Torino 2006 – PS2 – Review

Eight Disciplines, 15
Events – Ski Jumping

Ever wanted to soar down
this semi-steep hill at ridiculous speeds, jump off at just the right moment,
and win a gold medal in under a minute? Now you can, and without four years of
pre-Olympic training.

Ski Jumping looks simple
on TV and is very easy to get into in this game. One button is all you need to
play, plus a little bit of control with the left analog stick. I’m guessing
anyone who can use a mouse can use a thumb stick in this scenario, but who
knows? Stranger things have happened. The goal is to keep the jumper steady
while going down the hill. A small, circular indicator at the bottom of the
screen tells you if you’re leaning too far to the left or right. Lightly tap
the stick left and right to keep the jumper moving forward, then when the game
tells you to, press the X button to jump off the edge. The indicator will tell
you when you should jump by filling with a solid color; jump when it’s just
about full and you’ll be all set. 

Speed Skating

Speed Skating and relay
races are the quintessential Olympic mini-games. They follow the same rule:
the X and circle buttons are your friend. Tap them repeatedly, one after the
next (X-circle-X-circle, not X-X-circle-circle) and your skater will charge
across the ice like a hockey player during an overtime shootout. You have to
do this very quickly.

Alternating between
buttons with your thumb is pretty tough, so most gamers (myself included)
conquer these mini-games by using my index and middle finger. It’s almost more
challenging that way because you have to learn to build resistance with those
fingers since they’re not used to performing this kind of a move. In the long
run it allows you to go faster.

Once the initial takeoff
speed has been reached, you have to press the X and circle buttons to create
somewhat of a perfect rhythm. However long the X button is held, the circle
button must be held for that same amount of time when you press it. This is
cool, but there’s one problem: until you get to the point where you can play
without watching the button meter at the bottom (which tells you how long
you’ve held down each button), you’re going to spend the whole time staring at
the bottom of the screen. You’ll miss all the visuals: victory, defeat, and
crashes with Apollo Ono. Just kidding on that last part.

Alpine Skiing

Decent controls and an
easy-to-learn control style are the high points of this mini-game. X (start
game; tuck position) and square (carve turns) are the only buttons used.
Steering is pretty easy too. I wish it were longer and more involved. Like all
the mini-games in Torino 2006, Alpine Skiing is over in a few minutes or less.
Excessive repetitiveness will prevent you from wanting to extend its length
with repeated plays. 

Cross-Country Skiing

Who doesn’t want to ski
cross-country? This mini-game could’ve rocked the house. I think the
"could’ve" in that last sentence says it all, but I’m going to clarify it
anyway: Cross-Country Skiing is a disaster. You don’t have the luxury of
gauging success by tapping buttons. This game tries to be clever by placing a
different circle indicator on the bottom of the screen. The circle fills up
green until it reaches the fatigue point. The fatigue point changes based on
how well you’re skiing, which is determined by how well you avoid the fatigue
point. Confused? Hang onto your snowshoes, it gets worse: if you persist and
hold down the X button during the fatigue point, it’ll turn red, which is a
danger zone. Now your skier is slow, sluggish, and feeling very tired. So you
ease off, you take a breather. Now he’s not moving much at all! But that’s
what needs to be done to bring the fatigue point down. Look, it’s down, I can
start holding X again! Oh great, now I’m at the fatigue point, time to
release…

Biathlon

Cross-Country Skiing plus
the element of shooting. Five targets, two shooting check points, and hardly
anymore excitement than the previous mini-game.

The gameplay, if you must
know, is like a stationary FPS without the axis inverted. Shoot the five holes
as fast as you can and start skiing again. I’m sure it’s much more exciting in
real life, and could’ve been here if the core gameplay (skiing) hadn’t stunk
like a skunk.

Nordic Combined

Oh joy, more
Cross-Country Skiing. This time it’s combined with Ski Jumping. Again, it
could’ve been great. Why put so much emphasis on the weakest part of the video
game (skiing)?

Bobsleigh / Luge

I’m combining these two
because they’re both very similar. In fact, the only gameplay difference is
that the bobsleigh is slightly harder to control. It has a weight shift
feature (L1 and R1 buttons) to compensate, though I rarely felt the need to
use it. I still won, and when I didn’t I didn’t care.

What do these eight
mini-games, good or bad, have in common (besides being short and overly
simplistic)? The fun, if any exists, is extremely limited. Torino 2006 doesn’t
feel like a game. It doesn’t look much like one either. I think it’s
interesting how the game updates player progress with screen info the same way
NBC does during the actual games. That’s a minor detail when compared to
gameplay, which never fails to prevail. Therefore if a game lacks in that
department, it isn’t going to last very long. I had hoped that Torino 2006
would be the first to break the mold – the first to take home the gold medal.
I’d start hoping for better in 2008 and 2010, but after two decades of bad
Olympic games, I don’t think you can fault me for having doubts.

Gameplay: 5
Either it’s
boring, confusing and frustrating, or it’s over too fast. Torino 2006 is an
almost game in some respects. The Apline Skiing mini-game is almost a winner.
On the other hand, the Cross-Country Skiing mini-games are anything but. If
this were the first Olympic game ever developed I could see where they were
coming from, but let’s face the facts: this is a recycled version of every
Olympic game released. Where’s the depth, the innovation, the new gameplay
features? It plays a little too much like – what was the last game called
again? I can’t remember. And something tells me that by the time the next
Olympic game arrives, I won’t remember the name of this one either.

Graphics: 5
Lifelike isn’t a
word I’d use to describe Torino 2006. The colors are bland, the backgrounds
are dated, the animation is stiff — it doesn’t make sense. The gameplay is so
basic you’d think the visuals would pop right out, attracting millions of
casual players all across the world. I guess I overestimated its potential.

Sound: 5

Difficulty: Easy
You can’t get
more mainstream than this. Torino 2006 is the kind of game Grandpa could play
even if he’s computer illiterate and does not understand why there are "X" and
"square" buttons on the PS2 controller. If Grandpa can comprehend that when a
symbol appears he should press the corresponding button, he can play Torino.
Same goes for five-year-olds.

Concept: 5
Torino 2006 would
be a conceptually interesting game if it weren’t for its identical
predecessors. Since the early 90s, there has yet to be a single Olympic video
game released that created its own path. They’re all essentially the same:
mini-games where you press buttons as their symbols appear on-screen. The
slight differences do nothing to enhance the experience.

Multiplayer: 4
What’s worse than
being bored when you’re alone? Being bored with three friends (who are now mad
at you because you’re the one who caused the boredom).

Overall: 5
Torino 2006 is
not a bad game per se; it’s not much of a game at all. Eight disciplines and
fewer than 20 events, each of which is over in a couple minutes or less.
Increasing the difficulty rating doesn’t really make them more challenging,
just more frustrating. If there was any amount of depth to these events,
anything exciting, any redeemable, unforgettable element at all, I could hang
on that for a bit. But there’s nothing worth hanging onto. Nothing that makes
this worth a rental, and certainly nothing worth the purchase price.