App of the week: Sports Hero review

Button masher

We’re not being sarcastic about the sweat bit, either. Sports Hero has a decidedly retro bent beyond its chunky pixelated graphics.

This is old-school athletics videogaming, devoid of nuance; it harks back to Konami’s Track & Field, having you smash a pair of buttons to build up speed or strength, and then prod a third button to perform an action.

On a glass touchscreen, this is faintly ridiculous. You will get disapproving looks from anyone that sees you frantically tapping away at your tablet or smartphone like a maniac and letting out a cry of anguish as the computer opponent nicks a win.

Still, Sport Hero’s tactile nature has a way of making you feel involved in the action in a manner that more delicate controls wouldn’t manage.

Photo finish

Despite a lack of depth throughout, and swipe controls in the swimming event that managed to baffle us during testing, Sports Hero could have won a gold had it not fallen over a hurdle and faceplanted on a track marked ‘freemium’.

The XP required to unlock events is drip-fed at appallingly slow rates, and it’s a while before you realise you can blaze things along by acquiescing to a coach’s offer of having a break to watch telly (i.e. stream a few ads).

Still, nice touches dotted throughout leave Sports Hero with something shiny. There’s a simultaneous two-player mode; you can swipe between buttons if you’re anti-tapping; and the athlete select screen neatly provides alternate genders, skin tones and nationalities.

If you want to ‘sports all the sports’ but not sit through a billion ads, there’s a one-off IAP to unlock all the disciplines, which fittingly costs the same as the arm-breaking Decathlon did on tape back in the 1980s.

Sports Hero is available for Android and iOS.