[Game Review] Vancouver 2010

Games for the Olympics, both summer and winter, are sports games of a different breed to the Maddens and FIFAs of the world, sport franchises with yearly seasons and so, yearly games. The Olympic Games, however, are released once every four years, to coincide with the Athletic games on which they are based. Vancouver 2010, a game by Eurocom, published by SEGA, is the company’s first foray into the winter Olympics, with previous titles Torino, Salt Lake, and Nagano being made by 2K, Ubisoft, and Konami respectively. Sega and Eurocom's 2008 effort for the Beijing Olympics was critically panned, so Vancouver was a chance for them to put right the mistakes they had made previously.


The game allows you to play a number of events from the Winter Olympics, and allows you to play with a number of nations. In fact, that’s 14 events and 24 nations. Although there are a fair few events, many of the games boil down to the same mechanic. There are quite a few games which involve skiing between gates and some fairly similar sledding games. Those mechanics, though, are generally incredibly tight: most of the players respond in the sort of way you would expect them to.





Unfortunately, there is only so far that good mechanics can take a game. The sheer lack of variety within this game leaves it crippled. Skiing events always feel the same, regardless of the subtle differences that, maybe, winter sports enthusiasts will enjoy. The control scheme stays the same for most downhill events; crouching to gather speed and ‘braking’ are common throughout.

Sledding events suffer from the same issues: incredibly similar tracks, played in the exact same way, despite any difference in event. Regardless of if you’re in a bobsled or luge, you’re doing the same thing. Obviously, you’re competing on the track by yourself, so competition is really with yourself and the preset times, so when you ride up the side of the track the first few times and keep your character from falling in a rather painful way, it’s exciting, but the next few times, you will have lost interest.

When two mechanics make up a huge majority of the events in a game, there’s a serious issue.





The major issue with Vancouver 2010 is the lack of any semblance of a career mode. Here you have a game representing the Winter Olympics, a huge competition, to which so many athletes will devote their career to attend and win gold in, but you can’t be one of them, not even virtually. The ability to create a character and take them from training to the Olympics is sorely missed. Events matter more when you’ve chosen a nation and are actually competing in a competition. You’re not, though: you’re playing events without any sort of Olympic leader board, without any sort of consequence outside of the event and without a lot of the fun this game could have had. There is no commentary, no pomp and no presentation. It feels nothing like what you’ll see on TV, and so, there is no experience to be had here.

There’s a slight extension in playability with multiplayer modes. Both online and offline support 4 players, and playing with 3 other friends can be fun. However, since the majority of events are not played simultaneously, there is very little difference from the single player game for most events, and the excitement of competition wears thin quickly.





Graphically, Vancouver is a good looking game. Characters are generally well detailed, and the animation isn’t bad either, but it’s nothing to write home about. It’s even a little disappointing if you consider how little else there is on screen. Sometimes textures aren’t great either, but it’s definitely passable, and the frame rate is quite steady too.

The games' jarring rock music tends not to work well with the serene snowy environments. The sound is otherwise pretty good, but once again, nothing special.

Vancouver 2010 is a game which has a lot more potential then was tapped for this game. It was ultimately hindered by a limited number of events and a lack of unique events amongst those that are there. This stands out even more due to the lack of a proper career mode, forcing players into just playing event after event.

Sega has once again failed to bring the Olympics to the home, but maybe London 2012 will be the one that turns it round. It’s easily possible that it won’t be, though.