Well let’s hastily avoid all kinds of controversy by not mentioning the real games that start soon in Beijing, China, and get right on to a list of the 36 individual events included in Sega’s nice, politically correct, uncontroversial game:

Track events: 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, 1500m, 110m Hurdles, 100m Hurdles.
Field events: High Jump, Pole Vault, Long Jump, Triple Jump, Shot Put, Discus, Hammer, Javelin.
Aquatic events: 50m Freestyle, 100m Backstroke, 100m Butterfly, 100m Breastroke, Diving – 3m Springboard, 10m Platform.

Gymnastics: Parallel Bars, Vault, Rings, Floor Exercise, Beam, Uneven Bars.

Shooting: Shotgun (Skeet), 10m Air Pistol, 25m Rapid Fire Pistol.

Others: Archery, Weightlifting, Cycling (Team Pursuit), Canoe (K1 solo Kayak), Judo, Table Tennis.

Options are; Training (you’ll need a lot of that), Competition (edit up your own favoured selection of events, do a random selection, a Decathlon or a Heptathlon), Olympic Games (the whole shebang), Customise Team (change the sex of certain athletes where the event allows, and change their appearances). And you can also view the online leaderboards from here.

The High Jump is a much more enjoyable event, with precise timings of X & O to match the athlete’s footsteps (like a rhythm action game), followed by a press of L2 or R2 to jump, works much better in this event.

The Pole Vault uses more joystick-waggling or button mashing to build up runway speed and a press of L2 or R2 to plant the pole, and there’s a golf-game-style gauge to help you plant it in the “zone”. This feels really simplistic, uses no analogue features and doesn’t even have the skill or timing required to play the Pole Vault in good old Summer Games on the Commodore 64 all those years ago. Disappointing.

It’s probably just as well that after all that track & field effort it was off to the aquatic events to cool down. The swimming events all use pretty much the same control system as the running events, adding rotational movements of the joysticks to mimic the swimmer’s arm movements, if you choose to use that method (you can just mash the X and O buttons if you prefer). The two diving events use a neat analogue method to match the movements of the diver’s arms and legs and a realistic ‘tariff’ scoring system, and stand out as the better events so far.

To the gymnastics arena, and the Parallel Bars starts us off. More presses of L2 & R2 are used to ‘power up’ and mount the bars, and the analogue sticks come into play to keep your gymnast’s balance during handstand elements – this bit is really tricky. A button combination then has to be pressed correctly to get a perfect dismount. The Vault is another button masher/joystick waggler with a strange dismount system that I couldn’t get the hang of at all – but my gymnast did look like he was on methamphetamines so maybe that was the problem. The Rings are probably considered as the “blue ribbon” men’s event in real life, and are more fun in-game, with more L2 & R2 tapping to keep your strength up and both analogue sticks used to keep your athlete balanced. The Floor Exercise is another rhythm action game that sees a small, monkey-like girl prancing around the arena, as you forlornly try and time your clumsy ape-like button presses (X, triangle, O and Square) with her delicate footsteps and other ridiculously agile goings-on. The Beam is a “women only” event for two very good reasons, and has always looked like some kind of legalised child abuse to me. This game incarnation of the event hasn’t changed my mind one bit. More carefully timed button presses will see you score well here, but it’s not a fun event. The Uneven Bars event uses the analogue sticks and shoulder buttons to time your gymnast’s swings and movements to the other bar. This is probably the best of the gymnastics events as the control system actually seems to work, but we found with them all “practice makes perfect” – well “better” at least, and scoring improves accordingly.

Now to the final group, the “others” are without doubt some of the best games in Beijing 2008. The Archery is a really nicely done event that uses analogue controls well as you aim with the left stick and pull back & release the arrow with the right. You have to allow for the wind and the longer you take to shoot the smaller the target gets. This event looks great and plays the same way – we’re losing count of the number of times that Archery has been the best event in 'Olympic' video games. The weightlifting requires an extremely tricky simultaneous movement of both sticks to generate the lifter’s power, but it works well and requires a good deal of skill. The Team Pursuit cycling is a joystick waggler/ rotater and is quite a test of endurance and concentration as races last 4 minutes or so, with you choosing when to change the lead rider. The Kayak Canoeing could have been the best event in the games, a great looking white water course and a decent control system is spoiled by an inexplicably jerky frame rate and sudden, unrealistic movement and canoe physics. Every silver lining has a cloud, and the Judo is simply terrible. A daft, almost unfathomably unresponsive control system that leaves you as little more than a spectator means this is probably the worst event in the entire game. The Table Tennis is a strange inclusion and would have to be something special with Rockstar’s game so fresh in the memory, and this isn’t bad. It plays a basic game with topspin and backspin shots available, and if you keep the ball in play long enough you can hit a ‘smash’ shot that should win you the point.

All in all this is a more than competent effort at an Olympic Games err... game, for the most part it looks great, and the replays really show off the well-animated and modelled athletes and the packed stadium well, although here and there the frame rate seems a bit jerky for no apparent reason. I also found the loading times to be rather slow; despite a HDD install they aren't noticably better than the 360 version, which is disappointing. Highlights like the excellent Archery (maybe I’m a frustrated Robin Hood?) are more than counterbalanced by many of the events’ bizarrely thought-out and over-demanding controls, and the sheer lack of interactivity or “feel” in some events drag the fun element of the gameplay down. Even allowing for the multiplayer (split screen, LAN and online for up to 4 players) it’s unlikely that you’ll be playing this collection of stick-twiddling button-bashers for the duration of the real games, and it’ll be gathering dust on the shelf long before the closing ceremony.