Olympic Summer Games: Atlanta 1996

"The ultimate olympic event: button mashing!"

Though I've never been particularly fond of sports games, I've always used to play them as long as they were fun. Back in the days when the Genesis and the Super Nintendo were fighting for the throne of the best home gaming port, I spent a lot of time with titles such as NBA Jam or the numerous Fifa Soccer outputs... Then one day, I somehow had this game lent by a friend. It was hard for me to resist the temptation of smashing it on his his head when I brought it back some days later.

STORY: N/A
Well, the game is based on the Atlanta 1996 Olympic Games edition, so there isn't much of a story to expect here. I guess the story would be to win as much medals as possible. Unfortunately, accomplishing this task is denied.

GRAPHICS: 5
No doubt that I've seen worse, but still pretty poor. While most animations are fairly good, the characters and environments suffer from an unrealistic blocky look. Not much variety to be found, either: all of the 10 events have the same perspective except high jump, archery and skeet.

SOUND: 3
VERY annoying. The music in this game is extremely poorly rendered, and most of the tunes themselves sound... well, stupid. They try to fit into the spirit of the game, but that's all the credit I can give them. Well, I could also say that there's a good number of them, but since they all tend to suck I'm not sure to count this among the pros.
The sound effects drag the audio department further down the drain... actually, after a while you'll start wondering if the programmers did insert ANY sfx in this game. The answer is yes, I managed to locate some of them by turning the music off in the options menu (otherwise they'll be drowned by the overpowering volume of the silly songs). Still, this game is considerably lacking in this department. I mean... it's an Olympic event... WHERE THE HELL IS THE CROWD? Turn the music off, and as you start the game you'll be surrounded by an ominous silence. Add that the few effects present are anything but top-notch, and you'll reach for the mute button soon.

CONTROLS: 2
Here's the real standout flaw of this game. The controls are simply impossible to handle and absurd in their concept. In almost every event, to increase your power (mostly the speed of your run) you have to press alternately A and B. The fact is that it has to be done at an insane speed to achieve some decent results. But that's not enough... in most events, in order to perform the required actions (jumping over obstacles, throwing weights, etc.) you have to push other buttons at the EXACT time, of course without stopping your machine gun fingering on A and B. Maybe this game was tested by an octopus, or was designed to be played simultaneously by two people sharing button pressing duties; still, the control system is a lethal flaw for this game. I also said that you have to press the buttons at the exact time in order to perform the actions... this means that you get about one chance among 1000000000000 to match the required timing, also because the controls, not satisfied of being this meaningless, are also pretty unresponsive.
I give them a 2 because there are 2 events in which I somehow managed to do something thanks to the controls.

GAMEPLAY: 3
There are 10 events to choose from in this game, but most of them are inevitably ruined by the aforementioned controls. The 100 meters dash and the long jumps are the only ones which I somehow handled: the first only requires you to mash A and B to speed up (which is hard enough), while in the second you'll have to do the same thing and then press up to jump when you reach the line, so you'll be hitting three buttons instead of two. It doesn't sound funny, yes, and I guarantee it isn't either.
Things get worse with the other events. 110 meters hurdles requires the A-B-A-B-A-B abomination to run fast enough to catch up with the other contenders (which is a bit like trying to catch up with a Honda superbike while riding a tricycle) while pressing up to jump over the hurdles, a task which quickly proves to be impossible also thanks to the moody temper of the up button, which only works when he feels like it.
Triple jump should work the same way as long jump, and therefore should be quite playable, but I only managed to pull of the first jump on a couple of times; mostly, the game forgets the existence of the up button which you are constantly slapping. The same goes with pole vault, where you'll always end up with the pole stuck in the landing mattress at the end of the track.High jump, on the other hand, is a bit more responsive.
Javelin and discus throw are both ridiculous and frustrating, particularly the latter, as I've tried every possible button combination but still I can't avoid being disqualified for sliding outside the throwing area.
There are also 2 shooting events, but only archery is worth mentioning, as skeet is close to impossible due to the loose controls and absurd speed of the targets.

OVERALL: 3
A complete waste of time which reaches a 3 because of the potential you're still able to see through the wall of flaws. Simply ignore it.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 06/03/03, Updated 06/03/03