Click Sport is a Sports-Themed Game of Recognition

Before the sports fans get too excited, it’s worth mentioning that Click Sport, a new matching game for iOS, has little to do with sports. It’s a game where images appear in a grid, and the player must tap all the images of a particular kind. The images could be anything—types of animals, numbers, historical figures—and the gameplay would be exactly the same. It just so happens that the developer arbitrarily decided to populate this game with little pictures of basketballs and boxing gloves.

And before puzzle gamers get too excited, it’s worth mentioning that Click Sport isn’t really a puzzle game, either. There’s nothing to solve here. If the top of the screen says “Tennis,” the player must tap all the little pictures of tennis balls, and the game even tells you how many there are to tap. No one is trying to trick you.

Further, Click Sport isn’t a memory game, even though it kind of resembles one. The locations of the tiles seem to be generated randomly, so there’s no need to try to guess where they’ll show up, or remember where they are. This game is so simple, it’s almost not a game at all.

Which means that just about no one should get excited for Click Sport. This is a game where straightforward tasks are presented to the player, one after another, seemingly forever. It’s as if the developer has asked the player to tell the game what time it is, or to recite the alphabet. As game play moves forward, points are awarded, but the game is so flat and easy that it’s hard to pretend the points have any value.

This isn’t to say that Click Sport has nothing going for it. The look and feel of the game is actually pretty well developed. The sports motif is consistent and attractive, and during game play there are some flashy little graphical touches. The problem is that there’s little else. There’s only one use for Click Sport that I can think of: This game might be good for teaching very young children the names for different kinds of sports. Unfortunately, even under that ideal circumstance, there likely won’t be any replay value. Click Sport is an inexpensive download, so fans of  picture recognition games are invited to download it and give it a try.