Game Review: Brian Jacks Superstar Challenge (MSX, Ricochet)

Anyone who watched the BBC sports programme The Superstars in the late 1970s and early 1980s would have seen former British judoka Brian Jacks taking part, and doing very well. He gained a World bronze medal as well as two European Championships in judo, and on The Superstars his main prowess was in the weightlifting and gym tests events, where he was virtually unbeatable. He won the UK championship twice, tied for European glory, won an international event and a best of third at World Superstars. His gym test records of 118 squat thrusts (using the sliding technique) and 100 arm dips in 60 seconds, and with time left, are the stuff of legend on that programme.

When Martech originally licenced Brian Jacks for the game in 1985, The Superstars was still on television, although that year was the final regular UK series until an excellent relaunch in 2003, which was welcomed. You will note though so as not to get in trouble with the BBC bosses at the time, the game is carefully titled Superstar Challenge (minus the S), even though the loading screen clearly shows Brian in many events wearing an S t-shirt which looks very much like the logo of the programme as well.

Two Load Eventing

As with the original release, the Ricochet re-release has eight events in all, but these are loaded in two sets of four, and with only one chance to load those events on each side. It may have made more sense to place both sets of four events on each side of the tape, and at least then be able to load the second part after moving on from the first, without having to turn the tape over. It is also notable here that the instructions are shared with the Amstrad CPC release, and not all of them are mentioned – for example the controls for the arm dips are incorrect, and an assumption everything is waggling unless is says otherwise. It also does list the events in the incorrect order. Unlike the Commodore 64 version, there is no mention of the Powersync system which means effectively it is going to be a joystick waggler in places – you can use cursor keys and space instead should you wish. So here goes.

Paying the Penalty

The first event is the 100 metres sprint, and after the on your marks, get set and go, simply waggle the joystick as fast as you can to build up power. As in all the events with two players on a split screen, your player is at the bottom and Brian Jacks is at the top. This thankfully is over quickly and you are then presented with your score for the event, and a small tune that plays, and you can press fire for the next event. This is the archery. The wind is set, then you press fire to start the angle meter, and press fire again to let go. You ideally need an angle of around 5 degrees and this should then hit the target closer to the centre, scoring more points. This event is very reminiscent of Hyper Sports, minus the sense of achievement when you hit the bull on that conversion.

The cycling follows the archery, and you simply need to waggle to build up the power, and press fire to go up through the gears to top gear. You will need to press fire at the start to invoke first gear, or else you do not go anywhere, so that is worth noting.  Being at the bottom should mean you can see the finish line first as Brian is not very quick in this event. Once done, this brings you the football penalties, which are dreadful. You are supposed to go round the cones, with tapping up to build up speed, and tap left or right to go in that direction – you cannot just hold the direction. In front of goal, you aim with the directions and shoot with fire, and hopefully you can score a goal in quick time and get out of this unplayable and poor event. The controls are so unresponsive you will think they are broken.

Levelling the Land

At the end of the four events on each side, you can then press fire to go again, this time at an increased difficulty level against Brian Jacks, or you can press the return key to quit. The game shows BYE on a pink background and then resets the MSX back to BASIC, and so you would then need to manually load in the other side with the remaining events on. Your score does not get carried over either, so it is in effect just a high score challenge and to beat Brian Jacks on those set of four events, which seems a little disjointed and somewhat dull.

Squats and Dips

The four events on the second side start with the swimming. You set off and waggle the joystick to build up speed, and if the prompt for air appears on screen, you will need to press fire to make sure your swimmer comes up for air, at an expense to your speed.  The swimmers do not seem to move at all far and the static look appears to make it like they are drowning. Next is the iconic event, the squat thrusts. Here you are the man on the left-hand side of the screen, and you need to press right four times to being the knees up to the elbows, and then left four times to go back to the long horizontal position. You repeat that as many times as you can within the one minute, although as you would expect, Brian Jacks is very good at this and does move very fast.

The canoeing is next up and this is more joystick waggling, with again you at the bottom and attempting to make it to the end of the course. The instructions mention any drifting and correction required, but that is definitely not present here.  Simply waggle to build up the speed and once you are there, keep going to the end. Dull, and tedious. The final event is the arm dips. Here, you need to press fire, then right several times to dip down on the bars, press fire again and the left several times to get back to the vertical position. That did work reasonably well but keeping up with Brian Jacks, even on the easiest level, proved to be very difficult.

Graphics and Sound

The graphics, even with the loading and title screen, appear to be direct ports of the ZX Spectrum version, with the same different colours for each character, and even some colour clash in places. It did make me wonder why the MSX’s hardware sprites were not utilised to make the game look considerably better. The display for the scores during and at the end of each event are clear enough. Sound is limited with only the small tune playing at the end of each event and hardly any sound effects at all during the events themselves. Again, a wasted opportunity to maybe even put a soundtrack in during play.

Final Thoughts

It is clear that when first published, Brian Jacks Superstar Challenge was a quick and relatively lazy port of the ZX Spectrum versions, with the screens being comparable side by side when you play the versions. The graphics and sound are reasonable, but unfortunately the gameplay is somewhat lacking. It is either a pure joystick waggler with the occasional respite for some of the events, and for the others, the controls are not quite there. These are either not made clear in the instructions, or are sometimes very unresponsive, especially so during the football event, and that spoils the playability and the chance to go for a high score challenge. The idea was there but the gameplay is lacking, and it is overly repetitive. Even having a proper two player option would have improved matters considerably, but again, that is lacking too. Once you have played through the events you will ask yourself “is that it?” and then relegate that game to the shelf.

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