With the Summer 2008 Olympics in Beijing coming up, smog…or rather the competitive spirit is in the air. What better way to celebrate than with one of the many sports games releasing in time to capitalize on the excitement? Home consoles may have the “official” videogame with Beijing 2008, but we can get our portable DS or PSP kick with International Athletics courtesy of Ghostlight.

Ghostlight’s Marketing Executive, Adrian Clews said that “Athletics is a truly global sport and is currently enjoying a massive surge in popularity in the build up to the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. This has provided the perfect platform to launch International Athletics and forms a strong foundation for a new leading athletics franchise.”

To help get their games ready for the gold, Ghostlight brought The Code Monkeys on board for development. Adrian Hirst, Development Director at Code Monkeys said, “Our goal is to create a highly realistic athletics simulator whilst maintaining a compelling pick up and play game style”

They did this by giving players the ability to fully customize their character’s facial features, skin type and body stature, enabling players to recreate their favorite sporting figures. Once the avatar is created, players then get to start competing in 10 events. In single-player, players can enjoy career development as they travel the globe striving for the gold, unlocking famous stadiums and bonus events along the way. The multiplayer mode ups the ante with full online leaderboards to keep the competition going. Also, players will be able to go head to head on both formats with up to 4 players when International Athletics comes out this August.