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There are six events, each of which are pretty much self-explanatory and youcan tell exactly what you’re going to get, starting with Men’s Alpine Skiing,in which the fastest man down to the bottom of the course scoops the gold.Then comes Women’s Alpine Slalom Skiing – almost the same thing butwith a female character and having to dodge between gates.
Two-Man Bobsleigh sounds like a bit of fun, while Women’s SkiingAerials is like a practice event with stunts being thrown in along theway. The final two are Men’s Ski Jumping and Men’s Snowboard Slalom.
During each event the commentators make their quips about how badly you’redoing and afterwards you can choose to see the replay from fixed camera angles.
The graphics are reasonable and what you’d expect from the PS2, but are farfrom outstanding. The atmosphere of the event is captured nicely in sweepingcamera shots, but what really matters is when it comes down to how it lookswhen you’re actually playing. You get a choice of a few camera angles, butcompared to other winter games likeSSX Tricky andit just doesn’t compare.
The sound is average. The crowd constantly cheer or show their disappointmentwhen you fail, the commentators’ voices are clear but as you travel acrossthe snow it just sounds like a slight scraping noise. There’s nothing in thereto make you feel involved like the aforementioned SSX sequel, even if thistitle is meant to be mirroring real life and so wouldn’t be as flashy as anarcade game. Some rather indistinct rock tracks are included, but nothingto get excited about.
And because there’s an element of reality involved, it’s one of those gameswhere you’re meant to practice until you’re good at it, which means it’s notinstantly pick-up-and-playable sadly.
Definitely this is a case where anyone wanting a purely arcade experience shouldlook elsewhere because it just doesn’t seem as much fun as it should be.However, those still determined that practice makes perfect should rent itfor a day first to see if it’ll have the longevity they’re after, but bequick as interest will wane once the games have ended.
SOUND EFFECTS AND MUSIC
PLAYABILITY
ORIGINALITY
ENJOYMENT
OVERALLIf you’re after some more info on Eidos Interactive’s games, you can checkout their official Website atwww.eidosinteractive.com
Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2002.
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.