Initial Reviewer Impressions – London 2012 - Wiggy's Blog

Wiggy's Blog

Initial Reviewer Impressions – London 2012

Posted on June 27, 2012 at 05:32 AM.

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Olympic videogames are kind of an odd breed, as they usually have to serve many masters. To start with, they're usually made for multiple consoles, nerfing the overall quality of the presentation and horsepower behind the game. Additionally, they feature tons of events, meaning the game usually ends up being a jack of all trades and a master of none when it comes to fun factor in said events. Finally, the games are usually handled by developers that are, charitably, not at the head of the class. The sum total of those factors usually leads to a sub-par experience, whether you're talking about games of the SNES era or all the way up until today.

London 2012 features some of those aforementioned attributes, which gives me pause, but it also has a few additional wrinkles, namely being developed by SEGA, containing a wide array of events (probably the most I've ever seen in an Olympic game), and featuring Kinect/Move support. While these facts might not alter the reality that this is a pretty by-the-numbers Olympic game at first brush, they're encouraging signs, nonetheless.

I must admit to having a certain affinity to some of these flawed Olympic games, though. Much like Nagano '98 on the Nintendo 64, I'm finding some fun in the events on display in London 2012. As said above, there are actually a slew of events to choose from, including track events (100m, 110m hurdles, 200m, 400m), jumping events (high, triple, long), field events (shot put, javelin, discus), shooting (skeet, pistol, archery), water-based competition (swimming, diving) as well as stuff like kayaking, weightlifting, volleyball and cycling. There are several permutations to some of these events, and both men and women are represented (although certain events only feature one gender as an option).

The developers seem to have made a smart choice in basing a lot of the events on what I would call “light” button mashing, which is more rhythm-based, as well as some timed button presses, stick flicks and rotations. The timing definitely took a bit of getting used to, as you have to sort of get mashing to a certain cadence in the running events, but then you have to keep it there without “overflowing” the meter. Finding the sweet spot takes a bit of time. It's also good that you can get in and out of events and tutorials very quickly, allowing you to restart, practice and advance the events quickly.

Some events buck this control scheme, such as the rapid-fire pistol range. It's funny that the event kind of takes the shape of a poor man's FPS, but the stick-and-trigger setup gets the job done as you're frantically trying to hit targets with increasingly less time on the clock. The shooting is an example of an event where the AI is actually quite challenging, and their scores almost force you to be perfect on most of your attempts. Other events, like javelin and shot put, seemed relatively easy to get the gold on if you practised once or twice beforehand.

The presentation so far is pretty cheesy, much like in almost any other Olympic title. The commentator sounds like he was plucked from the fifth floor of the SEGA offices, and his lack of identification on the athletes is pretty glaring. The dialogue isn't as choppy as I thought it might be though, so obviously someone worked on stitching it together. Visually nothing is really above average, but the replays of your athlete can be fun to watch. I especially got a kick out of watching my guy in the shooting event wearing his glasses and just looking like a badass while firing his glock.

I'm intrigued to try the online modes as well as the Kinect support, and the game offers a range of local multiplayer options as well. I'm not totally discouraged by what I've played, but as always, these games usually require a certain audience to appreciate their idiosyncratic weirdness.

Outlook

Again, this is definitely a fairly standard Olympic title at first glance, but I'm having some fun with the events on display. I'm curious to see how the motion controls work across all of the events, and I'd like to get some time in with some of the unique offerings (kayaking, volleyball, gymnastics). I'm definitely enjoying the simplified control scheme over button mashers of the past (even though I'm a mean Track and Field button masher), and there are some silly animations when you win events, which adds to the fun. Look for the full review on Friday.

Comments

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