Vancouver 2010

Winter 2010 and the location of Vancouver in Canada is about to host the 21st Olympic Winter Games and as with all these bi-annual events the gaming community is blessed with the Officially licensed video game and this time its the turn of developer Eurocom with the game published by Sega.

As with all these event based games its difficult for developers to know which events to include and exclude and its all to easy to get too much of one and too little of another especially with all that Skiing going on. Vancouver 2010 includes all the popular events of the winter games from Skiing in the Mens Downhill Slalom to the Men’s Super G and the Ladies Freestyle Aerials as well as some of the more dangerous events like the 2 man Bobsleigh and the really scary Men’s Skeleton Luge which is a head first event for total athletes with a death wish.

Just like the great Franz Klammer on Ski Sunday with David Vine

All the events can be played individually and each has its own tutorial before you play so you can effectively jump straight in and play the full Olympic programme and learn as you go, or for the more conservative players the menu screen allows access to the tutorial section and you can practice to your hearts content. Control of each event is a simple affair with timed button pressing about as difficult as it gets otherwise its steering via analogue sticks or left and right triggers, but don’t be fooled as some of the speed events can still prove tricky. What is welcome is that none of the controls require players to button mash their way to victory, other than a few a fast paced presses to get your player away from the starting gate of some of the events each event its really more a case of steering and control.

Each event is well represented both visually, technically and graphically Vancouver 2010 is pleasant enough and although it’s not doing anything ground breaking it does have some very clear sharp and colourful representations of the players characters and when the faster events such as Men’s super G skiing and the Luge get going the feeling of speed is certainly well presented. Where we found the game to let itself down though was the feeling of competing and being part of a team, the Olympics is all about being part of your country’s team and although events are mostly contested on an individual basis your medals go towards your country’s medal tally.

Faster than a speeding bullet, or at least it feels that way

Vancouver 2010 doesn’t bring together the games 14 events in such a way that you feel your competing in the Olympics but rather 14 single player random events in an Olympic setting, each event is finished off with nothing but 3 players standing on a small podium waving with a medal table on the screen. It would have been nice to at least see the flags of the country’s raised and even the last few bars of the national anthems would have added to the games feel. The game also lacks more depth when it comes to the events themselves and as you are only ever given 2 attempts and its all over too soon, where real Olympic events can be staged over a whole day with qualifying followed by the attempts to win medals, there just isn’t the feel of being involved enough and there is no feeling of real achievement.

As well as the full Olympic programme which can be randomly tweaked to mix up the events, there is also a challenge mode which sets goals within particular events to challenge players to achieve the goal and unlock further challenges and this does provide a little diversity from the standard events. There is also an online mode which allows you to challenge players around the world and try and beat times set by the community of gamers but for me it doesn’t go far enough and in this age of online gaming I feel more could have been done in this area to again give more of a team feel and the feeling of being part of something bigger than just single events.

Team GB, or at least were meant to be a team, where is everyone ?

All in all Vancouver 2010 allows gamers to experience winter Olympic events with some fast paced gameplay and Officially licensed branding, the events themselves could have been broadened to include some of the more diverse winter events such as Biathlon and Curling. An opening and closing ceremony may have also added to the feeling of actually being at a huge event and might have gone some way to make the whole experience feel a bit more intergrated rather than loose knit eventing and that feeling your alone in your quest for Olympic victory.

Lost Gamer Verdict: 6/10