Alright, let's get the licensing issues out of the way right off the bat.
Sergei Bubka's Millennium Games was clearly developed to
coincide with the Sydney summer Olympics taking place in just a
few short weeks. With that in mind, it's baffling that they decided
not to purchase the rights to the Olympic properties. What this
means, of course, is that they can't actually call the games the
Olympics, nor can they portray real-life athletes from the various
countries participating in the events. This decision breaks the
cardinal rule of sports gaming; that being that you MUST secure
licensing rights in order to accurately portray the selected sport.
Could you imagine a baseball game without the MLB license or a
basketball game without the NBA license? Diehard sports
enthusiasts are turned off immediately when games lack the
proper licensing and Sergei Bubka's Millennium Games is no
exception. With that said, let's see what lies beneath.
Sergei Bubka's Millennium Games features two modes of play. A
team arcade mode allows you to control a team of athletes as they
compete in 19 different events. The events within Millennium
Games are all track & field events and include all the usual
suspects:
Throwing Events: discus / javelin / hammer / shot put
The arcade mode is a frustrating experience to say the least. It
begins with an initial selection of events, while the rest of the
events remain locked. In order to unlock further events, you must
qualify to compete and win a medal in other related competitions.
For example, getting a medal in a jumping event will unlock a
new jumping event, rather than a sprint event. While this
unlocking technique might work well in arcade racers, it has no
place in a sporting game such as this. Why you're unable to
participate in your favourite events right off the bat is beyond me.
The other mode available in Millennium games is the training
mode. This feature allows you to train a decathlete by choosing
their training tactics, creating their training schedule for a full
year, treating and healing injuries and making managerial
decisions in regards to which events they'll train for and which
competitions they'll be entering. The training mode acts more like
a simulation as opposed to the arcade mode. You won't actually
have to compete in the events, you can simply watch your athlete
perform on their own. The overall design of this mode is fairly
poor, however, as messages constantly appear on the screen
whenever you try to do anything. For example, you're managerial
assistant seems to have something to say every time you plan an
event to take part in. The trainer isn't short on words either, as he
continually nags about check-ups and training dates. This wouldn't
be so bad at the beginning, as you feel your way around the
framework, but it never stops. The object of the training mode is to
get your athlete at their peak physical condition every time a
competition approaches, but it's not an easy task to perform when
your so-called assistants complain about every little tidbit.
The controls in Sergei Bubka's Millennium Games are a little
awkward. If you've played some of the much older Olympic-style titles for
the PC, you're probably well aware of the punishment your
keyboard receives by the end. Millennium Games is no different,
as key-bashing is the order of the day? unless you wish to use
your mouse. The mouse driven control system is a welcome
addition that requires you to hold your mouse button down over a
little green circle that appears underneath your athletes. The circle
moves during the game and it's your job to hold the mouse button
down and follow the green circle around. The more adept you are
at this, the more power your athlete gains. Sound realistic? Yeah,
my thoughts exactly.
I'm not going to touch much on the audio and visual departments.
The audio is as poor as it comes with absolutely horrible crowd
sounds and effects. The graphics aren't much better with glitches
all over the place, including shadows that don't match the actions
of the athletes in question. The game is presented from a variety of camera
angles that do a great job of bringing a television style
presentation to each competition, but Millennium Games does
little to make that presentation easy on the eyes. The environments
are crisp in most instances, but the interaction of the athletes on
those backdrops is hard to swallow. In terms of
multiplayer, you can play with up to two players in a hot seat
mode and up to eight players over a local network. Unfortunately,
the gameplay is as painful in multiplayer as it is in single player.
With the Sydney Olympics just around the corner, I'd prefer to
watch the gala than play Midas Interactive's mind-numbing
variation. A game like Sergei Bubka's Millennium Games would
never see the light of day in the US without proper licensing, so it
comes as no surprise that this title is only available in the UK. With
Eidos Interactive's Sydney 2000 just a few weeks from release, I
can't recommend Sergei Bubka's Millennium Games to anybody, including
those who have waited years for the Olympic experience to arrive on
their PC again.
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