Review: Vancouver 2010

Posted by Harry in Frontpage, Gaming, Gaming Reviews | 3 comments

Ever the optimist, I ventured onto Vancouver 2010 with a feeling of hope and excitement. The demo while short was promising and I had hoped that this game wouldn’t follow in the footsteps of previous Olympic tie-ins that were minimal in content, poor in execution and lacking in any real character or replayability. Unfortunately despite its best efforts and a few improvements to the formula, Vancouver 2010 wasn’t what I had hoped it would be.

It features three different modes for you to try – a training mode where you can practice the different events, an Olympic Games mode which is the main feature where you can compete in the 14 events available, and a Challenge mode which features 30 different challenges of varying difficulty and varying styles. While that could be seen as a wide variety it really isn’t – the whole game can be experienced within a couple of hours.

The training mode is irrelevant as the main mode features the same experience and even includes optional tutorials for the events, rendering the training mode useless. Along with this, the challenges are very slight variations on the actual events that don’t have any real reward for completion other than the occasional trophy/achievement.

The gameplay is very bare-bones as it only features a few buttons and the occasional inclusion of button bashing for power exertion. While the game tries to change up the style of play when participating in the events it cannot escape the monotony, as you very quickly see under the surface that the core game mechanics are almost cut and pasted across every event. You tap X/A at the right time, bash the X/A button to build power, use the analog stick/s to manouver your characters and on the odd occasion press L2/LT or R2/RT to turn quicker & move faster.

Thankfully there is one button that has a function I welcome which is the perspective switch. For most events you can switch the view from 3rd person to 1st person and the reward is great – the feeling of adrenaline is good and the experience is good as the sounds of the air flying past you and the feeling of speed is exemplified. The graphical presentation is where the game shines and when in 1st person you fully experience the rush. The presentation and attention to detail is a welcome delight and when competing in the events the lackadaisical gameplay mechanics can be forgiven. Little details like hearing your character breath or the motion blurring of the environments as you hurtle down the slopes is a great feeling and if you take anything away with you after playing the game it’s the way the game plays when in 1st person.

However, even though you can play the game from the perspective of the athletes you feel no connection or patriotism when playing. You can select the flag of your nation but that’s it. At the end of every event you get a cutscene where the winner jumps up and down in delight and their national anthem plays but there are no names, no likenesses to real individuals… there’s no feeling of allegiance at all. There isn’t a career mode and for a game that is based on national competition where you would feel patriotic and would want to support your country, there is as little nationalism as possible. Vancouver 2010 as a whole feels very empty and emotionless which is a shame.

You can play online against other people but expect the number of people to play against to dry up very rapidly. The replayability of the game is miniscule and the whole game is little more than a one-time foray into the world of winter olympics before you find something else to occupy your time. The general air of emptiness in content is a real let-down and despite the game looking the part and having a few redeeming features, the persistence for Olympic games to use timed button sequences and the limited number of game modes to choose from makes the game just another Olympic tie-in that lacks the amount of content it should have to warrant a purchase.

Vancouver 2010 is a step in the right direction for Olympic simulators but the lack of a career mode and the boring gameplay mechanics turn the game very much into a short-lived experience that’s not worth more than a rent.

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