This summer has been awash with quality sports titles but there is always room on the shelves for fun and enjoyable games that have what it takes to rack up strong sales.
August sees Ubisoft step into this arena. Although not renowned for its sports titles, the company has had many a success with compilation titles aimed at families, meaning Summer Athletics 2009 has the potential to be a highly appealing proposition when it arrives on shelves.
The sequel to last year’s Summer Athletics, this title once again features a range of the most familiar athletic events and encourages players to compete against friends and family as they try to master each one. Success yields gold medals and unlocks additional events, although the thrill of beating your personal best will remain even after all of the other sports have been opened.
There are a total of 28 events on offer here, split into several disciplines such as jumping and running. Sports include the 100 metres sprint, high diving, javelin throwing and long jump, as well as a new skeet shooting event.
These can all be played individually or in Berlin World Cup mode, making use of the game’s new Berlin stadium, where national teams compete to earn the most gold medals in 15 track and field contests. There is also a career mode, in which gamers take their customised athlete and lead him to glory through a range of tournaments and competitions.
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Controls for each sport have been tailored to suit the host platform, so while masterful button-bashing and stick-twirling skills are required on the Xbox 360 version, players must make relevant gestures with the Remote and Nunchuk on the Wii version.
BOARD SPORTS
New to the Wii version this year is Balance Board compatibility. Five of the events have been developed from scratch specifically to account for movement and weight distribution on Nintendo’s innovative peripheral, including high jump, triple jump, hammer throwing, high dive and archery.
In hammer throwing, for example, players must wiggle their hips around to spin the hammer and gather speed. Conversely, archery demands that they hold their breath and stand evenly balanced in order to hit the mark.
A new mode has even been added for Balance Board owners, entitled the Balance Board Cup. This features three difficulty levels and challenges players to compete in all of the balance-based challenges.
Both versions have been designed to be as accessible as possible to an expanded audience while also catering for more avid gamers. All sports can be played in either ‘pure’ mode or arcade mode. The former relies on player’s skills with only the best players earning those all-important gold medals, while the latter introduces little video game tweaks such as boosts to let gamers give their athlete an advantage in the field.
As with the previous Summer Athletics outing, the game comes into its own in the multiplayer modes. Friends and family can compete head to head to see who is the greatest virtual athlete in all of the events and contests available in single-player mode. Up to four players are supported in split-screen, though more can take part in the hot seat mode, which sees gamers taking it in turns to participate with a single controller.
As titles such as Mario & Sonic have proved, sports compilations can be huge sellers and with several improvements over its predecessors, Summer Athletics 2009 looks set to continue that trend.
