Royston van der Kerkoff's Blog

Damn, I didn’t mean to do it.

It has been a long time since I have though, so I don’t suppose it’s the end of the world.

What did I go and do?

I ordered a game for the ps3. Not only ordered though, but pre-ordered!

It’s the first time since Forza 2 I think. And it’ll be the first proper racing game for my ps3. It was sad when my Live account got stuffed up (due to having had a hotmail account since they were only .com and Microsoft not being in any way helpful about switching the registered country on that account, which at some point must have been assumed to be in the US. They change their security, they break my account. I don’t pay anymore, or buy anymore games).

Anyway, I came across some videos of Need For Speed: Shift, and for the first time in ages was excited about a game that was due for release. It was good to feel that again, certainly with Forza 3 on the way soon, as that would have been a bit of a temptation to get a new Live account, but I don’t think that’s ever going to happen. I’ve dipped into the long running set of NFS games over the years, as they’ve tended to be a bit hit and miss, though I did quite enjoy the Underground period.

This new one is heading more towards the simulation side of things though, as they’ve decided to split different styles off into separate NFS titles. After watching the vids I had a little search around for a bit more info on the game too, and some of the guys that were involved in the (now shelved?) version of GTR for consoles. Oddly enough, I had a sneaking suspicion there might be a connection. GTR not appearing, and some of the vids from Spa set my sensors off.

It’ll be good to have a go at a serious racing game again. Although any dreams of becoming a star of the online racing scene were put to bed on Forza against some of the guys at the now sadly defunct xbox360leagues site (though I could more than hold my own in the racing elements on Flatout there).

I have got a couple of games for ps3, but mainly from asking for vouchers, and then putting them to good use. Oh, and picking Haze up very cheaply when VirginZavviHed were looking in their bargain bins for some cut price elbows and arses. And I probably have a couple of grand of gaming budget to spend. The joys of moving the previously cigarette based spending. I got to a point though were I had more than I could possibly play on the 360, so the budget has become more theoretical now, and there’s the time element too. Most games these days eat time.

And that’s before the web based (non-console) games I play too. The real time consuming elements are all done for those anyway though, so it’s only a few minutes needed here and there for the footy management games I play. (for linking purposes, they are: managerzone, FML, manager-mania and xpert11)

Apart from a bit of time thinking about gaming, my other recent activity has mostly centred around cooking. I’ve been enjoying Economy Gastronomy on the iPlayer, and have ordered the book from the series now, but even without it have been using some of the principles they talk about already. I’ve got various tubs in the freezer, having made large pans of veggie pasta, and a big veg soup. Not on the same scale, and not frozen either, but a medium pack of turkey strips is going to do at least a couple of days worth at the minute.

And for the first time, I used some chicken bones and slightly older veg to make a stock. I have no idea what to do with it now, but I’m sure I’ll find a use for it.

(A couple of weeks ago I spent a self enforced week with no access to the Internet. Partly as an experiment as someone who spends more time than is probably healthy on the web. On the other hand, this was just prior to confirmation that I have CFS/ME, so with the little energy sitting at a computer uses, it’s probably been a way to get through the day a lot of the time without falling asleep or making myself feel ill.)

Sunday 9th August 2009

I was given a notebook during an afternoon out in Ormskirk yesterday by my girlfriend’s mum. We went to the (find out name of) Gallery for their yearly open show. I wasn’t as impressed as in previous years, though there was one painting I did quite like. It was of gulls at low tide, but from any distance away became a monochrome pattern. (My favourites always seem to be in the cafe for some reason).

Anyway, the notebook was one of a few triggers in me deciding to take a week off from the Internet. (Though strictly speaking it will come in a little under the 168 hours, as I want to check up on my team’s training on managerzone. I could have gone from late evening Sunday to Sunday and it would have worked, but as I was slow getting my blog saying I was off-line for a week done, it was after midnight by the time I posted it, and I’d lose the chance to see any of the training if I don’t get back on until the early hours on the Monday.)

So, on Sunday evening, I posted my blog, then had a look at all the sites that I visit most regularly, posting on any that have a place for people to point out their own blogs, and saying see you next week.

And then went to bed. At 4.30am.

Monday 10th August 2009

I was too tired to get up and open the door when the bell rang early on. Not surprising after a late night though.

I was already up (though only just) when it rang again later. I don’t know who the first ringer was, but my second bell pushers were expected. My girlfriend had come round to tidy up the front yard for me, and had her daughter with her for an extra pair of helping hands.

It feels really odd to not be involved when any work is going on. I may not be the life and soul of parties, but I’ve always tended to muck in when there’s something that needs doing. Certainly since my shyness has eased anyway. So I made myself a little useful, with brew making, and also made a couple of phone calls, one of which I’d been putting off for a while.

The girls didn’t stay long, but I was in the mood to be doing things when they left, so I got on with a bit of tidying. I’ve had the house to myself for a while now, but I’ve barely made any inroads to getting it properly organised. The first couple of weeks when I was in were a frenzy of activity, but that mainly involved moving stuff between rooms to change what went were, and once done left half of the house acting as storage rooms. Which they still are now. Most of it is stuff I’ll never use, some I probably don’t even know why it’s here at all, so I plan to get rid of loads of things. Whether by car boot or ebay, or some other method, I don’t know yet. It’s got to go though.

One of the main jobs was clearing a big pile of Mensa magazines from the stairs, and putting them in a folder. I was surprised by the fact that I haven’t even taken the last few issues out of their plastic wrappers (9 months worth to be precise). The latest issue has an interview with John Amaechi. I first came across him as an interviewee on BBC News Channel’s Hard Talk (though I think it was probably still News 24 at the time).
I’ve since read his book, and he is proper hero material. I think it was in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance that I read about ‘arete’ being the philosophy of giving your all in all things. Being truly rounded. And that the ultimate personification of this was Hercules. John Amaechi is the nearest thing to that ideal that I’ve come across in the media, and so the modern world. And of course there are going to be many that might fit the bill, but aren’t public figures so we don’t get to know about them.
I dare say there are others, but for me he seems to top someone like Ian Botham due to the added intellectual element. (I may be doing Botham a disservice there, but if he’s an intellectual, he doesn’t show it in his public life. Except maybe with his philosophy on Shredded Wheat).
There was also an appeal to possible participants in a survey. The subject is ‘intelligent underachievement’, which I suspect fits me pretty well. Preferred method of contact? Email. Oops. I printed a letter out, but will probably just leave a message instead.

I had a break mid afternoon, and read a bit of the book that was recommended to me when I went for a preliminary counselling appointment. They have huge waiting lists, so I got the book straight away, but it’s just been sat waiting for me. Actually, it must be a few months now anyway, so it may not be all that far away before I get booked in for a session anyway.

After a bit more tidying, I went round to my girlfriend’s to see the stuff she’d picked up for me for the fancy dress party we’re going to on Saturday evening. It’s 80s themed, so I’m going to be a Simon le Bon, Nick Heywood type mix of looks. In other words, horrendous. I may need to get a lift for this one. The Halloween fancy dress parties we’ve been to over the years have been held at big houses where you stay for the weekend, so traveling in costume has never been an issue. Walking around near home in Saturday’s outfit? No thanks.
We had some pizza too, and then I headed home while they went off to see the latest Harry Potter at the pictures.

I had a quick go on Guitar Hero: World Tour when I got in. I’ve now reached the point where the guitar stuff is getting difficult and taking a few goes to get through. I’ve played GH 2 & 3 though, and got most of the way through the game at expert level, so that’s the setting I start on. I may need to drop to hard to open some of these songs up, but I’d prefer not to. It doesn’t seem to have the difficulties separated as completely different games this time though, so I’d rather get as far as I possibly can on expert before messing about. Even though I was sat, rather than my preferred standing to play, I was actually tired pretty soon after starting.

I started reading ‘Managing Your Mind‘ again, but my eyes were closing and I was nodding off. Ended up sleeping on the couch for a couple of hours. Woke a few times, but took the chance at about 11pm, and luckily got to bed and sleep without waking up enough to break the sleep. Probably would have been up all night otherwise.

Time Travel via Spectrum Emulator

As an avid online football management fan, and in the past a fan of the original offline versions, a web based emulation of the Spectrum version of Football Manager (The 1982 Kevin Toms version) was a hell of a find. A dangerous one too.

I’ve been faffing about trying to make a decision on what my blog should be about, and one of the options is my secret desire to become the ultimate online football manager. I still haven’t decided 100%, but If that was the way I decided to go, a diary of how I get on going back to the first manager game I ever played would have to fit right in I thought.

Having a bit of a wander round the web, I came across a blog by Kevin Toms himself. And in one of the posts on it, links to a blog article by Richard Herring, and a link to the Football Manager emulator at worldofspectrum. I’ve visited worldofspectrum in the past, and had a mess about. Manic Miner and Chuckie Egg were the games I tried though, and as far as I remember, they didn’t have online emulators when I was last there, but it was done through a downloadable player, and digital versions of the cassettes we had back when the Spectrum was first out. (Coming back to the present day, another reason I decided to write about this was a cracking series written about the new online version of Football Manager Live by Seb Patrick at noisetosignal.org)

After a quick go, and reading the Richard Herring piece in full, it became clear that the eternal problem of goalkeepers not being like any other player had been solved by ignoring them. So my desperate wait for a keeper was going to be fruitless however long I tried.

I decided to start again, and put my skills to the test, keeping a record at the same time.

There wasn’t a lot of room for frills on the machines in those days, so it was all about gameplay with most spectrum titles. Over time, there was a shift, and some terrible games with relatively good graphics appeared, a trend which shows little sign of changing even now. Football Manager was by today’s standards though, stripped to the bone. The only exception being a basic graphical representation of goal attempts, and if I remember correctly, maybe a picture of a cup if you win one. As I’m doing this as a serious test of ability though, there’s a good chance I’ll never see a cup, as I’ll be playing at difficulty level 7 of 7, genius.

I’ve gone for my team Everton, but that first page of teams is a look into a different era in the real game. The tables are limited to 16 teams each, I suspect due to screen size limitations, but the list shown above is a tad different to a top 16 you’d choose if you were writing the game today.

Having chosen a team, and difficulty level, you get to see your squad for the first time.

I’m not sure whether McCall would have been in the Everton team that far back, so Dave Watson is possibly the only one. Having had a brief go previously, I suspect this is the same squad I’d received then as well, though this may be down to the emulation, and may not have been the case with the original game. Maybe this selection is the one you get if you pick the highest difficulty level.

It doesn’t look like it though, as it’s not too bad.

Still, no time to waste, so first thing to do is clear the weakest players out. I was far too slow in the transfer side of things on my first aborted game, as I was waiting for that none existent keeper to turn up. Kenny Sansom is first to face the axe this time. One of two defenders with a skill of only 1, and the one with less energy, so off he goes to Hull, who’ve made a very nice offer quite a way above his value.

To get to the page you sell players from, you type ‘a’ on the main menu screen, one which I suspect I’ll be seeing quite a lot of in my management career here.

With such a small starting squad, the sale of Sansom means there are now only ten players picked, so Brian Talbot gets added to the midfield, and we have the whole 11 man squad in the team and we’re ready to go.

First up, we have a home league game against Blackpool. You always start in Division 4 and have to work your way up. With this being the first manager game I played, that just seemed a very obvious way of doing things, and as more and more came out, the fact that you could start in the top divisions with any team in some of them was a huge disappointment. It was great when Championship Manager Online introduced some gameworlds with the top four English divisions available. Taking Darlington from League 2 to the Premiership was a highlight of my time there.

So not a great start, and yes it probably will take genius level management to get anywhere with a team that can lose 3-0 to Blackpool.

At least the finances should be quite good. £5,000 gate receipts and the sale of player should bring in a bit of money.

At the end of each match, one player is made available for you to bid for. So you need to be aware of your squad’s quality, and know in advance whether any incoming player will make an improvement. With a defender on 1 skill, it’d be a good idea to buy just about anyone, though I’d want to wait for someone with at least 4 skill.

As the squad is a bit threadbare though, the player on offer this time is a 4 skill midfielder with 20 energy as well, so I’m definitely going to try and get him. We could do with an extra forward as well, so that there are options of whether to match the defence level of other teams, or have a strong three man forward line against a weaker defence. With eleven players that isn’t an option at all, and managing energy levels isn’t possible either, as everyone has to play. Anyway, £19,500 bid for S.Hunt and see if we get him.

And we’re back to the main menu again.

It’s very different to current games. Your formation isn’t a formation as such, more a balance between the number of players in defence, midfield and attack, and how that matches up with the figures your opposition have.

There isn’t the massive wealth of stats obviously, and to some degree it’s all a bit linear, but for it’s age, there’s still something there that drags you in. A trade off maybe, where you can’t go looking for players, or check on match stats, but instead you get something with an easy interface, and potentially very quick seasons.

Of course when it was written there was nothing at all to compare it to or for it to compete with. The fact I’m even making any comparison with current games shows just how amazing it was.

Considering there isn’t much in the way of graphics, I seem to have been on screen grab overload. That’s almost it now though, so from now on it’ll be mainly text, with the odd shot thrown in when anything interesting happens to the team itself.

Actually, there is one still to see. Choosing ‘s’ on the main menu screen shows your score:

I would say the only way is up, but I suppose it’s possible I could just stay on 0 Managerial Rating permanently. I’ll keep an eye on it, and there will be cause for celebration if it improves at all.

Next game we’re on to the F.A.Cup Round 1, and we’ve got an away draw at Port Vale. Fortunately a Division 4 side like ourselves, so we might have some chance of advancing. Or not, as the case may be. The only stat we come near to matching them in is defence, though the newly signed Hunt helps the midfield. Bizarrely, K. Keegan only has a skill of 1 up front, so he’s no great loss being out injured, but with the other two forwards only having 2 skill each, I hope the next player available to buy is a forward. A 5 skill could improve our attack stat for this game on his own!

Not surprisingly, another 3-0 defeat, and the FA Cup run is over before it starts. £10,000 is nice though, but now we know the sort of gate receipts cup games generate it’s doubly disappointing to go out.

The next player is a forward, though only rated 3 skill. He’ll have to do for now, and at least it means I can get rid of Keegan immediately. Ah, except that he’s still injured, so can’t be sold.

Bury next in the league, and the new forward goes in to the side, while the remaining 1 skill defender is dropped. Keegan suddenly seems not to be injured anymore, and I realise that I should have actually sold the worst defender anyway, and at least not had to pay his wages. One or both 1 skill players will go after this game. Both if the available player is worth having.

We seem to be getting a reputation as 3-0 loss specialists. Another one here, and as we haven’t scored yet, we drop to the bottom of the table on goals scored as Halifax and Darlington have both scored a couple. The games against those two could be very important.

Sign a 5 skill defender at the second attempt. Oddly, though I upped my offer slightly, the gap was probably bigger between the second bid and the increased value of the player than the first bid was from his first valuation. It frees us up to ditch both the forward and defender with skill of 1 though. The new guy’s a bit short on energy though, but we’ll see if we can get a win and then give him a rest.

A very nice bit of business there. K.Keegan and A. Martin both offloaded above their valuations, taking some of the sting out of the buying we’ve had to do.

I’m learning all the time here. Looks like a cap of 20 on any area of the field, so having five defenders that total 21 means you lose one point from them, so D. Watson gets a rest and we have all three forwards back in for a grand total of 7 up front. Great. Colchester don’t have the greatest skills themselves, so there’s an outside chance of a result here. We’re matched for energy as well, but having morale of only 1 already is going to be a bit of a burden I think.

Close, but no cigar. A 1-0 defeat, and this looks like it’s going to be a long hard slog.

Oh dear. I’m now being offered A.Martin. I’ve just got shut of him thanks. That’s a waste of a buying round. Hopefully won’t be Keegan next time.

Also tried out the full speed option at the side of the emulator. Could be very useful I think, though I did put a bid in for Martin by accident. Not a problem with him, as it must have been counted as a zero bid, but I didn’t want him anyway. With the value going up each bid though, I wouldn’t want that to happen with a good player, so needs to be used with care.

Next up were Crewe, who looked a lot stronger than the last opponent’s, so a 1-0 defeat again could be a sign of minor progress. No points is no points though, and we’re not going to go up the table without a result somewhere along the way. Unless Halifax keep getting walloped. We move up a place on goal difference.

A 4 skill forward is bought, and a bit more balance to the stats with four up front while one of the mids gets a rest. And it’s Darlington up next too. The best they’ve managed is a draw so far, so sit a place above us, making this a very important match. The season could be completely over after only a few games if we don’t get something from this one.

How they only have one point though I have no idea, look at their stats!

Well, the stats are vindicated, and their league position looks even stranger after a 4-0 drubbing from them. Five matches in and we still have no points, and only Halifax shipping more than 4 a game on average keeping us from the bottom of the table. It’s very bleak.

Good business this round though. Bought a 4 skill mid, and sold a 3 skill. The games difference in valuation is £5k, but there was only about £1k difference between the prices we got. Nice.

Now this really is an important game. Next up are Halifax. Again, their stats don’t really look like they fit with a team rock bottom in the league with a supposedly sieve like defence.

Another 1-0 defeat, and we’re doomed now. There haven’t been a massive amount of forwards available, but I’d have thought improving the Attack stat to 11 from 7 might have got us a goal against Halifax at least. (Perfect comedy timing produces 1 skill Keegan as the available player this time round).

Unless I’m missing something, or the skills can go beyond 5 (the highest I’ve seen so far), it would appear that the CPU cheats !

Hartlepool are up next, 14^th to our 16^th, and again their stats are not what you’d expect. In fact they have 18 in all three areas of the field. My working out tells me that to get 18 for an area, you need at least 4 players, so to get that for all three areas, you’d have to have 12 players in the side (without even getting into the lack of a keeper). So maybe I’ve only seen 5 skill players, and you can get higher. That would make sense, as this is only Division 4 so far, but without any way to see the other teams players, and having never seen a 6 skill player it’s a bit odd. On the other hand, if there’s a cap of 20 on the areas of the pitch, that would suggest that there aren’t players over 5 skill, and I’m just getting shafted by the game. That’s what you get for picking level 7, genius.

We lost again, but joy of joys. We scored a goal! It only took seven league games to get there, but there is finally a 1 in the goals for column. I can hear it laughing at the zero still sat in the points column, the little sod.

Got rid of another 2 skill forward, so we’re getting a little thin on players again, but it keeps offering me 1 skill players, mostly players I’ve already got rid of anyway. That’s going to make keeping up energy levels difficult, so I hope some decent buys are still out there.

A slightly unexpected result in the next game. Partly because we’d not shipped 6 to anyone yet, but also because we quadrupled our league (well, all time) scoring tally. 6-3 loss to Hereford.

Can that be considered a positive sign?

It doesn’t feel like it.

Brought in a 4 skill forward, but he’ll need a rest before playing. Got shut of a 2 skill.

No chance of that rest yet though due to injury to another forward. As we only have 12 players again, the injury means the team picks itself.

Dum de dum. 5-0 loss.

And again, offered the player I just got rid of.

Ah well. I’ll battle on, and come back if there’s any good news.

Ever.

Finally, in the 12^th game of the league season, we managed to get a draw, and a first point on the board. We were actually ahead at one point, having come back from 1-0 down! The game was against Rochdale who are mid table, and as we keep getting presented with hopeless players to buy, the only major change over the last two or three games has been an improvement in energy levels, as there are enough decent players in the side now to be able to rotate a little.

More evidence for the positive effects of having high energy levels. Two draws in a row. This time against Scunthorpe, who are nearer the bottom of the table than Rochdale were, but having lost consistently to teams around us at the bottom, not a bad result. And again, we were ahead a couple of times in this one, with them recovering for a 3-3 in the end.

A 4-3 loss to Stockport, so the goals are certainly starting to flow now, just need to make that extra step to keep a lead when we get one. We were never in the lead this time, but a 4-3 is better for the goals for column than a 1-0 anyway.

Great. Got offered a crappy 1 skill mid again, and passed on him, only to have a game against fellow strugglers Torquay, and find 3 injuries when I go to set the team. Nightmare.

I thought we might be on for a freak result when we went ahead, but our one forward could add no more, and it ended up a 4-1 loss.

Well, I wasn’t expecting that. You only play each team once, so we finish the season bottom with only 2 points. Disastrous.

Ooh, that £5k end of season bonus is going to come in handy. (Not that you’d expect much for being dead last)

And just to rub it in, even though the players stats are randomized, leaving me with a worse defence than the start of last season, the three players who were injured are still injured so they can’t be sold.

I guess this really is what you get for trying to play at genius level if you aren’t up to it. Humiliation and embarrassment.

Oh well, Knowing it’s half the length I thought it was, I’ll give it another season……..

(I only looked at the manager score a couple of times, and none after we’d got a couple of points, but at the beginning of season 2 there had been a change. I think it’s a bit generous really):

Season 2

The injury crisis gets worse. 5 injured players in the first couple of games, and we’re bottom of the table again, and out of the cup having played with 8 and then 9 players.

So, I decided to game the game, and having seen in Richard Herring’s blog that he recommended buying a crap player at the end of the season, and not a good one, as they get randomised anyway, I’m taking that to an extreme, and trying to put a team of 1 skill players together.

We already came bottom last time and you can’t get sacked, so at the minute we’re playing games undermanned and getting trounced. That was happening anyway though, but at least now it’s suffering now for success in the future.

It may take a couple of seasons to build up a war chest, and get a good randomisation, but I think the biggest problem is going to be time.

However much money I can build up, I can only buy 1 player per round, and if they’re crap, that’s a round wasted. So even with a lucky random start and a cup run, promotion to the third division may just dump us back in the shit with a crap team again, and not enough time to fix it, coming straight back down again.

We shall see.

Amazing. I now keep getting offered all the best players.

So it needs to be a longer plan.

Get a squad of sixteen players with low skills, not necessarily just 1 though, as that’s proving difficult.  At the minute we have 9 players. Some became 4 skill though, so will sell them and build the cash up, and try and get 1 & 2 skill players in.

(0 points in the league in season 2, 1 for 60 against.)

I raced through a few seasons, gaining no points each time, but selling high value players and buying low until we had a maximum sized squad spread sensibly across the three areas of the pitch, and the randomization gave us something approaching a usable side.

Season 6

Skills are:

• Def:         5,4,3,2,2
• Mid:         5,4,3,1,1,1
• Att:          5,4,3,1

Going to get rid of some of the 1s straight away, and see if we can manage a better season than that first one.

After the first game, it doesn’t look like it.

That was a better team that started, as usual against Blackpool first game, and we got thumped 6-1. Worst start so far, and that includes playing with about three men on the field last time round.

The stats for that first game were:

• Energy – 10
• Morale – 10
• Defence – 16
• Midfield – 12
• Attack – 12

Not far from what it was at the end of the first season when we nearly started winning.

Morale instantly drops to 5 though, and energy down to 9 for the first cup game, which is the second fixture of the season.

If we lose that, and get a few games in without any points, I’ll consider myself well and truly beaten by level 7.

Lost 4-0 and out of the cup.

• Hereford 6-0 Everton
• Everton 1-4 Hartlepool
• Crewe 5-1 Everton
• Everton 2-3 Darlington

Finally see a player worth buying, so slight improvement up front.

Looking at the stats for the next game, we’re only slightly off our opponent’s level.

• Bury 5-1 Everton
• Everton 1-5 Port Vale
• Halifax 3-0 Everton
• Everton 0-1 Hull
• Southend 1-3 Everton
• Everton 0-2 Torquay

Woah! Hang on, just wind that back a bit.

Southend 1-3 Everton.

A win.

A bloody won match!

Amazing.

Business as usual again when we play Torquay, but a win.

Rochdale 0-1 Everton

What madness is this?

The heady heights of 13^th in the league, and upward momentum.

Three games left to close that 24 point gap and win the league.

• Everton 0-4 Stockport
• Reading 4-0 Everton

So, last game of the season and we face the team below us, Mansfield.

They can’t catch us, and I can’t look at the league table until the game’s played, so we may be able to gain another place or two if we win, but not coming last is a bit of an achievement in itself.

This is the side that’s going to try and do the unthinkable, getting a third win in the season:

And how it matches up stats wise with a Mansfield side that haven’t won a game all season:

Well, with stats like that it isn’t too surprising they beat us 2-0. What are they doing bottom though?

Bonus money doubles to £10k, but it’s time, or more available players that are needed.

That was one of the toughest manager game experiences I’ve been through. As I mentioned earlier, in a game world with a load of real life managers all trying to succeed at the same time you are, I took Darlington to three consecutive promotions on Champ Man Online, but this was something else altogether.

I suspect the pool of players just isn’t big enough to make a good team within a season after having your last squad randomised, with the level 7 quality of the opposition just too good to compete with.

I may be wrong, I may try it again some other time, or possibly drop down to level 5 and have a crack at that, but for now, I’m going to take a break from managing, and maybe play a few rounds of golf.

Hmm, a dk’troniks golf game was released in ’83. Looks like I need to download an emulator for that though.

Then again, it looks like they’ve given me a half decent squad for season 7…