Official Olympics Video Game Mimics Look of London 2012, Lacks Feel

(ATR) The official "London 2012" video game provides a realistic user experience of "competing" in Olympic sports across the British capital.

This latest installment is the sixth summer edition of the "official" Olympics video game franchise started in 1992. Published by Sega, the title allows players to participate in 31 events from the Olympic program in individual or "Olympic Mode" play.

"London 2012" is the first in the franchise to utilize Microsoft’s "Kinect" motion technology along with Sony’s "PlayStation Move."

Look of the Games

The official "London 2012" video game is as realistic as possible with regards to the look of the Games.

All of the events take place at their respective London venues, with realistic and sharp visuals. The various events allow users to travel from the Olympic Stadium to Eton Dorney and back to ExCel within a single game!

Olympic purists will enjoy the attention to detail as well as the consideration for accuracy in the events and venues showcased in the game.

London 2012's logo and typography is featured only on the main menu and loading screens so as not to distract the player during the events, which is a nice touch and not overbearing.

For those who want to feel as though they are participating in London for the Games, it's definitely worth the $49.99 investment.

Unfortunately, the gameplay itself is a mixed bag.

Feel of the Games

The official "London 2012" video game only contains events from 12 of the 26 sports on the Summer Olympic program, and nine of the sports featured have two events or less.

This bodes well for fans of athletics (100m, 110m hurdles, 200m, 400m, discus, high jump, javelin, long jump, shot put, and triple jump), diving (3m springboard, 10m platform, synchronized 3m and 10m) and swimming (50m freestyle, 100m freestyle, breaststroke, butterfly, and backstroke).

But fans of archery, beach volleyball, canoe slalom, cycling, gymnastics, rowing, shooting, table tennis and weightlifting will be left feeling underwhelmed and wanting more.

The two main game play options are individual and Olympic mode.

In individual mode, players can choose whichever events they want to compete in whatever order they want and then go for the gold.

In Olympic mode, players play all the events while representing a country and trying to lead its athletes to the top of the medals table. Only 36 out of 204 National Olympic Committees are playable in the game, continuing the trend of the "official" video game under-representing London 2012.

The gameplay itself was a bit repetitive. Playing on Xbox 360 without "Kinect," almost every event seemed to consist of pushing the "A" button repeatedly. While this isn’t the case for every event, there seemed to be little challenge presented by playing with a controller.

I am sure it would have been a lot more fun to "run" the 100m dash with "Kinect" rather than pressing the "A" button as fast as I could for 10 seconds on end.

Verdict

Having the "Kinect" or "PlayStation Move" sensors seems to be a must for this game.

The only events for which I felt that the "Kinect" sensor was not needed were shooting and diving. Both events required much more precision, which made them both fun and challenging. Every other event is a combination of pressing one of three buttons repeatedly or in a sequence.

Unfortunately, it's fairly easy to master the events on "easy" and "medium" difficulty, but it takes a while to unlock "hard" mode. This forces the player to play through the game once just to get a challenge, which is understandable but tedious.

Even in "hard" mode, it took only a few attempts to lead my country to the top of the medals table with nothing but gold in every event after one or two previous attempts in "Olympic Mode."

Multiplayer is the best game mode by far, as it's much more fun to play each sport against friends and family than it is to beat generic computer-generated athletes.

Users with a "Kinect" or "PlayStation Move" sensor will greatly enjoy the new technology being applied to the Games, but those without one may want to pass on this game.

For Olympic purists, this game is a nice continuation of the franchise that holds true to the authenticity of presenting the London 2012 Games. For casual players, it's a fun game to play before and after the Olympics, but will probably not hold up much longer after the London Games close.

Another way to get into the London 2012 spirit is to play the Official London 2012 Mini-Game, which can be found here.

Reviewed by Aaron Bauer.

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