VGGEN writes: "Ahh…the Summer Olympics. It's hard to believe that they only take place every four years, isn't it? Of course, given the quality and interest level (or lack thereof) of certain events falling under that overall categorization, perhaps it's better that the Summer Olympics only occur quadrennially. The same unwelcome recurrences are reflected likewise in Summer Athletics: The Ultimate Challenge. Conspiracy Entertainment apparently wasn't able to secure the legal right to establish itself as official Summer Olympics merchandising, but a rose by any other name is still a rose, as the Bard once wrote, and branding can only carry a game so far. What ultimately matters, despite decades of business and retail models pointing to the contrary, is the actual content of the game. And when measured by that standard, Summer Athletics: The Ultimate Challenge fails to even earn a spot on the podium."
On the eighth day of Christmas Electronic Theatre brings you the eighth instalment in our The Twelve Games of Christmas feature series. The Twelve Games of Christmas is a new feature series aimed to highlight the best disc-based releases of 2008, one month at a time. Today, we take a look at August 2008, and finally see that summer drought take shape...
PSX Extreme writes: "There's something inherently challenging in creating a game that must recreate multiple sports, especially when many of the competitions would require a completely different control mechanic. So when it comes to titles like Summer Athletics: The Ultimate Challenge, we sympathize with the developers because in our opinion, they weren't in an enviable position. However, instead of rising above, 49Games fails where so many other studios have failed: they just can't bring us an Olympics-type video game where the control is both accessible and sensible, and furthermore, the technical aspects of the production fall by the wayside. Beijing 2008 was terrible but this title is even worse due to overly complicated control, a severely lacking presentation and terrible graphics and sound. From swimming to pole vault to cycling, they get very little right and a whole lot wrong, so if you were entertaining the idea of a possible purchase, we're about to disabuse you of that notion right now. Sure, it may seem appealing for simple family-oriented athletic entertainment, but nobody is likely to enjoy themselves."
James Maddox writes:
"With more than 25 activities to keep you interested, one might think that Summer Athletics: The Ultimate Challenge is spreading itself a little thin as a all-encompassing sports title for the Wii, but while it does have its shortcomings, this title does well to keep a varying list of events and activities to keep sports players interested in the game.
Summer Athletics focuses on several event categories, such as swimming, archery, running, jumping, throwing, the high dive, and cycling, though there are several events held within each individual category.
The controls for each of these games are going to be what catches most players' attentions, as some are smooth and easy, while others tend to be a little more taxing than they probably should be.
For example, the high dive is nothing more than a timing game, as players try to match up the strikes of their controller and nunchuck (for the Wii version) to that which shows on the screen; however, the swimming event has players flailing their controls in circles, which usually ends up with the nunchuck chord wrapped around their arms-hardly a winning feature."
