Sydney 2000 is the official video game of the XXVII Olympic Summer Games

2000 Summer Olympics

The Sydney 2000 Summer Olympic Games or the Millennium Games/Games of the New Millennium, officially known as the Games of the XXVII Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event which was celebrated between 15 September and 1 October 2000 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia...

, hosted by Sydney

Sydney

Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 in 2000. Developed by ATD

Attention To Detail

Attention To Detail was a Warwickshire-based British software house that endured nearly 15 years, from its foundation by five University of Birmingham graduates in September 1988 to their liquidation in mid-2003...

 and published by Eidos

Eidos Interactive

Eidos Interactive Ltd. is a British video game publisher and is a label of Square Enix Europe. As an independent company Eidos plc was headquartered in the Wimbledon Bridge House in Wimbledon, London Borough of Merton....

, it was released for the PC

Personal computer

A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...

 (Windows

Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...

), PlayStation and the Dreamcast. With a total of 32 countries and 12 events, it was the follow-up of Olympic Summer Games: Atlanta '96.

With good sales and mostly positive reviews, it won the BAFTA award for the Sports game of the year.

Events

• 100 m sprint
• 110 m hurdles
• Javelin
  Javelin throw
  The javelin throw is a track and field athletics throwing event where the object to be thrown is the javelin, a spear approximately 2.5 metres in length. Javelin is an event of both the men's decathlon and the women's heptathlon...
  
   (F)
• Hammer
  Hammer throw
  The modern or Olympic hammer throw is an athletic throwing event where the object is to throw a heavy metal ball attached to a wire and handle. The name "hammer throw" is derived from older competitions where an actual sledge hammer was thrown...
  
  
• Triple Jump
  Triple jump
  The triple jump is a track and field sport, similar to the long jump, but involving a “hop, bound and jump” routine, whereby the competitor runs down the track and performs a hop, a bound and then a jump into the sand pit.The triple jump has its origins in the Ancient Olympics and has been a...
  
  
• High Jump
  High jump
  The high jump is a track and field athletics event in which competitors must jump over a horizontal bar placed at measured heights without the aid of certain devices in its modern most practiced format; auxiliary weights and mounds have been used for assistance; rules have changed over the years....
  
   (F)
• Skeet shooting
  Skeet shooting
  Skeet shooting is one of the three major types of competitive shotgun target shooting sports . There are several types of skeet, including one with Olympic status , and many with only national recognition.- General principles :Skeet is a recreational and competitive activity where...
  
  
• Super Heavyweight Weight Lifting
• 100 m Freestyle Swimming
  Swimming (sport)
  Swimming is a sport governed by the Fédération Internationale de Natation .-History: Competitive swimming in Europe began around 1800 BCE, mostly in the form of the freestyle. In 1873 Steve Bowyer introduced the trudgen to Western swimming competitions, after copying the front crawl used by Native...
  
   (F)
• 10 m Platform Diving
  Diving
  Diving is the sport of jumping or falling into water from a platform or springboard, sometimes while performing acrobatics. Diving is an internationally-recognized sport that is part of the Olympic Games. In addition, unstructured and non-competitive diving is a recreational pastime.Diving is one...
  
   (F)
• Chase Cycling
  Track cycling
  Track cycling is a bicycle racing sport usually held on specially built banked tracks or velodromes using track bicycles....
  
  
• Kayak K1 Slalom
  Slalom canoeing
  Whitewater Slalom is a competitive sport where the aim is to navigate a decked canoe or kayak through a course of hanging gates on river rapids in the fastest time possible. It is one of the two kayak and canoeing disciplines at the Summer Olympics, and is referred to by the International Olympic...
  
  

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

Olympic Gold

Olympic Gold is the official video game of the XXV Olympic Summer Games, hosted by Barcelona, Spain in 1992. It was released for the Sega consoles, Mega Drive/Genesis and Master System, and Sega's handheld, Game Gear.Developed internally by U.S...

), Skeet

Skeet

Skeet may refer to:* Clay pigeon shooting, a target sport** Skeet shooting, a discipline of the sport*** Olympic skeet, a variant of the discipline*** Skeet Shoot, a skeet shooting video game for the Atari 2600 produced by Apollo...

 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

Treadmill

A treadmill is an exercise machine for running or walking while staying in one place. The word treadmill traditionally refers to a type of mill which was operated by a person or animal treading steps of a wheel to grind grain...

, 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

Triple jump

The triple jump is a track and field sport, similar to the long jump, but involving a “hop, bound and jump” routine, whereby the competitor runs down the track and performs a hop, a bound and then a jump into the sand pit.The triple jump has its origins in the Ancient Olympics and has been a...

 are quite easy, others such as the javelin and hammer throw require lots of training.

External links

• Sydney 2000 at MobyGames