Sega released Beijing Olympics 2008 last friday in Europe, while Americans can pick it up next week. Sega took the full step to the current generation, ignoring the PS2, developing it on Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and the PC. The game mechanics are the same as the old games, it's all about button bashing in many of the 38 (!) events.

The game hasn't been reviewed in many medias, but so far it has gotten pretty low scores. This is something I can't understand - the game isn't something revolutionary, but the average of somewhere around 50% is really low to me.

The controls have gotten some additions this year - if you don't want to bash A or B while running track, you can for example move the sticks in circles or up and down. This doesn't feel good for me, so I ended up using A+B anyway. The graphics are pretty good, animations aswell and there really isn't much to complain about there.

There are 38 (thirty-eight!) different events that can be played, see the full list in the gallery below. Sure, 200m track and 400 doesn't differ that much, but there is a wide variety between them - swimming, gymnastics, table tennis, judo, you name it.

The game features 4 player offline play and online multiplayer, something I haven't tested yet but should be a blast.
If anyone of you want to see a particular event, write in the comments below and I'll do a video tomorrow or so. Until then, enjoy the first steps in the singleplayer mode.