Summer Sports Games

Let me ask you a question: Do you like summer? Are you a sports fan? Have you been looking for a generic clone of Track & Field? If you answered yes, then let me introduce you to Summer Sports Games, the colorful new button masher from German developer Joindots. It's an entirely predictable, no-frills exercise in running, jumping, lifting, pole vaulting and all the other things you might see at the Summer Olympics. But with no official license, personality or original ideas, Summer Sports Games proves to be as bland and unremarkable as the title suggests.

Summer Sports Games is exactly what you think it is. It's a mini-game collection where you button tap your way through a dozen popular track and field events. This includes all the classics, like the 400 meter run, archery, weight lifting, shot put and more. You complete most of these sports by mashing the buttons as fast as you can and through mild quick time events. The goal is to come in first and win all the medals you can.

Most of single-player content is found in the tournament, where you go up against three other computer-controlled in all twelve events. You have to unlock each difficulty, so the game starts out incredibly easy. So easy that it often felt like I could unplug the controller and still win. The competition gradually gets better as you unlock the higher difficulties, but the event progression remains the same no matter what. You'll compete in the same sports in the same order against the same computer opponents.

Part of the problem is that the game lacks an identity. There's no personality here, to the point where the athletes don't even have names. You also can't customize them in any way, you just pick from a handful of identical looking characters and then choose an animal that represents their name. There's also no progression or stats or anything that will keep you playing for more than an hour or two.

I would be a lot more forgiving of the barebones tournament if the multiplayer mode was robust, but it's not. You basically get four people together and pick the events you want to compete in. That's it. There are no extra options or multiplayer specific events, and don't go in expecting any form of online play. It's basically just a repeat of the tournament mode, only now with friends.

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It doesn't help that a lot of the events are too similar. The 100 meter run, hurdles and 400 meter relay all have slightly different quirks, but all feel largely the same. That's also true of the shot put, javelin throw and hammer toss. That's half the lineup dedicated to only a couple types of events, and the rest aren't much better. Compare that to something like Track & Field II on the Nintendo Entertainment System, which not only had the hurdles and pole vaulting, but also fencing, swimming, canoeing, gymnastics, arm wrestling, hang gliding, diving and even taekwondo. That's a staggering amount of variety, and that game came out 30 years ago on a cartridge that didn't even hold 1 megabyte of information. In comparison, Summer Sports Games is a big disappointment.

About the best I can say is that none of the mini-games are necessarily bad. They aren't memorable or interesting in any way, but they're also not bad. They're fine. Everything in this game is very middle of the road, which may be something you're okay with. If you're the type of person who wants a polygonal version of Konami's original Track & Field, then this more ore less fits the bill. It won't wow you or set a new high-water mark for the genre, but it will give you exactly what you expect and nothing else.

That wasn't enough for me, which is probably why I was put to sleep by the repetitive tournaments, boring events, easy competition and barebones multiplayer mode. I don't mind mini-game collections and button mashing, but there's not enough to Summer Sports Games. It's unremarkable in every way, and I have a hunch I will have completely forgotten about this game by the time summer ends.