In my review of the Evercade’s Jaleco Collection 1 cartridge, I repeated something I often have to remind my readers of: I’m not a fan of sports games.

So what happens when I’m confronted with an entirely sports-themed collection?

That’s what we have here, with the Piko Interactive Collection 2 cartridge.

It’s a very odd choice by Evercade, who usually do an amazing job of curating a selection of games that vary in genre, era and style – which means that players will still find games they warm to, even though some may not be their cup of tea.

Yet, despite the fact that every single game on Piko Interactive Collection 2 is based on a sports theme, I have to say that there were still some games here that I enjoyed.

The cartridge’s cover star, Soccer Kid, features in the 16-bit game of the same name.

It’s a surprisingly fun platformer with an interesting central mechanic: you have to use your football (or soccer ball, for my transatlantic friends) to defeat enemies, making use of the titular character’s impressive ouevre of football skills.

Though the difficulty level is pretty steep thanks to this unique premise, it’s a gorgeous looking game with decent music and clever level design.

Beast Ball was perhaps the biggest surprise for me, being a game I’d never played before and would never have given a chance.

It’s a Blood Bowl-esque, monster-filled game of American Football that has a great pace and simple, aggressively crunchy gameplay.

Despite my lack of enthusiasm for American Football and video games that simulate it, I had a blast with this title.

32-bit GBA title Racing Fever is another hidden gem; I’d never played it before, but I’ve long been a fan of top down racing games and this one didn’t disappoint.

Top Racer 2 – known back in the day as Top Gear 2 in most regions – is a superb 16-bit racer that continues the series brilliantly; this is one you’ll want to play in split screen mode on the Evercade VS, though it’s no slouch in single player mode!

It may surprise you that those three games were the only ones that I truly enjoyed, especially as the cartridge features thirteen games.

Though perhaps my lack of interest in sports games means that isn’t particularly shocking, it does still feel like a pretty low hit rate for an Evercade collection.

Of course, if 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit sports games are your thing, you may find an awful lot more value here than I did.

So what other games are included?

There’s the unusual, aquatic racing NES title Eliminator Boat Duel, which I just found dreadfully dull and frustratingly unfair.

It does have incredibly lurid box art that has to be seen to be believed (though you might have to wear sunglasses to view it properly!), but of course you won’t get the full effect of that here.

Football Madness is another soccer game to add to the Evercade’s growing list of them; it should be fun, as it’s played with few rules, no referee and even the addition of power ups, but it’s too janky to be enjoyable.

Full Throttle: All-American Racing is, naturally, a racing game in a similar vein to Top Racer – except it takes place using motorbikes and boats. It doesn’t do either particularly well.

Hoops Shut Up and Jam and its sequel are both here. Known as Barkley Shut Up and Jam, licensing issues have forced the removal of any reference to ex-NBA player Charles Barkley, but it makes no real difference.

Both games try to be like the fast paced, arcade style basketball seen in iconic classic NBA Jam, but neither game succeeds in this goal, being pretty disappointing overall.

I wasn’t a fan of Power Football either, which seems like a pretty in-depth American Football sim for its time, but having the fast paced and tongue-in-cheek Beast Ball made the inclusion of this straight faced game a bit redundant for me.

Olympic style event compilations Summer Challenge and Winter Challenge are full of mostly half-baked mini games that felt lacking in polish – they were both pretty disappointing in my opinion.

Lastly, World Trophy Soccer is a 16-bit game that’s filled with teams and options, but just didn’t do anything for me.

If you’re a fan of the various sports featured in this collection, you may well find it to be pretty indispensable.

Even though there’s some repetition – with multiple American Football games, several covering soccer and numerous racing games – each one does something different, so you’re sure to find something that appeals to you.

For me though, this was a missed opportunity to include a wider and more varied range of games from Piko’s extensive catalogue – more of which can be seen in the third collection of Piko games, which has more recently been released.

You can purchase the Piko Collection 2 cartridge from Amazon here.