The Big Three

The Big Three is an unusual sports title centered on the three major American sports traditionally associated with the phrase: football, baseball, and basketball. Released in 1989, it offers a compact collection of sporting experiences rather than concentrating on a single discipline. The presentation is simple, but the appeal comes from switching between different styles of play and seeing how well you can adapt. Each sport has its own rules and rhythm, keeping the experience varied even when the underlying technology is clearly from another era. There is no enormous roster system or cinematic presentation to distract from the basic competitions. The Big Three is therefore best approached as a snapshot of old-school computer sports gaming, when fitting several sports onto one disk was itself something of an achievement. It may not provide the depth of dedicated modern simulations, but it offers a pleasantly straightforward package. Three sports, one computer, and plenty of opportunities to insist that the controls were responsible.