Sunday, August 17, 2008

Beijing Olympic 2008 Glory for Sega?


Every four years the world goes a bit crazy for two things; the football world cup and the olympic games. Both are easily the most recognizable sporting events on the planet today, and it seems every four years that with these tournaments comes the video game iteration. It's interesting to see the Olympic video games because generally we only see one or, at the most, two each console generation. It is also the only time that you will see sports such as judo and swimming in a video game (that or the Olympic imitators we tend to see as well).



SEGA has taken over the mantle from Sony but has kept the employment of Eurocom; the developers responsible for Athens 2004. This time around they have really put in a huge effort to bring together a quality game and of course it is the first game to utilise the next generation systems, so it was always going to be a test. SEGA wanted the gold but they will have to settle for silver, because of a near game breaking flaw. As you would expect with the Olympics, a wide variety of sports are represented in the game ranging from Judo to cycling to athletics.


You will see a lot of interesting sports here that you generally won't see anywhere else in the video gaming world. This is the strength of the game by far. Eurocom have also tried to implement some game modes to lengthen the experience and actually put a game into the product. The various game modes include online, single events, practice etc but it is the Olympic Games which is clearly where you will spend most of your time. The other modes really are a small extension of this where you can play a custom Olympics, practice one event over and over and, of course, go online. In the Olympic Games mode, each day you are given a number of tasks to complete. Should you not complete a number of these tasks it will be game over. Most of the tasks revolve around qualifying for Olympic finals which is not as easy as it may seem due to the iffy control system, not to mention as the Olympics continue the game becomes more difficult. You can also choose to customise your team but there is really no point to this because official athletes have not been licensed. This is a refreshing touch to this year’s Olympic game and it is clear that SEGA and Eurocom were trying something different.


The game itself is not bad as a whole but there is one thing that will frustrate gamers to no end and that is the control system. Many of the events revolve around button mashing as you would expect however Eurocom have also given the gamer the chance to waggle the analog sticks instead of button mash. It's just a shame that they made the AI so difficult to beat. There are a few contributors that factor into this. Firstly, in some events you have to time your start against the gun. If you false start it’s game over so the risk reward factor is high. They have combated this somewhat in the Olympic mode because you can slow down time, but overall it’s not a good implementation. Second of all after about thirty minutes of button mashing you will be tired, and if you are waggling you will have almost broken your wrist. The difficulty of this game is ridiculous, especially in a day of casual gaming. I respect Eurocom’s decision to make the game hard, but varying difficulty levels would have been a better option. Once you get past the controls, you will find a number of solid games to play. In some aspects the controls make a lot of sense. For instance with Javelin, where you waggle to build up speed, move the stick left to get into position and then angle the stick to determine the throw. It goes through the same motions that an athlete does in that event. Other events like the 1500m have you manage your health and heart rate to try and win the race. Go out hard and lead early, but by the end you will be puffed out, so again a risk reward situation. There are over thirty events to compete in total but that is a bit of a misdemeanour with a lot of events being of the same type, such as the six swimming events with minimal changes between the lot.


Another interesting inclusion is that you can play as either female or male in some events with the game not forcing you down one path. There is also a lot of focus on the presentation of the game. Before each event you will have to skip two or three 'cut scenes' to actually get to the action. First time through it looks truly amazing, just like a TV
broadcast, but as you play more it just becomes a frustration. The same occurs after events with athletes crying to their national anthem and the medal winners cheering.


Each event takes place in the actual Beijing venue as you would expect and generally countries which dominate events are good at them in the game, i.e. Australia are seen as good swimmers. Graphically however the game could have possibly done more. As expected it is a huge improvement over Athens on PS2 but it just doesn't go far enough. Solid framerate and graphics are present but the emotion of the Games are not really captured by the athletes except for the cheesy teara during the medal ceremonies. Beijing 2008 does a lot right but it could have been better. The developers have tried really hard to capture the Olympic experience and they have succeeded in many aspects.


The control system is abysmal but if they patch it on PSN or Xbox Live we could see a classic in the making for sports fans. Anyone who picks this up going in knowing the controls are not good and want a party game will find a lot of fun. However the single player is an experience in frustration and really, if you don't have friends to play with, then leave this game on the shelves for the moment.
Overall 7.7/10


Play-Asia.com - Beijing 2008