Jolt Review: Beijing 2008

Jolt reports:

”Here’s a serious question: how would you design a game that encompasses the entire Olympic experience? It’s admittedly not easy, but you’d probably begin by breaking the games down into different events, identifying the similarities between each event and implementing a series of controls that in some way emulate the different activities involved. That’s more or less what developer Eurocom has done here, just as has been done in the many track and field games of the past. The real question is: can repetitive motion make for a fun time?

As the game of this year’s Olympics, Beijing 2008 is pretty successful. As a plain old videogame, though, it’s very much a victim of that success. Sega’s offering is ultimately a joyless, literal interpretation of what is – let’s face it – a stuffy occasion to begin with. Beijing 2008 looks great, and we’re sure that the stadia are all very accurate, but no videogame will ever match the atmosphere of the real thing, so forgive me if I don’t want to indulge in drawn-out, repetitive animations of athletes riling up the audience or shaking their head in defeat.”