Most countries of earth gather for the Olympics every 4 years to see who are the greatest athletes in the world. I can’t think of a more interesting concept and of course if there are Olympic Games there has to be video games based on them. The history of Olympic games is long and perhaps not as interesting of a topic as I’d like it to be. However there have been so many olympic games that there are plenty of curiositis that I’d love to point out. So, here we take a look at the most interesting facts about Video Game Olympics.
Let’s begin with one of the first things people think of with the Olympics and thats Track & Field which is also know Hyper Sports Olympic series here is a quick retrospective history. This franchise by Konami has always been related to the Olympics and although not always licensed by the Olympics it has had some titles in its series named after so it gets included in the list. Not to mention it’s one of the first multi sports summer events. The first few games in the series were more cartoony and arcade like while later ones became abit more realistic and even had the ESPN license for a while. Sadly the last Reboot got cancelled and it looked very fun. Here is a list of all the games that have been releeased:
Hyper Sports (1984) (Arcade)
Track & Field 2 / Hyper Olympic 2 (1984) (MSX)[42]
Konami ’88 (1988) (Arcade)
Track & Field II (1988) (NES)
Track & Field (1992) (Game Boy)
International Track & Field (1996) (Arcade, PS, PSN)
Hyper Olympics in Nagano (1998) (Arcade, N64, PS)
International Track & Field 2000 (1999) (PS, N64, GBC, DC, PS2)
Konami Sports Series (2001) (Mobile phones)
Hyper Sports 2002 Winter (2002) (GC, PS2, Xbox, GBA)
New International Track & Field (2008) (NDS)
Hyper Sports Winter (2010) (iPhone OS)
Hyper Sports Track & Field (2010) (iPhone OS)
I would like to specifically talk about one game in the series and that’s the New International Track and Field for the Nintendo DS since it included a bunch of Komani characters as guests. There’s just something about having Pyramid head from Silent HIll competing in Pole Vault that does it for me. But he isn’t the only one, you have Evil Rose Rfrom umble Roses, Frogger, Simon Belmont from Castlevania, Solid Snake from Metal Gear, Sparkster from Rocket Knight Adventures, Power Pro-kun from Power Pros,
Pentarou from Parodius
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In 1996 the Olympics in Atlanta Georgia were a big deal as they had come back to the US. During the SNES era we did get an official licensed Olympic Games game based that is more traditional and not a bad game. But we want to focus on the mascot for those Olympic Games which was Izzy and he was deemed so cool to get his own TV Cartoon pilot and side scroller video game. Honestly he looks like any other 90s hip and cool videogame mascot and the only Olympics Mascot to have his exclusive video game. Perhaps the lesser of the two official olympic games but the more memorable one.
Most people likely think of the first crossover between the two biggest mascots in gaming, Mario & Sonic happening in an official Olympic Games video game that became a series from 2008 until 2020. But most people don’t know that Sonic cheated a bit and had a few more games for the olympics without Super Mario in a few non Nintendo Plaatforms. Sonic the Hedgehog at the Olympic games had a game in 2008 for java phones and for mobile in 2020. Interesting that his two solo outings were also the beginning and the end of the Mario crossover games.
Sega lost the olympic license and for the most part only did the Mario & Sonic series. Maybe one day they can crossover again even without the license, I can see it. “Mario & Sonic Summer Sports”. But besides the above games Sega only used the Olympis license for two games. London 2012 and Olympic Games Tokyo 2020. The interesting one is the latter as they decided to include a human wearing a Sonic suit and other islly costumes like an astronaut and the official mascot. I love realistic suit Sonic.
And we finish with Nintendo’s take on the olympics with world class track meet, and the only have it because Bandai released Family Fun Fitness Stadium Events and their pad accessory that they really liked. So it was rebranded into the better known Power Pad and world Class Track Meet even had athe honor of being in a 3 in 1 game Pack alongside Super Mario Bros and Duck Hunt. This has made the Stadium Events game version of the game very rare even if it’s exactly the same game. Hopefully one day Nintendo revives this idea and brings their own take on the Summer Olympic Games whether with a license or not.
These were some of the more interesting olympic gaming finds.