Vancouver 2010 – The Official Video Game of the Olympic Winter Games
February 12th, 2010 | 
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- Experience the thrill in first person – Feel the speed and adrenaline of the athletes at the Olympic Winter Games at each Olympic venue; hurtle down mountains, ice runs, over jumps and around ice rinks
- 14 premium events in which to claim gold – Including giant slalom, snowboard cross, downhill and bobsleigh, every event focused on speed or danger, and most on both
- Fine tune your skills in a range of challenge modes – Such as Smashing the Snowmen’ and Speed Bands’ in a first for this kind of mode in an official Olympic title.
- Take your snow boots online – Set a new world record and see if anybody can knock you off the top of the leaderboard
- Defeat your friends online or in the front room – Earn the ultimate bragging rights in up to 4-player split-screen action, or in online head-to-head competition
Product Description
Vancouver 2010™ is an authentic simulation of a host of events from the upcoming Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games, focusing on the adrenalin rush that comes from the extreme speed of winter sports. Including an all new challenge mode, the game allows players to immerse themselves in the world’s greatest sporting event like never before…. More >>
Vancouver 2010 – The Official Video Game of the Olympic Winter Games
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I initially gave this two stars based on the lack of track variety. While this is true for the “Olympic games” mode (there’s only one track per event) the challenges mode is rewarding and trophies somewhat easy to get.
Graphics are also good but the sound track selection is dull with no variety in genres (rock only). On the bright side, music can be muted altogether which makes the game play more bearable (Olympic athletes don’t listen to music while competing anyway).
The game can be played online, on a LAN and on PSN but at this time there are no games to be found. For what the game is offering I’d say it’s worth $20 rather than $40+.
Rating: 3 / 5
SEGA have done a great job with the graphics and gameplay with Vancouver 2010 on the PS3. Everything looks incredible in HD on the PS3. You can tell a lot of attention to detail has gone into the way it looks and feels/plays. The movement of the skiers down the slalom is very realistic, there’s a good learning curve with the Parallel Snowboard Slalom which will keep you busy, and the sense of speed on the bobsleigh events is really well done. Unlike Beijing Olympics 2008, the mindless fast-tapping on controller buttons is kept to a minimum on Vancouver 2010. Online play is a lot of fun as this game seems to be very popular in Europe, so you’ll get to play against some good (European) players.
That’s the good. Now let’s check out the bad…
The biggest disappointment with this game is the number of events that are included. The range of events is really quite poor. There is NO halfpipe snowboarding event for example meaning no opportunity to perform tricks or show off your snowboarding skills. Snowboarding is probably going to be one of the MOST WATCHED events, yet SEGA only decided to include the Snowboard Cross event and no HalfPipe. There’s no figure skating event, no ice hockey content, no curling, no biathlon, and no cross-country skiing. Yes, I appreciate something like Ice Hockey is so complex that it would need a whole game/disc by itself, but not even some small presence such as a penalty shootout? While the game lists “14 events”, most of these are very similar. The Bobsleigh, Luge and Skeleton are practically the same event (just a different vehicle/sled) and most of the skiing and snowboarding events are the same.
Vancouver 2010 is fun to play, especially online, but it quickly becomes monotonous playing the same events over and over. Pricing this game at $49.99 is ridiculous. They would sell more copies AND it would be more value for money if they sold it for half that price, $25. But when will we learn? We all know that any licensed Olympic game is fun short term, but quickly loses it’s appeal. If you are curious about this game, I would say give it a miss. If you are a die-hard Olympics fan and want to immerse yourself in the Winter Olympics, then I would say ONLY get this game if you can rent it or buy a used copy. It’s simply not worth it for $[...]. All-in-all, it’s a very disappointing game and totally overpriced. Save yourself $[...] and just watch the real Winter Olympics on TV.
Rating: 2 / 5
Surely with the current generation of video game consoles, game developers could include more of the Olympic events instead of just the ones revolved around downhill motion (skiing, snowboarding, bobsled, etc…) Where’s the Curling, Hockey, Speed Skating, etc? I would have gladly traded off a bit of the extremely detailed graphics if it meant more events and ultimately a more complete game. If I remember correctly, even the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics game for the Nintendo 64 had Curling and that was 12 years ago and two console generations ago.
Rating: 2 / 5