Olympic Gold is the official video game of the XXV Olympic Summer Games, hosted by Barcelona, Spain in 1992. It was released for the Sega consoles, Sega Genesis and Sega Master System, and Sega’s handheld, Sega Game Gear.
Developed internally by Tiertex Design Studios, the game was sponsored by Coca-Cola and the game featured both the company logo on a zeppelin above the scoreboard, as well as the company jingle.
The game uses button mashing as the main part of gameplay, but in three events it isn’t used (archery, diving) or is slow-paced (swimming).
Each computer athlete has a fictional name and nationality (choosing from UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, United States, Japan and the Unified Team, everyone with its own anthem snippet) and actual strengths and weaknesses: J. Balen, for instance, is a frequent 100 m and 110 m hurdles record breaker but only an average hammer thrower. Also, each computer-controlled player seems better in a particular event depending on his country: Germans usually take the top spots in archery, Italians on swimming, Russians on pole vault, Americans on sprinting and so on.
