Olympic Summer Games: Atlanta 1996 (PlayStation) Playthrough

A playthrough of Eidos's 1996 license-based sports game for the Sony PlayStation, Olympic Summer Games: Atlanta 1996.

In this video, I play through the Olympic mode on the medium difficulty level.

The 16-bit versions of Olympic Summer Games: Atlanta 1996 (   • Olympic Summer Games: Atlanta 1996 (S...  ) were boring, lifeless games that gave the impression that they were made on a rushed schedule with a shoestring budget.

Given how lackluster the cartridge-based versions were, it stood to reason that the (presumably) flagship next-gen version, released in mid-1996 for the 3DO and PlayStation, was a parasitic twin that had sucked up the lion's share of the resources allocated to the project. That's probably true to some extent - it is a fully 3D game with hyper-gaudy CG FMV cutscenes and a Redbook soundtrack, after all - but anyone who had been anticipating a world-class, multimedia-laden, multiplayer extravaganza would have been left sorely wanting. International Track & Field (   • International Track & Field (PlayStat...  ) or DecAthlete
(   • DecAthlete (Saturn) Playthrough  ), this is not.

Instead, you get the gameplay of the 16-bit versions (with a couple more events tossed in) slathered in some of the worst 3D graphics to be seen on a 32-bit console. The Playstation game appears to be little more than a direct port of the 3DO one, and even by 3DO standards, it's rough. The stick-figure character models are comically low-poly (they remind me of the cow in Race Drivin' on the SNES!    • Race Drivin' (SNES) Playthrough - Nin...  ), the background details constantly break up and distort (look at the lines on the track whenever the camera moves), the camera quickly spins in circles and often obscures things that you need to see, and the player animations are somehow stiffer and choppier than they were in the 2D versions (check out how the guy freezes on the mat in the fetal position during the high jump).

I did like 90s dance music used for the intro and the menus, though. That was easily my favorite part of the game.

Overall, it's playable, and if you can find a copy for a buck or two, it's worth grabbing for the laughs. And hey, who knows? Had the PlayStation seen more games of this caliber, I daresay the Jaguar might've stood a fighting chance.
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.

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