With the winter Olympics just a couple of weeks away I was searching for a way to get ready for Olympic competition and video games seemed to be the perfect answer. Sadly the only one available is Vancouver 2010: The Official Videogame of the Winter Olympic Games. Developed by Eurocom and published by Sega, this Olympic title looks great and does a great job giving gamers the sense of speed you see in the Winter Games; however the title lacks any sort of depth and suffers from unforgiving AI, so much so that I have yet to get a gold in all events after playing for countless hours.

The lack of depth is apparent right from the start of the game. There are 14 events which include Alpine Skiing events like men’s downhill, Freestyle Events like ladies’ aerials, a few Snowboarding and Speed Skating events, and rounding out the bunch are the Bobsleigh events. Although there are 14 events many of them are too similar to each other. It also lacks some of the events gamers love to play like half-pipe, hockey, curling, biathlon or even a short-track relay event. Adding to the lack of depth are the simple controls. Most events are controlled the exact same way. For instance in the bobsleigh and luge events require you to mash the x button to gain speed and use the left or right stick to steer the player down the track. For the downhill events you use the right trigger to gain speed, left trigger to slow down or carve and the left stick is to steer. Once you learn the controls for one event you basically have it down for all the events with the exception of a few. I understand that there really isn’t too much of a difference between some of the events but at least try to do something new so I feel like I’m not doing the same thing over and over and over.

The biggest disappointment is in the game modes. There are only three modes. Olympic mode is where you either compete for the gold against the computer, via split-screen with some friends or online. This mode lacks any sort of career feature or character building. Both of which I expect to see in an Olympic simulation game. There are also no qualifying rounds so all you do you select the event you want to compete in and if you get the best time/score you win gold. This gives the player no sense of achievement or country pride at all. If you are playing against the computer it can be pretty frustrating. Though the times that are set do vary each time you start an event, they can be very difficult to beat. In most simulation sports games there are varying difficulties to give kids or those who aren’t good at the game, a chance to win. There is no difficulty setting in Vancouver 2010 so unlike most sports titles this one could be rough for kids; unless you want to teach them that no matter how hard you work you’ll never win an Olympic gold medal. A few of the times/scores are set so high I had to spend hours learning how to get the best times and I have yet to win gold in some events. If you are struggling there isn’t much you can do but practice to get better. You can play the Training mode which allows you to race against your ghost. The ghost character will update based on your personal best time but there isn’t an option to go against the Olympic Record time or even a time from the global leaderboards.

The Challenges mode is best part of the game and I only wish there were more of them. There are 30 challenges in all and they get progressively difficult as you work up the pyramid of challenges. Most of them are pretty simple and involve things like maintaining an average speed, getting down the mountain at a certain time or hitting check points during the race. With a little bit of practice a lot of the challenges can be completed with ease. Some are more difficult like when you have to hit a certain number of snowmen while skiing down, scoring 90 in all categories in long jump, collecting tokens while still coming in first place or even racing against someone from the development team. Although I enjoyed this mode a lot there was little reason to go back to challenges I already completed. There are global leaderboards if you enjoy competing in that fashion. I do wish there were more challenges but I would give up the challenges completely in exchange for more in the Olympic mode.

Multiplayer-wise, the game is a lot of fun when playing split-screen. Though online ran with no latency issues and I was able to quickly find a match, it’s not too exciting unless you all are sitting in the same room. Most events will have you watching the other player complete his/her run so it’s a lot of fun trying to distract the other person. If you aren’t the heckling type than you’ll get bored pretty fast as you watch everyone take their turn one at a time. It would have been nice to have more events where players can compete at the same time or even cooperatively especially for online play.

Vancouver 2010 is visually impressive and has great sound effects. If only they spent as much time on the gameplay modes as they did on the graphics. Occasionally the blurring effect that is done to give the player a sense of speed is a bit overdone but for the most part it looks great. Adding to the sensation of speed is the first person view that is available for all events. The look and sound of the game while in this mode gives gamers a true feeling of skiing downhill or plunging headfirst down an icy track. What doesn’t help the game at all is terrible pop-rock music that constantly plays during most of the events. 360 owners will smarten up and use their custom music while PS3 owners will just have to mute it all together.

There really isn’t much more to say about Vancouver 2010. I did have a lot of fun with the challenges and playing four player split-screen but everything that is done well in this game is overshadowed by the lack of depth. It is really disappointing that there wasn’t even qualifying rounds or anything to give gamers the sense of competing at the Olympics. If you are a huge fan of the Winter Olympics and just want something to hold you over till the opening ceremony than this might be the game for you. However if you are looking for an Olympic game that can provide more than that, you might have to look to Sega’s other winter game featuring Mario and Sonic.

Title: Vancouver 2010: The Official Videogame of the Winter Olympic Games Publisher: SEGA Developer: Eurocom Platform(s): Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 (reviewed), PC Release Date: January 12, 2010

Doin It RIGHT: - Great Visuals - Sound effects gives gamers a true sense of speed. - Challenges are a lot fun.	Doin It RONG: - Lacks any sort of depth. - AI scores are set too high. - No Curling! Come On!.
FINAL SCORE: 6 / 10

Tags: 360, Olympics, PC, PS3, Sega, Vancouver 2010, Winter Olympics

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010 at 11:09 pm and is filed under PC, PlayStation 3, Reviews, Xbox 360. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.