The Olympics are here, and pushed into the Olympic spirit by the Great Retro Olympics, I have decided to take Does It Suck? and give it a bit of Olympic flavor for the next two weeks. After the Olympics, it will be back to your regularly-scheduled Does It Suck? feature, with an emphasis on tackling the most popular games today and truly seeing if they do suck. Halo 3 is the first being thrown in front of the bus, but that's a story for later. For now, it is all about the Olympics and games that tie into it, whether they are based off the Olympics themselves or are one of the summer sports.

Along with focusing on these games, we'll be tweaking the scoring a bit, changing it from describing how bad the game sucks to using a medal system. This ranges as follows, with the first medal being a score of 0 and the last a score of 10. Remember, like golf, the object here is to score low:

Platinum
Gold
Silver
Bronze
Copper
Aluminum
Lead
Rubber
Plastic
Balsa Wood
Paper

And so, with The Games beginning, it's time for...



Basic Info

Izzy's Quest for the Olympic Rings
Developer - Alexandria, Inc.
Publisher - US Gold
Console - Sega Genesis/Super Nintendo
Year - 1994
Version Reviewed - Super Nintendo



The premise

In 1996, Atlanta, Georgia played host to the Olympic Games on their 100th anniversary in the modern era. Why Atlanta... I'll never know, but along with the Olympics comes the Olympic mascot, a creature we have shoved down our throats for months in advance, only to forget about them the second the ceremonies are over.

In 1996, that poor creature was Izzy.



Izzy was... well, I don't know what the hell Izzy was besides dumb. However, he got the five-star treatment leading up to the Atlanta Games, including his very own cartoon and video game on the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo. The whole story behind the game was that Izzy must recover the five Olympic rings, hidden by guardians to try and foil the games. Or at least that's why I think they did it, as the game's never totally clear on that point.

The game



One look at the developer and publisher should provide a hint of this game's quality: Alexandria, Inc. made a grand total of three games, and getting the Olympic license for 1996 actually destroyed the Britain-based U.S. Gold. Never the less, the two managed to come together to produce a side-scrolling platformer that wasn't total garbage. Featuring five levels, Izzy's Quest set our intrepid little mascot jumping from platform to platform, collecting medals (in place of coins or rings) and power-ups. Taking out enemies required you to jump on their heads in a very Mario-esqe way. Additionally, Izzy had two different jump lengths and could transform into a glider, baseball player or rocket among other things to help him get through the level. Actually using these powers sometimes were aggravating, but they added a bit of substance to an otherwise bland and basic platformer.

The controls

The controls here were super-basic - there's a button to jump and you use the directional pad to move around. That's it. I'm a little disappointed that there's not more to the control scheme besides this because the game really could have used it to make it less bland and monotonous. However, when controlling the special power-ups Izzy runs into, some confusion can occur. For example, on the first level, it took me a while to figure out how to control the hang glider without smacking into something.

The graphics and sound



The good news here is that Izzy's Quest is light years beyond the worst looking Super Nintendo games. The animations aren't choppy, the backgrounds are colorful, and the game doesn't really suffer from overly-blocky graphics. The bad news is that by the time the game came out, it was light years behind half of the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis library. There's also a real lack of inspiration in level design and in enemy character design, leading to this game being extremely mediocre and forgettable.

The conclusion



Going into this experience, I expected to be severely let down and faced with an unplayable, glitchy and boring game. It actually was not that terrible, but of course, it could have been a lot better. This may be the best game U.S. Gold ever produced, and it was decidedly mediocre, giving us a good glimpse as to why they went out of business after the 1996 Olympics were over. Overall, I can't recommend buying this for any regular Super Nintendo or Gensis owner, but if you must play this game, you'll probably find it to be okay.

FINAL VERDICT: Lead Medal (6/10). An average platformer not helped by mediocre graphics and sometimes-confusing controls. Still, it's somehow better than many other commercial tie-in games.