Summer Challenge

Looking for a fun-filled, action- packed Olympic sports game? Summer Challenge probably isn't it. Accolade merges colorful, digitized graphics with top sports competition, but somehow manages to trip over its own Nikes on game play.

The Thrill of Victory...

Summer Challenge offers eight Summer Olympic-style events. There's enough variety to please all you armchair athletes, but not enough sustained challenge to keep you glued to your seat. You can practice each event in Training mode, or go for the highest score against a field of athletes in the Tournament, which has adjustable challenge settings and passwords. One to ten players alternate turns in each event.

Solo events, such as archery, horseback riding, pole vault, high jump and javelin, get pretty good treatment. The best event is kayaking, which gives you a twisting, turning ride down narrow waterways.

...The Agony of De Game

Summer Challenge really stumbles in competitive events, such as cycling and the 400-meter hurdles. On TV, competitors jostle for position in these sweat-drenching events. In Summer Challenge, you get only one guy straining against the clock with no opposition, whether you play in Training or in Tournament mode.

Not only does Summer Challenge lack on-screen competition, but as a whole the game is slow and deliberate, rather than fast and furious. The events usually involve rapid button-pressing. The pad controls height, angle, jump, or steering. Like most Olympic-style games, the action isn't too complicated, because only a couple of the controller's buttons are utilized. As a result of simplistic action and only eight total events, your interest in this game will probably fade quickly.

Olympic Looks and Sounds

Stylish graphics compensate somewhat for the sluggish game play. The opening and closing ceremonies burst with pageantry and color, the athletes get detailed renderings and facial portraits, and the behind-the-athlete 3D perspective draws you into the action. You even get an instant replay. However, a near-gold for visuals is reduced to a silver by the blocky forward-scrolling scenes, which make depth difficult to gauge.

Summer Challenge's clear musical themes pump your adrenaline, the athletes' grunts are emphatic, and you even get the occasional, garbled announcer's voice. However, more sound effects are needed.

The Mild World of Sports

This game's high point comes when your athlete plows headfirst into an obstacle -- Accolade's always done wrecks well. The events are fun for a while, and the unique graphic perspective is worth a look. However, the repetitive action and slow game play are frustrating. Summer Challenge qualifies for the final heat, but it's a long shot for a medal.

Summer Challenge, rather unsurprisingly, is a sports sim of the Summer Olympics. are eight different events to participate in, ranging from arche cycling, with the option of either simply training in a specific event, or attempting to tackle them all in the Olympic tournament. Most of these events are based around hitting and holding buttons at the right time, and often seem more like a memory test; once you've learnt the correct technique for an event, it's extremely easy to master it.

This wasn't iuways the case, though, as many moons ago, all sports games featured a lot of sbijiaHi joystick waggling. This really wasn't much fun, as not only could this lead to a strained wrist, but it also meant you had to have an almost endless supply of joysticks because each one would break after a couple of intense "waggles". These though, those oh-so-clever games development chappies have realised tlatpnost of us don't have zillions of joysticks to waggle and break, and so have resorted to the all new "button basher". Unfortunately, anyone with a joystick featuring autofire (i.e. about everyone) can cheat, and thus obtain perfect times in many events. Okay, you're not meant to cheat, but nearly everyone will. Probably. And if you add this to the fact that the game is quite easy tomaster anyway, then it doesn't look like it's going to have a very long shelf.

Even so, the games are all quite to play, and the presentation is pretty good; the mixtures of sprites and polygons works well, the game moving at a reasonable rate without looking horrible. As usual, me sound is appalling, but no one plays on pc games with the sound up, do they?

The main problem behind Summer Challenge lies not in the game itself, but in the genre; sports games, are, by and large, dull. The multi-player mode (not simultaneous) may help matters, but once you've mastered most of the events, you're not going to want to return to them regularly. If you really want to get a sports sim you could do a lot worse than this one, but do you ffeally want a sports sim when there are a lot of better games available?

Take yourself to the limits of human endurance with Summer Challenge for the Sega Genesis!

Compete in eight great Olympic-style events such as Archery, Cycling, Equestrian, Hurdles, High Jump, Javelin, Kayaking and Pole Vaulting. You can participate in a tournament or just practice using the Training Mode. Have some friends join in; you can enter the names of ten additional players! The superb animation is really something to see!

If you think you have what it takes, try our luck at Summer Challenge by Accolade. Let the games begin!