by Wyatt "JOEDOG" Elliott
The 2000 Olympic games are here. For those of you who just can't get enough of the games, Eidos has produced the only official Olympic video game. Sydney 2000 is available for Playstation, Dreamcast, and soon on the Nintendo 64.
Through out history, video games based on the Olympic games have featured less then a gold medal in control. They usually require the player to press the buttons as fast as you can to increase your Olympic performance. This may give your fingers quite a work out, but provides a terrible gaming experience. Sydney 2000 is no exception.
The graphics do not deserve a Gold, but perhaps a silver medal.
Bright colors mixed with pixelated polygon athletes is a bad mix. Sydney 2000 features several summer Olympic events including the javelin, the hammer, triple jump, high jump, skeet shooting, diving, swimming, cycling, weight lifting and more. Sorry, no gymnastics.
Sydney 2000 also features a coaching mode, arcade mode, head to head mode and Olympic modes of play.
There has yet to be a perfect summer Olympic video game. From the days of Atari 2600's Decathlon to today's Sydney 2000. They all manage to turn an exciting event into a total bore. There has yet to be a video game that has been able to capture the spirit of the Olympic games, and Sydney 2000 is no exception.
PUBLISHER: EIDOS
GRAPHICS: 4 SOUND & MUSIC: 2 CONTROL: 1.5
SECRETS: 1 ORIGINALITY: 4 FUN & REPLAY: 5
Give it a rent during the games so you can play along, but don't give it a second thought after words.OVERALL: 4