Gamespot: Beijing 2008: The Official Video Game of the Olympic Games Review

Who knew that qualifying for the Olympics could be so difficult? Instead of a worldwide competition crafted around ideas that fit in with the modern gaming landscape, this is just an archaic compilation of mostly old, painful gameplay techniques that wore out their welcome decades ago. Not only do many of Beijing's events focus on the sadistic control method of making you rapidly tap two buttons until your fingers burn, but the unfathomable difficulty of the early rounds also makes the experience almost as grueling as training for the real thing. The minor redeeming elements only squirt a few drops of perfume on the overwhelming stench of the rest of this game.

The Good:
* Detailed athletes.

The Bad:
* Archaic, blister-causing controls
* Way too difficult
* Only 32 countries, with no real participants
* Level-up system goes against reality
* Lousy tutorials.