Summer Athletics

Rain stops play...

As our summer stumbles across the finish line and enters its death throes, it is still possible to celebrate the athletic glory of what we saw earlier in the season. Of course, this game is not based upon the events in Beijing, as the license unfortunately forbids that, but you instead have the opportunity to go for glory in a (slightly less exciting) generic sporting meet, and you're not limited to athletics as the title might suggest.

You can play through the different events in a number of manners, primarily the Career mode. You can create your athlete with a fairly good selection of facial features. The Career then involves working through a number of tournaments, each of which has a different mix of events. Between each round you can choose what to train in, such as Power or Speed. Your stats will increase to a maximum of 100 and you will notice a difference in the scores you are posting. This also means that at the start the game is pretty hard, and while you may manage to come top in a couple of events you will crash and burn in another few and finish well outside the medals.

The actual events themselves are standard fare - athletics and swimming with a few less common ones such as archery and diving thrown in. The controls revolve around repeating the same motions as fast as possible for the running or swimming, or hitting the right buttons at the right time for high jump or diving.

Certain events have a bit more depth, such as middle-distance running - your stamina reduces and you can't run at top speed all the way. However if you run just behind an opponent in their "slip-stream" you can recharge your stamina. The same mechanics apply in the cycling events.

Other than the Career mode, you can also choose individual events to compete in or create your own tournament with whatever mix of events you want. Outside of the Career mode, you can also switch from "Pure" to "Arcade" - Arcade mode gives you a number of boosts each tournament that you can use when you choose to improve your performance - a timely burst of speed in the 100m can make all the difference to the overall result.

So it's got all the features, but how does it actually play? Well, the developers were obviously big fans of the thumbsticks - call it innovation if you like, but they have ditched the traditional button-mashing for stick-waggling wherever possible. To sprint you waggle the right stick side to side as fast as possible, while to swim you rotate the two sticks in various ways and combinations depending on the stroke. However, I feel that there may have been a reason for the button-mashing in the first place. After a few plays my controller's stick didn't seem to be quite the same, and my thumb was cultivating a nice blister. The 4 x 100m swimming relay is a particular killer.

Apart from the fact that the game will destroy your controller and your thumbs, the graphics are pretty appalling, too. They wouldn't have looked out of place on the last Xbox, and next to no effort has been lavished on the environments. The commentary is not bad, but not enough to save the overall presentation. One last thing - if you aren't in the Career mode you can't play with the athlete you created at the beginning.

Overall the game smacks of rushed development. 49gamers obviously decided that they would speed the game out for the Olympic tie-in, regardless of whether they had the license or not. Unfortunately, the gameplay isn't anything particularly exciting and is in some places completely devoid of entertainment. In this case, let's say goodbye to summer and leave it at that.

40%

By Richard Bright