Is there any video game genre more oddly resilient than Olympic-style sports games? You know, those collections of sports minigames you play by mindlessly jamming buttons until your thumbs bleed? Since the Olympics license is expensive most of these games have some other weird theme or brand attached to them — everything from aliens, to hamsters, to Snoopy to the Tiny Toons characters have got in on the Olympic action.

Well, one Olympic-style sports game stands above all others on the proverbial medal podium — Caveman Games for the NES. Why? Uh, well, mainly because I was a dumb kid and rented it a lot for some reason, but also because it features great events like Dino Race and Mate Toss. Yeah, Mate Toss.

So, join me as I honor the 2012 Summer Olympic Games the best way I know how, with an event-by-event review of the 1988 “classic” Caveman Games…

The PC version of this game was called Caveman Ugh-Lympics. So yeah, you win this round PC elitists.

I went with Gronk because he has a lustrous caveman beard not unlike my own lustrous caveman beard. I will admit though, I was tempted by the sexy female “Crudla”.

Apparently my guy’s a rampant “self clubber”. I’ve definitely made the right choice.

Event #1 – Clubbing

Yes, every fight starts with an “Intimidation Phase”. My opponent looks fairly tough — meanwhile my guy is apparently distracted by particularly pretty rainbow off to the right of the frame.

Phase 2 of Clubbing: clubbing.

My “drive the other guy off the platform by taking a dump on it” strategy didn’t work out so well.