Previous Next

So, staggering rather limply into the spotlilght - in the wake of the Olympics - Andy Lowe presents Ocean's attempt to simulate the stress and strain of competing in games at international level in over 30 events

Although the Barcelona games are now a dim memory, Ocean feel that the enduring, cosmopolitan appeal of the event will linger sufficiently to fuel interest in The Games - a simulation which attempts to spread the variety of events thinly enough to appeal to the desire for realism over joystick-waggling arcade action.

Stripping away all the graphically distracting packaging, the game consists of three inter-connecting chunks. The Action section enables you to control a selected athlete via keyboard, joystick or mouse. Admittedly, there's a bit of waggling to be done here - you actually have to time your movements to synchronise with the athlete's. So, when the athlete's left foot is on the ground, waggle left - and so on.

The Management section is the training bit. Here you deal with such niceties as athlete fitness, training programmes and work-out schedules. Also available is a Reference section - which is a database containing info about those exciting past Olympic achievements, a bit like the things they had on the back of cereal packets just before the games began this year.

Espana: The Games '92 has a lot of problems. Apart from that ching of the till conjured up by the title, it's badly balanced and takes a hell of an effort to get anything out of. On top of this, all the events are crap. Take the pole vault - your athlete jerkily body-pops up to the frame - whereupon you must press the Spacebar for him to plant his rod in a spot on the ground. Then you sit and watch as he flips over, clearing the bar by miles and then falls off. It's as if the only criteria the program is looking for is that you've pressed the Spacebar at the precise moment - regardless of how close you are to the bar.

Although The Games does hold some merit for what it attempts to do - it's a shame it does it so badly - with barely average graphics, sluggish action and the feeling that you're never in control of everything. Don't bother.