Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2524 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Sega
• Released on: 2008-06-27
• Rating: To Be Announced
• Platform: PLAYSTATION 3

Amazon.co.uk

Embrace the competitive spirit of the world’s most prestigious sporting event and represent your country and bring home the gold

Appearing on next gen consoles for the first time, Beijing 2008 delivers an entertaining and immersive Olympic experience. The superior graphics capture the fine emotional detail of each event where a fraction of a second means the difference between winning and losing. The Innovative game mechanics challenge a player’s time, speed and co-ordination. Compete for glory with up to seven friends online; strive to break records as you lead your country to victory. This summer show your patriotism and bring home the gold!

38 Official Events: Across ten Olympic disciplines, represent the country of your choice and compete for honour in Track and Field, Aquatics, Gymnastics, Cycling, Judo, Table tennis, Kayaking and many more.

In depth Career and Competition modes: Organise your daily schedule and customize your chosen team with agility, power, stamina and speed for competition in over 38 events. Or in competition mode participate with up to three friends in either a single or multi-event challenge.

Innovative Gameplay Mechanics: Use a variety of controls across all the events including a time based system where timing, power and angle are essential, rhythm based play that requires skill of increasing and maintaining speed, and a targeting system to assist in aiming.

Global Online Competition: Choose your country and become a member of the Olympic team and face challenges from across all nations. A multitude of online features such as exhibition events, ghost times and leader boards will allow players to prove themselves before the world.

Capturing the Olympic Spirit: The official video game of the Beijing Olympics 2008 offers full branding, realistic recreations of the official Olympic stadiums. The game offers you a chance to soak up the atmosphere of this prestigious worldwide and bring home the gold!

Tagline: One World, One Dream, One Game

Customer Reviews

Silver for Beijing, Gold for Athens
It's the olympics again and as usual there is a video game to go with it.
Athens 2004 set a bench mark for Olympic video games as it improved the gameplay from Sydney 2000 alot, making it accessable for every type of gamer. Beijing has made improvements but has also altered areas that worked fine on the previous game.
Beijing consists of all the Olympic events featured in the last game and Sydney 2000, with many more new events included. There is something for everyone.
My problem is the controls. The button bashing element, which is quite simple, seems much the same as Athens 2004, but try the hammer throw, Judo and Kayaking. These events are very difficult indeed and are near impossible. It takes hours of practice to get to grips with the dificult controls. In some cases the instructions aren't made that clear either, although you can access the tutorial for each event before the action kicks off. Its certain to say that you can't pick up and play this game straight away. Athens controls were challenging at times, but were much easier to pick up. But it is fair to say, some evlemts in this game are easier then others. The controls will certainly test the strength of the controllers.
The visuals are brilliant and the detail of the players and their surroundings are amazing. The menus aren't the best I've seen, but then again that doesn't matter.
The internet gaming will be excellent, when slight glitches are fixed. Your best times are only included in the online scoreboard after training mode, and not in competition, something that needs seeing too. Whilst online you can spend alot of time waiting around for everyone to say they are ready to start, instead of an automatic counter. Also when you start an event, you can be waiting forever for the gun to sound, causing online gamers to shout random things through your headsets.
The online element will be great when it gets fixed, but for now there is still the indepth single player game to play, which is very challenging. Overall, the game is enjoyable, especially when playing with a friend, but it isn't a great improvement on Athens 2004. If you have that, don't bother.

Beijing = Brilliant!
I have just recently purchased a PS3 ... However I pre-ordered this game here on Amazon before I actually bought the PS3 ... I was *that* excited! lol

Initial impressions ... "this is too hard" I was getting disqualified in everything, jumping 3m in the long jump and as for the running lol 8th place! The controls take some getting used to, and I'm improving on all the events.

The graphics are superb, playing it in HD it's so crisp. It looks like the actual Olympics on the television.

If you're a fan of sporting games, you'll love this. I noticed another review stating they prefered Athens over this game, of course it was an excellent game which I can't fault, I just think this game is the next generation, the people look more realistic and the gameplay is definately more challanging.

10/10!

Shallow fun
This is a classic old school athletics game. In essence it's not really changed since the old Daily Thompson game on the Spectrum. There's a whole lot of waggling and button mashing.

There's nearly 40 events, but a lot of them are very similar. The more unique ones (table tennis) are have been done very quickly and somewhat poorly. The highlights being the sprint running.

THere's an amount of randomness and lack of skill in many events. THe 1500m you can be far behind up to the last lap and still easily win. There's little strategy.

This does have online for up to 8 players, which is where it becomes more fun. This is the kind of game that comes into its own in large groups, with a couple of beers.

I wouldn't suggest buying this if you like epic, play alone games. If you're a casual gamer, you'll have fun. Wait for the bargain bins.