PlayStation2 To Host Athens Olympics (News)

Stuart Clarke, GamePro Australia

05/03/2004 11:26:45

Sony Computer Entertainment Europe has obtained the rights to develop a PlayStation 2 game based on this year’s Olympic Games in Athens, which will be the first time an Olympics game has appeared on the console. Eidos published the game of the Sydney Olympics in 2000 on the original PlayStation and PC.

Scheduled for release in July 2004, prior to the start of the Olympic Games in August, Athens 2004 is the only official licensed game of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and is being developed by Eurocom. Eurocom is working closely with International Sports Multimedia (the IOC’s exclusive licensee for interactive entertainment) and the Organising Committee of the Athens 2004 Olympics to ensure authenticity.

The game will feature seven venues, and offer a wide variety of Olympic sports such as swimming, gymnastics and numerous track and field offerings. Previous Olympics games featured highly repetitive “button-basing” gameplay and it has not yet been confirmed whether this will be the case for Athens 2004 or whether Eurocom will be trying something new.