Olympic Video Games: Gold Medals or Disqualifications?

In celebration of 8.8.08, we have compiled a list of Olympic video games, former and current, to rival the Olympics themselves..! At least, maybe in spirit. Whether any game can really capture the excitement and international love-everyone-but-we-want-to-win feel of the Olympics, I don’t know. But here’s some that tried.

Track & Field: developed by Konami and released in 1983 for several platforms; notably NES, Atari 2600, Game Boy, and now available on Xbox Live. It’s heralded as one of the first Olympic-themed video games, focusing on events such as dashes, javelin throw, long jump, and high jump. The gameplay centered solely around button-mashing and occasional good-timing, and was a commercial hit on NES. The Olympian’s muscles may have looked like amorphous globs, but the spirit was there.

The 16-bit era was much of the same, the common button-mashing syndrome symptomatic of everything Olympic-related. The last 16-bit Olympic game to come out was Olympic Summer Games. Promising from the name, but sporting only ten events, (eight of which were Track & Field), OSG was an overall disappointment, even graphically.

Once we’re out of the 16-bit era, things should have improved, right? Better graphics, necessarily more complicated gameplay…this should have pumped up the Olympic game possibilities. And it seems it did, at least with Sydney 2000, released for PS, Dreamcast, and PC.It won the BAFTA award for Sports Game of the Year, though in spite of this achievement, it was still a button-masher. At last, we saw events besides Track and Field! Diving, Skeet, Slalom, Cycling were all offered, for the more discriminating gamer. The biggest difference from previous games was in the Olympic mode, in which the player had to improve and qualify an athlete for an event, using the “Cyber Gym” to play minigame exercises.

Athens 2004 and 2K Sports’ Torino 2006 both pretty much sucked. With the same button-mashing formula that had been in place for well over 20 years, it seemed that the Olympic video game would never achieve more than a “passable” or “really bad.” Maybe the game designers were just banking on a quick profit, spitting out poorly-designed games in the wake of Olympic excitement.

2008, however, has been, comparably, an amazing year for the Olympic video game. With Beijing’s tendency to push and make perfect absolutely everything about the Olympics this year, perhaps it’s not surprising that Beijing 2008, the video game, actually received a 7.7 on IGN, boasting much-improved graphics. For the first time, online gameplay is possible, bringing people together from across the globe in the world’s biggest sporting display. And real, official stadiums and venues are up for grabs, giving a much-needed Olympic-specific authenticity to the game. I’d say the online connectivity, more than any other element, is the deciding point for those who are considering this game—international competition’s what the Olympics are all about.

Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games is, arguably, the best Olympic video game to date. Developed by Sega and published by Nintendo, it is the unique functionality of the Wiimote that makes this game perfect for the Wii system. The Wii version won “Best Wii Game of 2007” at the Games Convention in Leipzig, and both versions have sold a total of ten million units as of July 2008. Like in Mario Kart, characters from both Sega and Nintendo franchises are categorized by all-around, speed, power, and skill, each specialization better suited for specific events. With 20 events, all using the Wiimote in some novel way, it’s simply a fun, multiplayer, adrenaline-pumping game. With the former rivalry of Sonic and Mario, Olympic competition and sportsmanship is ideal. Gold medal for, finally, some Olympic gaming effort.