Sydney 2000 Olympics Dreamcast Review

As far back as the Sega Mega Drive I can remember furiously tapping away on the A and B buttons on a game called Olympic Gold.  This was a great little game at the time, which made for a great two-player experience.

Now the Sega Dreamcast has another set of Olympic games under its belt including the Official Sydney 2000 Olympics game.

Graphics

The graphics are not something to shout about but they are impressive enough to keep you tantalised in the heat of the game.

The graphics are more of a compliment to the game rather than an all out attempt to excite us with all the features the Dreamcast has to offer.  Sydney 2000 Olympics does have some nice player models and smooth motion captured animations.  The facial expressions on the weight lifting event crack me up.  You can really feel for the character as you tap away like a maniac at the A and B buttons while watching your player animation pull all sorts of painful expressions on their face.  

The stadium is nice enough, but a big downer for the game is the crowd.  At times it just looks like one extremely large moving sheet of colour.  This is a shame as obviously the crowd features on most events and can be a distraction.  The grass looks realistic enough and the tracks pleasing to the eye.

Gameplay

This is where the game excels.  To control the character, the buttons are:

• A          =          Power Button
• B          =          Power Button
• X          =          Trigger Button
• Y          =          Trigger Button

The power buttons are for the speed.  The faster you tap A and then B and then repeating the process determines the speed of the character you control. The trigger buttons are for dipping at the finish line, jumping hurdles and setting angles on throws. This control method is nothing new, but has proven to work on many previous Olympic games.

There are 12 stages in all:

• 100 Metres Sprint
• 110 Metres Hurdles
• Hammer
• Javelin
• Triple Jump
• High Jump
• 100 Metres Freestyle Swimming
• 10 Metre Platform Diving
• Kayak K1 Slalom
• Super Heavyweight Weight Lifting
• Olympic Sprint Cycling
• Skeet Shooting

The 100 metre sprint is simply tapping A and B all the way to the finish line. The 110 metre hurdles is tapping A and B and then pressing one of the trigger buttons to jump the hurdle.  Not that easy and timing and rhythm is essential. The hammer is very awkward.  Best thing to do here is to ignore the character and watch the gauge just below him.  A split second tap in the wrong place can cost you dearly. Javelin is tapping A and B and then using X or Y to set the angle.

Most events are a variation of these techniques making it pretty simple for the user to work out.

The diving is pretty simple.  You select the type of dive you want to try.  The harder the dive the more points can be earned.  You first have to tap the trigger button to set the jump height off the diving board and then as you are diving pressing either red, blue, green as shown on the screen to enable the stunt.  This does work well and is better than some of the older games where you had to remember various buttons combinations to make the dive which was ridiculous as you couldn’t remember all of the different sequences.

The Skeet shooting is a nice little event, but the skeet’s can quickly disappear into the distance making it too difficult at times to see.  Another problem happens when you are aiming your site to about the centre of the screen and a little effect known as lens flare is activated, which means a series of strong circular lights trailing from the sun is blinding your view.

The only terrible event on this game is the Kayak Slalom.  It is graphically boring and the control is very frustrating.  This is an unfortunate problem but the other 11 events are great.

Another sore point about the game is the number of automatic replays during the game.  Yes they do look nice, but there are far too many.  The replays on the Skeet shooting are ridiculous.  It shows you nothing more than what you would normally see.

There are 3 main modes of play

• Arcade
• Olympic
• Head to Head

Olympic is designed for the single player where you have to train and strengthen your characters attributes.  This is a good idea, but in practice it just gets tedious which is a great shame. Arcade mode users the best attributes for your character and is much more fun with your mates.  This uses computer controlled opponents with your players. Head to Head removes all the computer opponents and instead it’s you against your friends.

Sound and Music  

The commentary is nice and not too repetitive adding that little bit extra to the game.  The music is catchy if a little repetitive.  The character sounds are good too so the sound and music isn’t bad at all.

Conclusion

All in all this is a great Olympics game, that suffers from one very poor event and some little niggles in some of the events. These can be overlooked and the game is worth buying if you like this genre.