Here are the ones from my youth

[lake2112]

Bruce Jenner - I remember playing the decathlon game for my 286 in the mid-80's. It's the only reason why I know who he is. Bo Jackson - Who could forget the infamous 2-in-1 football/baseball handheld made by Tiger. I play Bo in football, I swich the handheld over and voila Bo playing Baseball!!

Re:Here are the ones from my youth

[exick]

Bo Jackson in Tecmo Bowl was probably the most insane video game athlete of all time.

Re:Here are the ones from my youth

[nelsonal]

I had this wierd decathalon card game, the cards were different athletes through the ages, one that assured victory in most events was the Bruce Jenner card, I only heard about him through that game.

super nintendo?

[drcobb]

I haven't a clue who bill lambeer was but that basketball game for snes was awsome. perhaps that is another effect is that it makes us geeks know at least a little bit about sports.

Tecmo Super Bowl

[Unholy_Kingfish]

Can anyone say Ivy Joe Hunter.....?

The most injured player ever.

Re:Tecmo Super Bowl

[WaKall]

Also ridiculous in that game:

QB Eagles (aka Randall Cunningham). Pick a pass play, QB sneak/draw and run it for 80 yards.

Jerry Rice - he would catch ANYTHING you threw at him. Anything.

Christian Okoye - the running back that couldn't be tackled. Defensive players bounced off of him.

Barry Sanders - a close second at the RB position to Bo Jackson. Barry had some speed in that game.

old news

[eglamkowski]

Dr. J vs. Larry Bird on my C64!

w00t!

Re:old news

[alan_dershowitz]

To this day I am not precisely sure what Dr. J. looks like in real life. My only recollection of his face was about 5 pixels high. He was the brown one, and Larry was the pink and green one.

Shaquille O'Neal

[alan_dershowitz]

Will always be remembered by me, not for whatever crap he did on the basketball court, of which I have no idea. I will always remember him for starring in one of the world's shittiest games, SHAQ-FU (and to a lesser extent, the movie KAZAM.)

Rambling memories

[dewie]

I have vague memories of Jordan versus Bird on the Sega Megadrive (Genesis, for the Americans among you). As I recall, it was a terrible collection of basketball related minigames, and definitely not a candidate for a second rental.

The one sports personality I remember fondly (and, I must admit, solely) through his digital incarnation is Daley Thompson, the game being Daley Thompson's Supertest on the Commodore 64. It was just a decathlon type game, ten events, three lives, you know the deal. But it obviously made quite an impression on me, because I still clearly remember all of the events, from the pistol shooting (you could move the cursor down and left, but not up or right) to the incredibly frustrating giant slalom, which I never did get the hang of.

Anyway, I've rambled enough. Maybe I'll see if i can dig my c64 out of the attic, and have a few games of Wizball, and Ricochet while I'm at it. (Yes, I have an emulator, but it's just not the same, is it?)