There’s a loudmouth minority of partisan console owners who deride Nintendo’s software catalogue for its prevalence of button-mashing minigame collections, but even they would have to agree that the genre is well served by the controls of the DS and Wii hardware. It’s something that can’t really be said for Xbox 360, PS3 or PC, as Beijing 2008 demonstrates. The glossy, convex face buttons of the 360 pad, for example, are not meant for mashing, nor its springy triggers well suited to rapid depressions, nor its analogue sticks designed for violent circular waggling.

These issues are made more obvious by the moderately high level of challenge at which some of the events are pitched – something that you might think unwise in a collection of minigames, albeit one given the po-faced veneer of a serious sporting event. In total contrast to the hugely accessible and unashamedly mindless New International Track & Field, Beijing 2008’s events aren’t always easy to master, and many use completely different control schemes from each other. This adds welcome variety, but inevitably makes the game less intuitive, particularly considering that the minigames do not always translate directly to the particular skills each event requires – a fact at odds with the dedication towards realism in the game’s presentation.

To its credit, Beijing 2008 includes sports that many athletically oriented minigame collections shy away from – karate, canoeing and cycling. These are realized with more imagination than the simple hammering of buttons, but sadly aren’t any more entertaining; karate, in particular, is made oddly vague by its delayed QTE feedback. There is sometimes a virtue in keeping things simple. Track & Field and its ilk have few pretensions beyond being disposable and frantic multiplayer diversions; Beijing 2008 has made its events marginally more taxing, but no more joyful.

Verdict: 5/10

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