Americans
love the Olympics. In fact, as evidenced by Beijing in 2008, most of the modern
world fills with national pride when the Olympics come around. The games are
great at making millions of people feel like a part of something bigger, even if
each and every one of us has an ulterior motive for watching. Some people enjoy
cheering on the best of the best in their given sport, while others will watch
with a secret urge to see a competitor crash and careen down the mountainside.
Your mother might favor the gracefulness of figure skating, while your father
will keep strict count of how many gold medals his country has won. But, even
with these additives, the overall sensation of seeing your national win gold
medals is always overwhelming.
Vancouver
2010 is supposed to represent all of those hidden feelings that we glue
ourselves to the television for every couple of years. Unfortunately, the honor
and pride of The Olympics is largely eliminated from the video game, though. The
cover of the casing is awe inspiring and will indeed illicit a smile on any
Olympic fan’s face, but once the game is played, you will realize that none of
those players on the cover are even represented during gameplay. The character
models look slick and sporty, but any aspect of personalization is eliminated.
You may not think much of this at first, but truthfully, each and every person
that picks up Vancouver 2010 will be hoping to see their virtual self standing
atop the podium with a gold medal on their neck. This is not the case, and
definitely affects any desire to continue playing the game after a few
playthroughs.
Once at the
Main Menu screen, players will be able to choose from a fair amount of options,
including Training, Olympic Games, Challenges, Leaderboards, and Options. After
you make a selection, you will then be able to choose from any of 14 different
events offered. While 14 might seem like a large number, it is deceiving
representation to say the least. Many of the events play relatively the same,
depending on the origin of that event. And when you weigh these 14 events
against the insane amount of sports that actually take place at The Olympics,
the quantity is really quite small.
Players can
choose from a multitude of slope-based events, such as Downhill Skiing,
Snowboard Slalom, and Freestyle Skiing. Luckily, some of these events are
controlled differently than the others and offer enough variation in gameplay to
keep you progressing through each sport. Controls will range from timed button
presses, to balancing acts between each thumb stick. While the changes are good,
the time it takes to master each event is typically quite short, and you will
move on to an unconquered track quickly. Other sports represented in Vancouver
2010 include Bobsledding, Speed Skating, Luge, and the Skeleton. Once again,
these might be different from the skiing sports, but do not vary from each other
very much.
The overall
presentation of each sport played is exhilarating at first, but as evidenced in
the time it takes to master them, the look and feel gets old fast. Motion blur
is active when rushing down a mountain, but the limited landscapes become
mundane after only a few runs on that particular course. The lacking ability to
change a course layout without changing the sport also affects replay value, as
the player will surely memorize each and every turn within minutes. Luckily, the
game offers a unique first-person view that can be toggled at any given moment,
which adds to the already lacking immersive bubble expected from an Olympic
video game.
The
Challenge Mode is a life saver for Vancouver 2010. Players are forced to
overcome specific rules or goals within each sport, and are rewarded accordingly
for doing so with Achievements. These goals will range from breaking a specified
time, to bursting through snowmen for speed boosts during a downhill run. But
once again, after you conquer each achievement, you will have no desire to go
back to the starting line and run the track again.
When a
player jumps online, they can compete for medals against their friends and
compare their medal count at any time. The competitive aspects of Vancouver 2010
are ramped up slightly because of this, but the player’s desire to continuously
beat their friends at the same sports will surely die in a swift manner.
While the
impending arrival of the Winter Olympics is a great catalyst to promoting a
video game, the interest of players will not stick around long, unfortunately.
Vancouver 2010 is a vast improvement over Olympic games of years before, but
still hinders from any personal connection between the players and the game. If
you can’t wait for the games to begin on February 12th, then this
title will undoubtedly hold you over until then, but Vancouver 2010 will not be
a game that you find yourself playing for months on end.
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Gameplay: 6
Varying controls
for each event are intriguing at first, but the limited courses and events
detract from the overall experience. Once a player masters the controls, there
is no more reason to linger in that sport category.
Graphics: 7
The first-person
view is fresh and fulfilling, but surrounding landscapes can get repetitive
during your repeated attempts to conquer a course.
Sound: 5
Strangely enough,
rock music will play in the background during some of your runs, which
completely negates any sense of focused intensity you may be trying to
experience. Not much worth noting from the audio of this game.
Difficulty: Easy
While obtaining
the achievements during Challenge Mode is fun, none of the sports are overly
difficult to master. With some sensible memorization and rhythm, most sports can
be won easily.
Concept: 4
The only
intuitive aspects of Vancouver 2010 seemed to be the lack of button mashing that
always plagued Olympic games of the past, and the first-person view toggled by
simply pressing “B.”
Multiplayer: 6
While it may be
fun to pummel your friends online at sports much less common than football or
baseball, the lasting appeal of any given event offered will not linger for very
long.
Overall: 6
Sega took some
steps in the right direction with Vancouver 2010, but the overall absence of
that intangible feeling that The Olympics ignites within most people is still
vividly obvious. The game may be fun to play, but that sense of fun will turn
into a sense of boredom after only a few sessions in each sport.
