It’s an Olympic year again, and what better way to highlight the thrill of victory and agony of defeat than to create a video game that mimics the Games?

Sega Corp. says it will take the lead on that with “Beijing 2008: The Official Video Game of the Olympic Games,” designed for Sony’s PlayStation 3, Micrsoft’s Xbox 360 and the PC. Sega intends to start shipping “Beijing 2008″ this summer — to coincide with the Games themselves. No price was announced.

A version for play on mobile phones is planned, too.

We hope only that Sega doesn’t fall into the same trap 2K Sports did a couple years back with a pre-release version of the Olympics that falls flat right out of the starting block.

“Torino 2006″ intended to capture some of the competitive thrill of the Winter Games with digital interpretations of 15 events ranging from downhill skiing to speed skating. The events didn’t depend on simple button-mashing to reach the medals podium; 2K Sports tried to make proper steering and timing were just as important.

To that end, “Torino 2006″ incorporated an “energy meter” for some events, such as cross-country skiing, so gamers weren’t inclined to rely on speed from the outset.

But “Torino 2006″ proved that button-mashing isn’t all bad, especially when working through a long list of events with more similarities than differences. From a gamer’s perspective, two-man bobsled, four-man bobsled and luge are all played the same way, and much of the Nordic combined was just a repeat of cross-country skiing with a ski jump or two mixed in. Button-mashing in redundant games at least gets a gamers adrenal gland pumping.

Worse for “Torino 2006,” some event scoring had no basis in reality. 2K Sports concocted its own scoring that focused on points and ignored event times, even when beating the clock was the whole point — such as speed skating, which, you know, has the word “speed” in its name.

The “Beijing 2008″ events lineup is pending, but expect lots of running and swimming — the architecturally compelling “Bird’s Nest” Olympic stadium and “Swim Cube” aquatics center are featured venues in the game — shooting, throwing and scoring. Gamers will have the option to play others online, and there will be “control schemes” that help novice gamers learn events before taking on experienced competitors.

There’s also plenty of opportunity for Sega to repeat the same mistakes 2K Sports made two years ago.