OhOver the past three weeks, the Paris Olympics have provided us with some spectacular sporting moments, from incredible victories to heartbreaking defeats, to Snoop Dogg standing tall in full equestrian regalia. For most of us, such sporting brilliance is out of reach, unless we have access to video games.
Although there was no official event this year, many highly-regarded Olympic-inspired games have been created over the past four decades. If you’ve got an old Commodore 64, PlayStation or Wii, or a suitable emulator on your PC, here’s how you can relive this summer’s immortal sporting memories in the safety of your own home.
Best Shooters: Hyper Sports
The stars of the shooting competition were undoubtedly South Korea’s Kim Yeji and Turkey’s Yusuf Dikeç, who livened up the pistol competition with their cool indifference, standing with their hands in their pockets like anime assassins. The closest thing you can get to this in video games is the classic skeet shooting event from Konami’s hit 1984 arcade game Hyper Sports. OK, it’s a shotgun and you’re aiming at flying saucers instead of a stationary target, but you do have a cute, baseball-capped shooter who turns and winks at the camera at the end of the event.
Pole record jump: International Track & Field
Armand “Mondo” Duplantis broke the world pole vault record with his impressive leap of 6.25 metres, and to experience it for yourself, head over to International Track & Field, the wonderful 1996 PlayStation sports sim. Press alternate buttons to sprint around the track, then press X to jump before throwing the pole to clear the hurdle. It sounds easy, but it’s one of the toughest tests in the game. However, if you manage to get through on your first jump and improve on your second, a space shuttle will fly past you on your third. Not even Duplantis could do it.
Sky Brown takes Bronze: California Games
The youngest athlete on the GB team took her second bronze in the skate park event, despite having dislocated her shoulder in the heats just days earlier. There’s only one way to relive this achievement: the half-pipe event at the excellent 1987 California Games, which gives players one minute to do as many handplants and aerial spins as they can. Skateboarding games were rare at the time, with only Atari’s 720 and Electronic Arts’ Skate Or Die for company, so you’re reliving a key moment in gaming – plus you have no chance of dislocating anything.
Knob horse boy: summer games
Stephen Nedoroscik captivated the world with his unassuming demeanor, slightly nerdy glasses, and astonishing performances on the pommel horse. At the Summer Games, you can recreate his physical prowess in the gymnastics event, though in the game the event is actually the vault, not the pommel horse: you press the fire button to run, press it again to jump, then carefully use up, down, left, and right to perform flips in the air. Timing is crucial, but the animation is truly beautiful when you get it right.
The epic men’s 400m final: Athlete Kings
Ah, the disappointment of Matthew Hudson-Smith missing his own Chariots of Fire moment by mere hundredths of a second. What a race! The 400m is a fairly common event in video games, appearing in Activision Decathlon, Daley Thompson’s Decathlon and my personal favourite, Athlete Kings, the glorious 1995 Sega Saturn title. This version of the event wasn’t just a savage joystick-twirling challenge; it also featured a stamina meter that let you pace yourself against the pack, a tactic employed by Quincy Hall to devastating effect.
The swimming exploits of Léon Marchand and Katie Ledecky: Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games
In the first week of the Olympics, spectators weren’t stopped by the aquatic brilliance of Marchand and Ledecky, who won four medals each and broke records in the process. Now that that’s over, I’m off to the pool with Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games for Wii, which let you use the motion-sensitive Wii Remote and nunchucks to simulate a series of strokes, most of which involved flailing your arms up and down at a grueling pace. After 10 minutes of this, you’ll have a newfound respect for swimming athletes.
Horse Madness: Summer Games II
The undisputed star of the US Equestrian team was Suppenkasper (aka Mopsie), the electronic music-loving horse who strutted to an incredible set of dance music at the dressage competition. While Rave Horse clearly deserves its own game, the closest we can get is the equestrian event in Summer Games II, where you gallop over fences and water obstacles – you could perhaps make it more rave-y if Rune RK’s Calabria was playing in the background. There have been more detailed simulations over the years, such as Lucinda Green’s Equestrian Challenge. Alternatively, it’s possible to unlock dressage moves for your horse in the western adventure Red Dead Redemption. I’m not kidding.