Any fan of sports video-game knows that the desire to play a game is never stronger than when you're watching a big event live.
At every golf major you'll get the urge to have a round on the classic Tiger Woods games (now rebranded to Rory McIlroy but the series peaked in 2005), when Wimbledon comes around we'll yearn for a blast of Virtua Tennis, and during the Six Nations every year we curse the fact that all the modern rugby games are garbage.
So naturally as the world becomes obsessed with the Olympics and we watch all the events unfold in Rio, it's no surprise that the gamers want to have a go. That's why I'm here to review the best Olympics game that money can buy, and thankfully it doesn't take much money at all... We checked online at a very popular trade-in store, and they had copies of the game for sale at €2.
Beijing 2008 is everything you need, and more.
Grab a few friends, fire up your Xbox 360 or Playstation 3, and pick a 10 event competition and there are few games that can provide such intense competition but also make you fold over laughing.
If you've never played an Olympics game before, it has most of the events you'll see on TV, and they are made to be quick, button-mashing moments of mayhem which provide incredible entertainment in local multiplayer.
It's got everything from 100ms, to the field events like shotput and javelin, swimming, diving, weightlifting, shooting, archery, cycling, gymnastics, even table tennis! And all the games have their own unique controls that are easy to use, difficult to master.
You can also run a tutorial before every event so that everyone knows how to play.
Sadly, no official game for the Rio 2016 Olympics was released, and although 'Mario & Sonic at the Olympic games' has been released this summer as it was in 2012, we were hoping that another official game featuring the long list of sports would be made available.
Instead we'll keep playing Beijing 2008, as London 2012 failed to improve on it's predecessor, and that's just fine with us. If you are in an office, we can't recommend hosting a quick Olympic tournament enough.
These games always get panned upon their release, because they are very basic games pushed out to capitalise on a major event, but when the dust settles and the price plummets, you are left with a multiplayer game you can play with your friends and have an absolute blast with.
Here are all the events available in Beijing 2008:
Track
100 m
200 m
400 m
800 m
1500 m
100 m hurdles (women only)
110 m hurdles (men only)Field
High jump
Pole vault
Long jump
Triple jump
Shot put
Discus throw
Hammer throw
Javelin throwAquatics
50 m freestyle swimming (men only)
100 m backstroke swimming (men only)
100 m butterfly swimming (men only)
100 m breaststroke swimming (men only)
3 m springboard diving (women only)
10 m platform diving (women only)Gymnastics
Parallel bars (men only)
Vault (men only)
Rings (men only)
Floor exercise (women only)
Beam (women only)
Uneven bars (women only)
Shooting (all men only events)
Skeet shooting
10 m Air Pistol
25 m Rapid Fire PistolOther
Archery, individual (women only)
Weightlifting, +105 kg (men only)
Cycling, team pursuit (men only)
Canoeing/kayak K1, kayak single (men only)
Judo, 81–90 kg (men only)
Table tennis, singles (men only)
There really is something for everyone. From the simplicity of mashing 'A + B' to get the fastest time in the 100m, to pulling off ridiculous routines in synchronised diving, Olympics games are fantastic, and they don't come much better than Beijing 2008.
