Game review: Summer Challenge Athletics Tournament

Admittedly, I didn’t want to like this game. Upon my first attempts at playing some of the athletic games, I was immediately reminded of the days when the Wii first came out. Lots of button-bashing fun on the control and waving it around like an idiot. But as I grew tired from throwing my controller about in a frenzy, I realised that I was starting to enjoy this game. I understood why I probably along with many others was getting into this game – it’s just about the competition. The challenges are simple, easy to pick up and make winning addictive. And because it’s Olympic fever time it just adds to the experience. You can play the bog-standard singles campaign, the Summer Challenge career mode, or multi-player competitions. There are eight sports with 20 disciplines to play in. You can choose from running, throwing, jumping, swimming, diving, archery, trampolining and foil fences. There are four tournament areas to compete in. But with the aforementioned career mode, there is little depth to it and overall it barely got me excited because I have seen it all before. You have a trainer to assist you throughout your career and the idea is to start with low abilities in strength, fitness, speed – that kind of thing. And gradually you are supposed to work your way up to become one of the best athletes around. That would become true, if the training made any difference. I didn’t notice any change and felt this was probably just another way to disguise the fact that this game is just another cash-in on the Games. It all just comes down to how quickly you can thump the controller buttons or move the joystick in a certain position. For the competitive, that won’t matter as much. There is the option to play the Online League, which at first sounded more interesting. You can compete against friends and family and work your way up the rankings to achieve points and beat scores. You also get to compete with the ghosts of international players who are at a similar level to you, giving you a target to beat and improve your ranking. This experience wasn’t too boring – it wasn’t great either though. Again, it’s all about button-mashing and once you grow tired of that there’s little else to keep you motivated. On the game packaging it talks about ‘the realistic graphics and the fantastic sound backdrop’. Most gamers will know that if this is what the game-maker is shouting about on the packaging, it doesn’t bode too well for the actual game. The graphics are not actually bad at all, they are what you’d expect for an average sports game. The ‘fantastic sound backdrop?’ It’s pointless even talking about it. All I will say is, I didn’t even recognise the sound because I was too busy mashing the controller in an attempt to win a gold medal. Summary OK, so it’s not the best athletics game I have ever played, and to be brutal there are other options out there on the shelves now that would probably give you more gaming joy. However Summer Challenge is an easy game to get into and play. And for those who are quite competitive like me, it would be the ideal game to shove on and compete against your mates or online after watching your team at the Olympics. I give Summer Challenge Athletics Tournament 6 out of 10 Summer Challenge Athletics Tournament Developer: PQube Publisher: PQube Xbox 360® Playstation 3® Wii® Release Date 2nd September 2011 ©theleet