Note: This review is based on the Atari XL computer series.
1984 Summer Olympics Games has its fair share of controversies – mainly the Eastern Bloc nations, including the Soviet Union and Cuba boycotted it. But that didn’t stop the gaming community getting its fair share so, why not introduce a video game based on the Olympics? Well it couldn’t be a better company than EPYX to do this as they specialise in action games; so along arrives Summer Games. The Atari version is a mighty fine port to say the least with beautiful graphics, sounds and gameplay. The game is that good, it’s almost like doing the real thing, except for the pain, the sweat, the tears, the sponsors, the money needed to raise to get there, the politics…
Naturally this game does not have all the events for the 1984 Olympic Summer Games has however it does have eight (for which is pretty decent considering its competitors like 1983’s Track and Field has six however 1984’s Decathlon has ten). The eight events are the Pole Vault, Platform Diving, 4x400m Relay, 100m Dash, Gymnastics, Freestyle Relay, 100m Freestyle Relay and finally Skeet Shooting. You can opt to play them all or just one. You can also practice any events for which is pretty awesome considering you need all the practice you can get for the Gymnastics, for instance.
Just like the Summer Games, when you first boot up the game, you get to see the guy lighting up the torch in the opening ceremony. This cannot be skipped though however it does shows how detailed the game is – the guy running is very smooth and the flames flickers remarkably well. You also witness the peace doves fly away once the torch has been lit. So you can see there’s a lot of care and devotion poured into this game by simply watching the opening scene. Once that all said and done, you can choose up to eight players to compete and select one of the eighteen countries representing the games (well seventeen as one ‘country’ just happens to be EPYX). Here it’s a little odd as the USSR is one of the countries you can select and the Australia’s national anthem is Waltzing Matilda? Seriously EPYX, this is pretty poor.
To play all the events mostly requires smashing your joystick to kingdom come, and I’m not joking either. The running events are the main target here as the faster you move left / right the faster the guy runs. What this means that if you are using the Atari joystick, kiss it goodbye. My prefer joystick for this is the Command Control from Wico – it has a metal shaft and I’m not sure if the base is metal too however one thing is for certain, it can last many rounds of Summer Games. The 500XJ from EPYX is also a strong joystick however it’s more rigid than the Command Control.
Controlling the guy / girl is simple to do and the game’s manual explains this well enough. Yet, it does take a little practice as Pole Vault acts a lot differently than, say Diving. Some requires timing (swimming), some requires hand / eye coordination (skeet shooting) and some requires smashing your joystick to bits (running). Yet, no matter how much I practice Gymnastics, I rarely do an air spin after leaping off the horse. In the running events, you can literally run off-screen (for which is quite humorous) as the screen scrolls at a constant speed. This also goes when you are too slow as well. However you cannot do this in the swimming events – i.e. even though the screen again moves at a constant speed, if you are too slow, you swim on the edge of the screen whilst the leader cannot go off-screen. So you can play this to your advantage as don’t bother pressing the button until the final lap (for the relay events only).
Yet there are tricks to get the gold medal or even the world’s record. I won’t state them all here as that’s part of the fun to discover them. However I provide you an example with the first event, the Pole Vault. To get the optimum jump, always select ‘high grip’ and then look at the crowd, especially the gaps where it separates them into groups. You should see, in the middle crowd, there’s a straight line separating them – that’s where you should aim the pole downwards. Once the pole lands on vault box and swing upwards to about 45 degrees (half way up), pull the joystick up then press the fire button when the pole is dead straight. With this trick, you should get a 6m jump. My world record is 6.2m.
The game looks very pretty and detailed to boot. All the runners, swimmers and so on have a lot of animation in them and the backdrops are pretty decent with lively colours. I’m glad this is the case considering some events requires meticulous timing if you want to earn that gold medal or even get a world’s record as it’s saved directly to the disk. This even goes to the crowd as in the running events, you can see them raising the USA sign as you run past. The sound quality is pretty average at best as you can hear the runner’s steps and even the cheer from the crowd if you scored high enough. All the national anthems are played in a ‘summarised’ version however, just like I stated before, I’m dubious if they are played correctly as the Australian national anthem is not Waltzing Matilda.
Summer Games is a very decent product as it does require a wide range of skills to master all eight events. Visually impressive however questionable national anthems themes. It certainly set the standards of any sports genre games (for its time) however there are events that I prefer to see like shot put or even javelin throwing. However I guess that was ‘taken’ by its contender ‘Track and Field’ (Konami 1983). Also I would like to see the winning people standing on the medal podium instead of listing the person won as this would add further immersion. Yet, Summer Games is a great product overall however, in my eyes, last year’s Track and Field is a far superior product, especially the arcade version. I guess you can say Summer Games won the silver medal for an Olympic Sports game.