Reviews

Top button bashing action!

Considering how old this game is its really a classic. Yeah Daley might be white in this game but the events and gameplay are just superb.

Track n field was huge in the arcades and this was the Speccys very own version, brilliant and so playable.

Hearing the tune when you start just takes me back to me and my mate pounding the keyboard trying to get a great speed. Great times

Track and Field was big in the arcades at the time, and there had already been a few lacklustre attempts to clone it on the Spectrum, but this game blew them all away in terms of playability and graphics.

To be critical, there are a few graphical glitches, a spot of flicker, and Daley himself is white. There's also a lack of variety in the events, most of which involve some serious button bashing which no doubt killed a few keyboards. However, the high jump, pole vault and 1500m do serve to test your skill a bit too.

There were better sports games to come for the Spectrum, but this still ruled the roost for a year or so upon its release.

A great sport game with great gameplay and probably the first good track n' field game on the Spectrum. The times I spent playing Decathlon were almost endless. However a couple of glitches were present as well. The one that sticks to my mind the most is that you RUN with the shot put. Also an obvious glitch is Daley's colour, I'll say no more.

As time went on, better sports games surfaced for the Spectrum and even Daley himself beared his name into a better sequel, but this remains a pioneer in button-bashing gameplay for the Spectrum. A great time for players, a bad time for keyboards.

Apart from the irony that Daley Thompson in this game was a white sprite, the game did little wrong in terms of providing some good joystick waggling action (fnar).

The events themselves are quite entertaining to play and there is good use of sound and colour. Plus the game lends itself well to pick-up-and-play variety since the controls are simplistic enough. All in all a nice title that will give you a couple of hours of diversion but there isn't enough in it to keep your attention for sustained periods.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zjBBnmZb7s&feature=related

well the video explains more in pictures
it could wear out the membranes on your button layout kill joysticks and youd still go back for more
my only gripe was there were no extras just the events but at the time it was the best game out there imo

An above average sporting game from the golden years of the Spectrum era.

There may be better athletics games out there for the Sinclair mighty machine but Daley Tompson´s Decathlon was one of the first and most accomplished.

8/10 in my opinion.

Daley Thompson, destroyer of keyboards! I played this game loads as a child. It's easy to pick up and play, requiring only three keys and it's great fun trying to break each others records. One of the spectrum's best multiplayer games.

1984 Ocean Software (UK)
by Paul Owens, Christian Urquhart and F. D. Thorpe

Decathlon is indisputably a classic to anyone who grew up massacring the keyboard keys. It was specially exciting to me, being myself an athletics fan, and with the 1984 Los Angeles Olympiads still fresh, the game was a great way to fantasize with that event. It pales a bit when comparing with Hyper Sports or Super Test, both released in the next year, mainly because of the stiffness of the character and the its 2D look and the slowness in most events, but it its still an absolute pleasure although but hard on the finger (no pain, no gain)!

This was a great key-masher that caused great pain to fingers. I played this rather than Hyper Sports and that was a better game, but this is still great fun to play and it is the best of the Daley games. But running with your shot putt is very off and very wrong, perhaps a spinning motion was too much in that time.

Classic among the classics. This was a very interesting game, some tests are a bit long and boring...but that is decathlon.

Graphics are nice, but the speed sensation is not achieved.

Excellent sports game, released by Ocean in 1984 (the year of Los Angeles Olympic Games) after the success of arcade games like Track and Field and Hypersports. The program, by Paul Owens and Christian F. Urquhart, uses the image of the legendary british athlete Daley Thompson.

The game is a true 'keyboard killer' featuring ten athletic events, five in each side of the tape as if they were two separate games:

1st Day: 100 meters, Long jump, Shot-put, High jump and 400 meters.

2nd Day: 100 meters Hurdles, Discus, Pole-vault, Javelin and 1,500 meters.

The graphics (just decent) quality is given up in exchange for a great gameplay, every event is different making the game addictive as the player tries to reach the corresponding current record and overtake it for every event.

Unforgettable cover artwork by Bob Wakelin and loading screen by F. David Thorpe.

It was the game that made Ocean a leading company of Spectrum software market. An 8-bit classic.