The official game of the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad held in Athens in August 2004, Athens 2004 features 25 events spread around 8 sports, the real stadiums and arenas such as the state of the art Olympic Stadium built for the competition and the Panathinaiko, venue of the first modern Olympics, and 64 nations from all around the world. While new developers Eurocom (following two games from ATD) kept most of the gameplay still inspired by the old button-mashers of the early 80s, some events feature interesting twists. While sprinting events don't need introductions, there are two middle distance events (800m and 1500m) that require the player to control their pace in order to reach the final curve fresh enough to have a second wind and sprint towards the finish. Other innovations are on field events, such as the high jump requiring the player to alternate buttons not as fast as possible, but time them as well as possible to the athlete's steps as possible, and the discus has the player circling the analogue knobs to build up power, among others.
