London Olympics celebrated doodle game

On visiting the Google homepage and pressing the little play button, you have to quickly tap the left and right arrow keys to get your athlete sprinting along the track, then smash the space bar to tackle the hurdles.

For the past ten days, Google has been celebrating the Olympics with a range of doodles depicting key events. Well, today`s is something special – a functioning hurdles sim.

The mini-game is, of course, a tribute to Konami`s classic arcade games Hypersports and Track & Field, which both presented a range of sports for players to compete in by frantically bashing alternate buttons or waggling joysticks to build up speed.

The titles spawned a whole genre, which quickly moved onto the home computers of the era, via legendary titles like Daley Thompson`s Decathlon and Epyx Summer Games.

At the end of the race you get a time that you can share with friends via Google+; you can even clock on the little search icon to check out the best times during the actual Olympics.

BdST 2125 HRS, AUG 7, 2012

Edited by:
Sabbin Hasan, ICT Editor