British Gaming: Vancouver 2010

by SOHAIB: Massive sport events mean two things. One, the TV schedules are packed with coverage of events I know little or nothing about, and two, tie in video games. With the Winter Olympics coming up, Sega’s released their inevitable Vancouver 2010 game.

Vancouver 2010 boasts a whopping 14 different events in its main menu. This, quite simply, is a lie. There might be 14 different options, but there’s realistically about 3 different games. It’s the equivalent of those 500-in-one knockoff cartridges for the Gameboy where every 7th game is Pacman. Don’t be fooled by the name MAZE EATER.

One of the first things to be copied and pasted is skiing. Under the guise of Men’s Downhill, Men’s Super-G, Ladies Giant Slalom and Ladies Slalom, it’s a mildly interesting game of skiing down a slope through flagpoles. It’s mildly amusing but they’ve tried to make it more exciting by adding motion blur so extreme you’d think they just discovered the effects section of Photoshop for the first time. It’s also slightly curious how smashing in to the posts seems to have no effect on momentum which stands out a bit when the game is meant to be a realistic and serious take on the sports within.

Next off the photocopier is the trio of Bobsled, Luge and Skeleton. Featuring almost negligible differences between them, you’re using the analogue stick to move up and down the sides of the course without falling off. It’s not too bad to play as you’ve got to balance the high speed and getting a good score for the cornet with being on the sides to the risk of falling off and losing. It’s good fun, up to the point of the death corner in the Luge track. That just ain’t possible, son.

Not all the games are as successful, such as the Ladies Freestyle Aerials, an event that can only be described as a mess. This is thanks to a series of timing bars and crazy moving circles which you have to follow with the analogue sticks and keep aligned that just feel awkward.

I just can’t for the life of me figure out who the audience for this game is. People who like… the cold…? Olympics videogames are practically minigame collections, a genre which is best as a party game. Vancouver 2010 doesn’t seem to have been designed for this, something emphasised best through the achievements – where only one is for playing with other people, with the rest being made up of single player tasks. What sort of person would want to play this game solo? Besides, half the fun of multiplayer games is giving your characters rude names, which the game doesn’t allow. Don’t think you can just use a 1 instead of an I, you’ll need to be more creative than that.

Most of the games are played by taking turns, understandable considering the sports chosen, but that doesn’t make it as fun. Among the exceptions to this you have the snowboard and ski cross events, where they didn’t even bother to make different courses, which is much more lively and enjoyable as a 4 player experience.

Although it might look as though there’s been a lot of time spent working on the game due to the high level of visual polish (it’s quite a good looking game), but beyond that it pretty much feels dead. There’s a complete lack of atmosphere (to THE OLYMPICS) and there’s not much depth to the game to make you want to go back. Sure, make a serious winter sports package, but if you’re doing that then make it in depth, new courses to unlock, have skills to develop…

Vancouver really suffers from a lack of content. An already small amount of included sports is made up of mostly repetitive content, hardly pulling the range of sports you can find at the real games. You can try and hide it by sticking in ‘first person athlete view’ nonsense, but you’re not fooling anyone. The game is lifeless, empty, and contains no content that’ll really draw you back to it. The most fun you’ll have is trying to come up with creative ways of writing rude names. Say hello the newest representative from China, Qi r Buii.

Besides, it’s a sports collection that very rarely asks you to mash buttons. Forget the speed skating sliding nonsense – THAT is what these games are supposed to be about. At least we get next year off from Olympics tie-in rubbish…