Price: £39.99 Players: 1-4 Widescreen: No 60Hz: Yes DTS sound: No Athens 2004 - they just about built the stadium on time, but put a lot of people off going in the process and struggled to get an audience for some of the earlier events, such as the one man who turned up to the archery game. Definitely a case of, if he were to ask, "What time does it start?", they would reply, "What time can you get here?" The basics are that there are arcade and competition modes. The first includes the chance to practice, take part in a single event, indulge in party mode (dance-mat mode for up to four players) and achallenge mode to be unlocked. For competition, this involves sticking by the official rules, accumulating and breaking world records and collecting Olympic medals. I checked out practically all the events on offer, but you know that certain ones are going to largely mirror what's gone before.

First up with the 100m. Without instructions to help, it took a while to realise you must hold down L1 until the start, and then it's just the usual lot of button-bashing O and X as fast as you can. It's a real pain to hold down L1 when using a joypad. I haven't got 3 hands! Of the rest of the athletic events, I had a go at the 800m but he seemed to do most of the running by himself anyway. I lost, naturally. I didn't embark on the hurdles, but they'll be the same as the 100m but pressing 'jump' at the right points. The Long Jump is quite effective once you get it right, although you do have to press the jump button at the right time (where the foot marker is) so as to leap off the board at the last second. For the High Jump, tap left/right correctly and leap at the right time. These events come across more like a usual dance-mat game, which is handy since if you have one they can be used with some of the events. The higher you try to jump, the more fussy it is about how well you hit the buttons at the right time, to the point where you'll eventually fail. When it came to the Javelin, I thought I'd done okay, but was told I just did a "really poor throw". Why? I swear this stupid game just makes it up as it goes along! With the Discus, how the hell am I supposed to play this one? I alternated O and X, pressed L1 and waggled the joystick but to no avail. It just kills me off!

The Floor Exercises are impossible without a dance mat as you can't press two D-pad buttons at the same time. The Swimming gives you several 100m events, all impossible to play with a joypad as you can't mash O and X alternately and effectively while pressing the 'breathe' (L1) button. Why was that put in?! Stick with Track N Field! When it came to the Rings, it's just a combination of pressing L1 and R1, and the Vault involves pressing X and O buttons in a set way. Nil points to the Horse jumping. How tedious can this get? Just turn left/right to steer in the correct direction and see if you can jump at the right time. Yawn! Weightlifting next, and this one's bloody stupid unless you've got three hands to control L1 while bashing X and O! Gaah! Archery - the sport no-one watches. Very average and works the same way as an old Atari ST darts game I played about 15 years ago. Annoyingness reaches new heights with the Skeet Shooting as too much time spent loading gun between shooting. Why not have several at once like in Track N Field? It's not as if the gun-loading is skippable which is really irritating!

The graphics are reasonable. They're clean and colourful but, like the Skeet shooting, some have sections that repeat themselves and can't be skipped through, and before every single long jump, I don't want to see my competitor waving to the crowd in the same way as if he's just lost his virginity! The trouble with some events is with the strange angles they managed to make it rather an odd experience and one that was eclipsed in the 80s with Track N Field in the arcades, while the ZX Spectrum had Brian Jacks' Superstar Challenge. And, if I was going to re-attempt some of these events, why can't I do this straight away? It takes an age to save the position, load the menu back in, and then I have to load the same event in again! Overall, rent this if you must, but either way I can't see many sales taking place after the games are over.

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Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2004.