Game reviews: Vancouver 2010

Perhaps more than other styles of video game, sports titles live and die on their ability to put you in the action, that all-important immersive quality game reviewers constantly bleat on about.

Sega’s new effort commemorating this year’s Winter Olympics does pretty well on that score. Downhill skiing events in particular give you a fabulous sensation of speed, and the feeling that at any minute you could come completely unstuck and end up with your limbs wrapped either side of a tree. The luge and skeleton, meanwhile, are, like their real-life equivalents, way cool but utterly bonkers. And a personal favourite is the ski jump, if only because my paralysing fear of heights means I get a mild case of vertigo while playing it, which probably says something about my lack of intestinal fortitude and definitely says something about the quality of Vancouver 2010′s environment graphics.

What lets the game down, however, is its lack of variation. You can compete in 14 events but the luge, bobsleigh and skeleton races are all run on the same course and feel no different from one another to play, while the four alpine skiing disciplines are all played in exactly the same way using exactly the same combination of controller buttons.

A challenge mode is a welcome distraction, but Vancouver 2010′s only real concession to longevity is in multiplayer, which supports up to four gamers in on and offline forms.

So if you’re after a sports game you can play casually with your mates over a few beers, and not something you’ll still be playing in six months, this’ll do the job – though the omission of ice dancing is a near fatal flaw.

PLATFORM REVIEWED: Xbox 360

PLAYERS: 1-4

RATING: G

GENRE: Sports

OVERALL: 3 stars

RICHARD BETTS