review
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POSTED 17/2/10


VANCOUVER 2010

SEGA



Olympics videogames have been a staple pretty much since pixels were first manipulated by something computery. So, every two years we know to expect a new one. This year’s no exception, with all those brass monkey weather athletes schlepping off to Vancouver for much of the whole world to watch and think, “I wish they were the summer Olympics, they’re heaps more fun”.

Curiously, however, whilst graphics have improved out of sight through the years, gameplay has devolved somehow. Sure, older Olympics videogames pretty much relied on how quickly you could mash buttons or waggle a joystick, but they were FUN. With ever more complicated controls creeping into the newer variants, that fun has more than often made way for another ‘F’ word, frustration.

14 events are included in Vancouver 2010, although many are essentially the same (think anything involving skiing and not hitting hard things, plummeting through half a tube really bloody fast in something that slides etc). You can play events solo, or against others either in the room or somewhere out in Internetland, in traditional third-person mode, or in the first-person (which can be a trip). A rather fun bunch of challenges, ranging from spots of speediness to abject snowmanocide, is a great bonus.

Vancouver 2010 skates that line between ‘YAY!’ and ‘ARGH!’ a lot, but quite honesty it’s probably the best Olympics-based videogame yet as far as combining ‘look at moi!’ graphics with, for the most part, controls that don’t require a masters in ambidextrousness and Mensa membership to get to grips with. But it’s no Hypersports...

take me back to the start...

 



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ALL WRITTEN CONTENT COPYRIGHT © AMY FLOWER 2008-2018. GAME IMAGES COURTESY OF RESPECTIVE GAMES COMPANIES.