Accolade Sports Collection

If there is one thing that older sports games tend to have that the newer ones do not, it would be charm and fun. Unfortunately, none of the games in the Accolade Sports Collection offer this. This is a collection of five games; one MS-DOS title, and four Sega Mega Drive games from the first half of the 90s. Accolade has made a lot of sports games over the years and so it is somewhat disappointing that the collection is so small. There is no game from the Jack Nicklaus series, a game that revolutionised virtual golf with its three-click system, something that is still used in the genre. Also missing are the Test Drive series, the American football game 4th & Inches, and several others. What we get instead are two games in the Hardball! series, which feels a bit unnecessary, the "Olympic games" Summer Challenge and Winter Challenge, and the basketball game Hoops Shut Up and Jam. None of the games have aged well, the controls are pretty brutal, and this time period is hardly known for having a good soundtrack either.

The oldest game on the list is the baseball game Hardball! which is a fitting game for this list as it was a hit. It sold over half a million copies, was first released for the Commodore 64 in 1985, and this collection's version is the updated Mega Drive port from 1991. So, at least it's slightly more polished. That can't be said of its predecessor, Hardball II (which skipped the exclamation mark). Instead, it's the MS-DOS one from 1990 that came on two floppy discs. If you're a fan of lots of pixels, this is for you, but the sound is almost non-existent, and the original controls are as primitive as it gets. Thankfully, it has been adapted for modern controls, which is appreciated, something each game also provides by offering an option to change the layout of the controls. Now, this version of the game is prettier, faster, and just plain more fun. The camera could have used some work though, as sometimes players fall out of frame when chasing a ball, but overall, it's a perfectly fine game. Yet, the question is why they chose to include the sequel, especially an inferior and older version than the original, as I would have gladly replaced it with something else.

Next up are Winter Challenge and Summer Challenge from 1992 and 1993, respectively. Again, both are fine games, but with their flaws. It's OS-based, but they lack a licence, which is why they're called The Games. They are almost identical in appearance and structure, except that one obviously contains winter sports and the other summer sports. While there's a good variety of sports to choose from, it's not really possible to enjoy them as the games progress so slowly, and they can stutter a bit in some sports, so badly in some cases that at one point the ski slope stopped moving for me despite the fact that the skier could still be controlled but stuck in the same place... That's a bit of a blow when you're dealing with games that are over 30 years old in their original form. When it comes to the different sports, there are basically all of the ones you can think of from the Olympics, minus breakdancing from last year...

Finally, we have the best game of the collection, which is Hoops Shut Up And Jam. You may recognise the game from its original name Barkley Shut Up And Jam. But when the developers lost the licence to use Charles Barkley's name, they replaced him with the fictional Joe Hoops. It's the same cover, same title screen, but with the title person replaced. It's classic two-on-two arcade basketball, but NBA Jam is far superior to Shut Up And Jam despite being released the year before. You get to choose a player from a set of cool names like Gunner, Wildman, and T Bone, all of which have different attributes, and then you pair up with another character with a cool name and try to beat the two opponents. The controls are responsive and the basketball is fast, but it still feels frustrating to play. Your teammate can be both the best to handle a ball and also the dumbest. Either they shoot a three from the centre line or pass the length of the whole court backwards when they are all alone on their way to the basket. It's clearly the game that flows the best of these five and the one I would recommend if I had to pick.

The Accolade Sports Collection is a strange collection. There are far too few games, with at least one that (Hardball II, which is an inferior and older version to the original Hardball) is completely unnecessary, and there's plenty of room for many others to have been included. None of the games have aged particularly well, and the controls feel ancient for the most part. It's easy to look back on retro projects with nostalgia, and the games may have been more fun back then, but that doesn't mean all games are. QUByte, the company behind the collection, has at least included a few things to improve the experience in the form of rewinds, the ability to change inputs, and different screen size options, but in the end, this is a collection that belongs in the past. The present has moved on.