I am being honest here when I say that I am not athletic in any way! Sure I played sports in school and manged to get my yellow belt in Tae-kwon-do but as far as playing hockey, baseball or football you might as well just have benched me. Also when it comes to being a huge sports fan, well I am not that much of one either. Don’t get me wrong… I do cheer on my local sports team from time to time, like the Toronto Maple Leafs and I go to the occasional Toronto Blue Jays games. I also like to bowl, but then again who doesn’t?
So it got me thinking, what is it about sports that I like?
I know that for hockey it all started when I really got into NHL 94 on the PC, what ever it was that possessed me to start playing that game I don’t know… but I instantly became hooked. I slowly started learning the players names, the different teams, the rules of the game and eventually started watching the real games (Anyone who knew me growing up would know how odd that is as I never seemed to care about hockey before). So is it possible that playing a simple computer game could get me really into hockey? I guess so.
I also became a huge golf fan at one point and that was after I bought the Nintendo game-boy version! Again I had no prior knowledge of real golf at the time, so it was really weird. I then moved on to the NES Open Tournament Golf which I played all the time, I remember spending lots of time mastering my swing and learning which club to use and when. I used to compete against my Step-Father who actually played golf in real life, he eventually taught me the rules and then I started playing real life golf. Unfortunately due to the fact that I wasn’t really that good at it, and the cost of real golf I put down the clubs (there was also the misfortune of being run over by a golf cart… but that’s another story). I still enjoy the video game version of golf, but not as often as I used to.
Then we come to Mike Tyson’s Punch-out! Oh how I love that game. Mike Tyson remains my favourite boxers of all time, so when it comes to sports games that one has to be my number one pick. I eventually moved on to Knockout Kings on the Playstation 2 (guess what I called my character?) yup Mike Tyson. Even though the Nintendo version is not anywhere near real boxing, I still just can’t seem to stop playing it. Maybe its the colourful characters like King Hippo, or the cocky behaviour from Soda Popinski that drives me to it? or the stress release you get from the simulated beating of face? Whatever it is I like it, and I know its a favourite among most NES fans who grew up in that time. We all made it our mission to get to fight Mike Tyson and show that we were not afraid to pound face, that is until we got there and he knocked us out with his first punch! Even Mario the referee looked down in shame on that one!
Brian Pudden