PlayStation 2
Released in 2007 by Conspiracy Entertainment
Grade: B-
The four skiing events are a lot of fun, and I could do without all the other stuff.
Where it falls in the series
This game doesn’t have the word “Olympics” in the title, but it’s certainly implied. It follows Torino 2006 Olympic Games (2K Sports, 2005) and Winter Sports 2007: The Next Challenge (49Games, 2006), and all three games were made by the same developers.
Praises and gripes
The four alpine skiing events — downhill, slalom, giant slalom, super G — are awesome, each with a well-crafted course, lifelike controls, and beautiful graphics. The snow really has that packed, slick look we all know from watching Olympic skiing, and damn, you really barrel down it at high speeds. I can practically feel the freezing cold air wooshing into my face. I like the simple controls, just X to crouch and O to carve.
The only problem with the skiing is how little of it there is. Just four different courses, as cool as they are, don’t cut it. You can play through different event formats, but you’re still doing the same thing over and over. There are even mini challenges that add wrinkles (like skiing through giant floating coins on your way down the mountain), but I really just wanted more courses.
The other events are worth trying, but they won’t hold your attention too long.
The bobsleds, luge, and skeleton all take you down the same track, and while there’s an awesome sense of speed, it’s a pretty repetitive endeavor to work up to an error-free run down the icy tube.
Cross-country skiing, speed skating, and ski jump are all extremely dull and tedious, as you spend the whole time following on-screen prompts with timing tricks or leveling out a meter of some kind. The same even goes for figure skating, where you watch button prompts swing along the screen like you’re playing Guitar Hero. Figure skating literally made me dizzy.
Curling is at least sort of interesting, and about as good as a recreation of the real event as you could want. Of course, curling is some bizarre combination of sport, board game, and rolling dice at the casino, and it doesn’t exactly make for a fun video game. But if for some reason, you’re a big fan of curling, you shouldn’t be disappointed by this depiction of it.
Oh! Forgot to mention… Turn the sound OFF when you play this game! I’m not sure why the developers enlisted the two most pretentious, condescending dorks to call the action and snicker at your every mistake. Matter of fact, I’m not sure why we needed announcers AT ALL in this game, even though the generic background music sucks too.
Anyway, you get the point. The skiing is great, the bobsleds are fast, the curling is slow, the figure skating is garbage, and the announcers are douchebags.