For those who have fond memories of yesteryear, alternately hitting two buttons as fast as you can, Athens 2004 is one of those games. The first impression I had is that the controls, while consisting of approximately three buttons, were a tad odd. Perhaps in an effort to prevent people from wearing out commonly used keys, the “End” and “Page Down” keys will be worn to a nub if you play this long. The right control button, and in rare cases the arrow keys, can also be used. Unfortunately, despite the simplistic nature, the key mapping leaves something to be desired. In many cases it is important that you hit the ctrl button, while you continue to mash the power keys. Unfortunately, this is quite difficult after your right hand gets at all tired. The game essentially forces you to use one hand for power and one for actions.

Despite some clunky controls, the game does come through with a nice resume of games to play. You have your basic track events (100m, 200m, hurdles, 400m, 800m, 15000m), a great selection of field events (long jump, shot put, discuss, javelin, triple jump, high jump and pole vault), a compliment of swimming events (100m in all the basic forms), as well as archery, weightlifting and skeet shooting. One could argue for more sports, but the selection is varied enough for my tastes. What sports they did, they did well, and did a nice job of making seemingly similar sports (discuss, javelin and shot-put) play differently.

One area that does baffle me is the lack of difficulty settings. Once you learn the ropes and develop the arm muscles, replayability is gone. This is not like a typical sports game where you can continue to play by cranking up the difficulty. This is a shame.

Graphically, the game is solid, if unspectacular. Some visuals, like the reflections on the floor during weightlifting, show a nice attention to detail, but if you are looking for the quality of EA Sports, this is not the place to find it. The animations are also quite well done, but are largely cinematic. Your actions do not really alter what your character does. In most cases there is simply a “miss” or “hit”, such as in pole vault. This however is largely irrelevant since the attention is more focused on the mini-game than the action itself.

One of my favorite sports is the pole vault. In this event you mush mash your power keys to build up energy. The bar is divided into sections, and at a certain point (depending on the height you are attempting) is a box. This box extends based on how high your charge the bar. Then, the mashing ends, the bar locks and an indicator begins flying up the bar. You must stop it inside the box in order to clear the height. This is simple enough to be an easy pickup, but hard enough to make you sweat to pick up a gold medal. The swimming events on the other hand, frustrated me. You hold down your action button to prepare yourself, and then release it for the start. After you emerge from underwater you must mash your power buttons to maintain full speed. Periodically you are hit with a breathe indicator, which sends an indicator down your power bar. The quicker you hit the action button, the higher your maximum speed is, allowing you to move faster. This is good in concept, but quite quickly your arm is burning, and the button layout makes this quite difficult. Using two hands on the power is impossible if you want to hit the breathe button on time. Swimming is in general quite tiring. Typically, I’ll win the first race, and then get progressively worse unless I take a break.

Back to the highlights, the high jump is quite fun. There are a series of footsteps visible on the ground, and you must time hitting your left power button (left foot) and right power button (right foot) as your character hits each step. This is a good case of visual feedback, and actually has you watching the action, rather than a bar. It is also about timing, and not mashing, which is refreshing when playing any length of time. Finally, when you approach the bar you must hit the action button once to jump (again timing) and again to throw your feet up and clear the bar. In terms of client-player feedback, this is by far the best event. The previously mentioned pole vault is clever, but unfortunately has you watching a gauge, not your character.

This game is what it is. If you like button mashing, and don’t mind a sore arm, it’s a bargain and a good time. It is also a lot more fun if you have a friend who can play with you. Don’t expect to be able to play online though, you’ll need to actually sit them down at the keyboard beside you.