On your bike: let the Beijing gamers begin

EVERY four years, the youth of the world gathers around their consoles to play the latest computer version of that greatest show on Earth, the Olympic Games.

This year, as the Olympic flame is lit in Beijing for the first time, also for the first time the official video game version of the Games makes it to the next-generation consoles.

The big question is will the 2008 iteration of the "official IOC-endorsed Olympic Games video game", produced by Sega, finally break the button-masher mould of past official editions.

Actually, this is the second "official" Olympic release of the year. Nintendo's Mario and Sonic made their trip to Beijing earlier this year in a rather patchy game for the Wii console.

This version is more in the vein of past Olympic titles - multiple sports (in this case 38 events in 11 disciplines) played by national teams (32 to choose from) amid graphic representations of this year's real venues.

The good news is that this is quite graphically spectacular - well up to the standard of the new-generation consoles.

From the opening sequences showing fireworks for the opening ceremony above the Beijing stadium - complete with force feedback to the controllers with every firework explosion - to the lifelike reproductions of the athletes and the competition venues, this is definitely the most graphically gorgeous video version of the Olympics yet produced.

It's also very online-oriented, tailored for online team play across countries and continents. There's also a lot of flexibility about how you put your national team together, to the point of being able to choose the likenesses of individual athletes.

The trouble is, when it comes to actual gameplay, I'm afraid to say that this is just another button-masher, and not a particularly good one.

Indeed, despite the fact that for nearly every event presented the task involves either timing, co-ordination or plain super-fast mashing of digits on various controller buttons, it's actually quite difficult to get the hang of most of the sports.

So much so that it risks people losing interest very quickly. I may not be one of the great joystick jockeys, but it certainly wasn't encouraging when even after a few hours of extended play I was still struggling to get below 17.2 seconds for the 100m track sprint and was continually falling off the parallel bars in easy mode in the gymnastics.

Ultimately this is a great-looking game with little substance. That's a pity. As a huge Olympics fan I really wanted to like it more.