In the build up to each new Olympics it increasingly seems that the athletes and their events, which are the whole purpose of The Games, are constantly in the shadow of human rights records, pollution, drug taking and a hundred and one other important, but peripheral, issues. That is until the opening ceremony begins and all these problems fade into the background, as the greatest celebration of sporting achievement in the world gets underway. In Beijing 2008 the videogame there is no option to boycott, no chance of marathon runners collapsing in clouds of smog and no disqualifications of female shot putters because they've got more testosterone in their systems than a male Bull Shark. All you get is the opportunity to participate in the Olympic experience, thanks to those role models of inclusion and fair play at developer Eurocom Entertainment.

With one of the major attractions of the Olympics being the cornucopia of sporting goodness it brings together, one of the perceived failing of past official games has been a lack of events. The power of the new generation of consoles means that this is no longer a problem, however, as Beijing 2008 boasts a roster of over thirty-five disciplines, expanding the range of options in familiar areas such as track and field, swimming, shooting and gymnastics, whilst also introducing some intriguing new disciplines like Judo, Kayaking and Table Tennis (see the full list of events at the end of this preview).

If Beijing 2008 is anything to go by, it would seem that the invention of the analogue stick may have forever changed the way athletics games are controlled, as the days of broken controllers at the hands of pioneer titles such as Track and Field and Daley Thompson's Decathlon have become a thing of the past. Eurocom are striving to make each event its own unique mini-game, whilst at the same time still retaining the essential pick up and play appeal that made previous titles in the genre so appealing, especially in multiplayer. Tutorials will, of course, be available for each discipline and while some, such as the Javelin, basically see stick waggling replace button bashing, others push the limitations of a handheld controller almost as far as they can, to come much closer to the movements of the actual events. A case in point is the Rings, where both thumbsticks must be moved simultaneously to hit the different positional elements of the event, while pauses in the routine are your chance to pump the triggers to secure your athlete's reserves of stamina before a final sequence needs to be completed to nail the dismount.

While the IOC now welcomes virtually every country large enough to fit a 100m track within its borders, Beijing 2008 limits the amount of countries you can represent to just over thirty. Once you've selected your natural or adopted homeland you can tinker with your athlete using a number of preset character models before playing solo, against up to three other people offline or a maximum of seven other people online. Both on and offline games can be tailored to the exact events you want to compete in and there will also be worldwide leaderboards to record the achievements of the best virtual sportsmen and women on the planet.

So, a far cry from some of the half-hearted cash-ins we've seen in the past, Beijing 2008 is looking like it might actually achieve what all its real-life entrants are striving for; greatness in its chosen field.

The full list of events in Beijing 2008 is as follows:

Track:

100m (Men's and Women's)
200m (Men's and Women's)
400m (Men's and Women's)
800m (Men's and Women's)
1500m (Men's and Women's)
110m Hurdles (Men's)
100m Hurdles (Women's)

Field:

High Jump (Men's and Women's)
Pole Vault (Men's and Women's)
Long Jump (Men's and Women's)
Triple Jump (Men's and Women's)
Shot Put (Men's and Women's)
Discuss Throw (Men's and Women's)
Hammer Throw (Men's and Women's)
Javelin Throw (Men's and Women's)

Aquatics:

Swimming 50m Freestyle (Men's)
Swimming 100m Backstroke (Men's)
Swimming 100m Butterfly (Men's)
Swimming 100m Breaststroke (Men's)
Diving 3m Springboard (Women's)
Diving 10m Platform (Women's)

Gymnastics:

Parallel Bars (Men's)
Vault (Men's)
Rings (Men's)
Floor Exercise (Women's)
Beam (Women's)
Uneven Bars (Women's)

Shooting:

Shotgun Skeet (Men's)
10m Air Pistol (Men's)
25m Rapid Fire Pistol (Men's)

Other:

Archery - Individual (Women's)
Weightlifting +105kg (Men's)
Cycling - Team Pursuit (Men's)
Canoe - Kayak - K1 - Kayak Single (Men's)
Judo - 81-90kg (Men's)
Table Tennis - Singles (Men's)

Previewed by James Hamblin for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).