Athens 2004 Review

Developer	Eurocom Ent.
Publisher	SCEA
Genre	Sports

The Olympic Games are nearly upon us, and as with most other sporting events, the Olympics have a video game, this one courtesy of 989 Sports and Eurocom. Unfortunately, much like the Olympics themselves, it just isn’t very exciting. It’s a shame, too, since with so much variety in the real-life events, there was great potential for an enjoyable party game here.

Instead, though, the developers have taken the 25 different Olympic events featured here and turned more than half of them into frantic button-mashing contests. Want to try the weightlifting event? Go and grab a PS2 controller. Seriously, I’ll wait. Got it? Okay, start hitting the X and O buttons as fast as you can. Keep going - do it faster! Push L1, then keep pushing X and O. Okay, now hit L1 again! Wow, you did it. Whew, that was fun. Oh, wait, that’s right; it wasn’t.

The rest of the events are more interesting. Many of them borrow concepts from rhythm games, asking players to input a string of buttons quickly, or time button presses with the action on-screen. Archery is a highlight of the package, forcing players to account for the wind when aiming a shot. Some events support the dance pad, which is a welcome addition. There’s a DDR clone, and a few events that will remind players of the NES classic Track and Field, demanding players “run” on the pad. Sadly, though, even the best events are only fun a handful of times. Adding insult to injury are frequent load times, and often unskippable warm-up animations.

Up to four players can compete in Athens 2004 together, and it is actually a bit of fun enduring the pain of constant button mashing with a friend or two. Too bad many of the events require players to take turns, rather than playing simultaneously. Maybe that’s for the best, though, since it gives the other players a chance to rest their swollen button-mashing arms.

All of this would be made slightly less painful if the game had an interesting structure, but basically, players play through one event and then they move on to the next one. This continues until that series of events ends, or the player gets tired of it and quits on his own. There are quite a few pre-made event groupings, and it's even possible to make your own, or just play one at a time. The game saves all your scores, which is kind of nice, but most of the events aren't the kind of thing you can really get better at; most people can only slam buttons just so fast.

Visually, the game delivers an amazingly middle-of-the-road experience, but at least the on-screen indicators are clear and to the point. Everything about the graphics scream mediocrity, from the character models to the various athlete animations and stadium designs. The sound design is equally uninspired, providing little more than crowds cheering and repetitive commentary.

Bottom Line - The bottom line is that Athens 2004 just isn’t much fun. Party gamers looking for a weekend rental could do worse, but the single player game offers no compelling reason to play more than once or twice. A handful of decent minigames combined with a bunch of absolute stinkers, many of which play identically, doesn’t exactly earn this one the gold.

Review by Joe Mackie