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Review: Summer Athletics - Wii

by Steven Williamson on 6 August 2008, 12:50

Tags: Summer Athletics, Eidos (TYO:9684), PC, Xbox 360, PS2, Sports

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qaoox

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Daley Thompson we ain't

Each career character has five basic skills ranging from speed and technique to power and stamina. As you move through each of the events, which progress from the Amateur Championships - where you take part in the likes of pole vaulting and the 100M sprint - to the Summer Sports Championship, where you compete in the grueling 4X100 Sprint relay, you are awarded with points that you can then add to or spread across any of your character’s skills.

You can see how your character improves as you progress, becoming stronger at swimming or faster on the track, but it’s an odd mechanic that always awards the same amount of attribute points (50 in total) after each event, no matter how badly or great you performed. Where's the incentive?

With 26 disciplines on offer there’s plenty of replay value as you seek to gain gold medals and world records or participate in multiplayer matches. It’s also nice to see that the developer has added plenty of unlockable achievements, such as collecting 30 gold medals or performing a perfect entry at diving.

As there are so many events available, you won’t surprise to learn that some of them are more fun and more intuitive to play than others. The developer has obviously thought long and hard about how it was going to implement Wii controls and there are a number of events where the hard work has really paid off.