5.8 /10 1 Votes
Composer(s) Jonathan Colling Developer Attention To Detail Publishers Eidos Interactive, Capcom | 5.8/10 GameSpot Initial release date 31 July 2000 Mode Single-player video game | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Genre Sports game (Olympic video games) Platforms PlayStation, Dreamcast, Microsoft Windows, IBM PC compatible Similar Eidos Interactive games, Track and field athletics games, Other games | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sydney 2000 is the official video game of the XXVII Olympic Summer Games, hosted by Sydney, Australia in 2000. Developed by Attention to Detail and published by Eidos, it was released for the Sony PlayStation, PC (Microsoft Windows) and the Sega Dreamcast. Ports of the game for Nintendo 64 and Game Boy Color was planned for release alongside the PlayStation version but was later canceled. With a total of 32 countries and 12 events, it was the follow-up of Olympic Summer Games: Atlanta '96.
Contents
With good sales and despite mostly mixed reviews from critics, it won the BAFTA award for the Sports game of the year.
Events
Gameplay
Although the button mashing-laden gameplay had not changed from previous games, the main competition itself become more complex with the inclusion of the Virtual Gym and a complete Olympics qualifying tour, composed by four stages, and the player can only run for the medals of the events he qualified for. While some of the events are the women's, each event is only set to one gender: it isn't possible to run the women's 100 m hurdles or the men's high jump.
Individually, there isn't much difference in gameplay from previous games: two action buttons control speed and there's a third for extra action: jumping, passing a hurdle, setting the angle and releasing the hammer or javelin, tough the wall, etc. All events rely on this formula, except diving (which uses "click-a-long" rather than the freeform jumping of Olympic Gold), Skeet and K1 Slalom. Chase Cycling also requires the player to pace himself, or the final cyclist will run out of long pace before the final sprint.
The biggest difference from previous games in the series lies in the Olympic mode: instead of starting in the Olympics, the player must improve and qualify an athlete for the event. Each event has four stages (Open Trials, Initiation Event, The Championship, Olympic Class), and for each stage the player must complete some minigames in the Cyber Gym that range from running on a treadmill, climbing a pole, squats or reaction training, for a total of 20 minigames. Completing a Cyber Gym game improves the athlete in one of the three ratings temporarily, and to earn the new capacities definitively, the athlete must complete an event with a certain score. After the player is happy with the athlete development, he can try to qualify for the next stage by running against other athletes at the same level. Although it's possible to compete in the Olympics as soon as the athlete reaches the Olympic Class, to get a perfect athlete (with 100% on all ratings) one must complete all minigames, including those on Olympic Class. As the game relies mostly on athletes' ratings, even players with lower button presses per minute can make World Record times without serious effort as long as they passed all the mini games. Other modes include a arcade mode, training and head to head, where two players can compete with their Olympic mode trained athletes. There are four difficulty levels altogether.
Although generally stable, the game lacks tweaking in some events: the High jump uses men's results, and while some events such as the 100 m sprint and triple jump are quite easy, others such as the javelin and hammer throw require lots of training.
Reception
Sydney 2000 has received generally mixed reviews from critics. Aggregating review websites GameRankings and Metacritic gave the PlayStation version a 60.28% and 57/100, the PC version a 59.30% and 51/100 and the Dreamcast version a 54.31% and 53/100.