Olympics Review : Torino 2006 (Winter Olympics)

Sure, sure, sure, techically it's the Summer Olympics on right now so why am I not reviewing either or both the Atlanta 2000 or Athens 2004 Olympics games? Well... I couldn't find them, and there's only so far I should be expected to go reviewing these substandard Olympics fare games.

Anyway technically speaking the last Olympics game out other than the most recent Mario/Sonic at the Olympics is this game, he video game based on the last Winter Olympics set in Torino Italy… or is it Turin?

Apparently before we can begin to speak of the shortcomings of the game (which there are a few), we need to talk about the shortcomings of the name of the Olympics…. Mainly why it’s called the 2006 TORINO games when they‘re located in TURIN, Italy!
Of course by now people are more concerned over the human rights record of the Chinese than whether or not the last Olympics was set in Turin or Torino... well, thankfully however nobody in NBC got mixed up this year and called this year's Olympics the "2008 Bojingo Olympics"... so there's that at least.

Unfortunately this game would wish it had something as attention distracting to keep people's minds off of this video game as this game should be considered an insult to your intelligence. And... well yes... once again Bejing can give itself a hardy pat on it's back and thank Japan again for it's Olympics game (unofficial Sonic Mario Beijing 2008 Olympics game) makes both this and Salt Lake City 2002 look bad in comparison. Of course it doesn't mean Beijing 2008's Official Game won't fare better than this, but that's a discussion for another time (not now). So now get ready to start thrashing downhills, running the routes and slapping your blades on because it's time to review! Let’s start with the first and easiest complaint… in that the game comes off rather generic.

You’d never ever think that the Olympics of Winter and Summer came but once every four years the way 2KSports handled the duty of presenting it. For a sport that comes but once a leap year in terms of timing it seems the people at 2K was OK with half(bleep)ing out a underwhelming game instead of making it worth the once every four year wait you have to do between Winter Olympics…. Or the two year wait between this and the alternate Summer games from Beijing, China (whose only saving grace in gaming was again that whole lovely Sonic/Mario game which proved to be the biggest innovation ever seen in Olympics video gaming to date).

Additionally it seems that the people over at 2KSports just couldn’t have waited the x amount of days for the Olympics to end before slapping out a game, making sure (by taking the time to wait) to make it a quirky true to the Olympics experience by waiting to program the “human“ and “mother nature” factor into the game (which they didn‘t). And if you think the Bejing Olympics is going to be different I have already seen cover art of the games and I'm pretty sure it'll be out when the games hit and thus not wait for the actual games to play their course before releasing said tie in game to next gen consoles (for starters).

If they did manage to wait it out and put in all the human quirks of the real Olympics into the games, mind you, they could have filled the game with the many quirks and strangenesses that happened during the games which made the games abit more watchable (though somehow some of the "quirks" of the coming Olympics I am betting would be stuff that the Chinese don't want anyone seeing... most likely).

As for the incidential quirks of this game? That'd all be covered by the sudden snowstorms that screwed up certain events (sometimes mid event), the doping incidents (and the incident of the runaway banned coach), Michelle Kwan’s groin problems, that certain speed skaters embrace of the “I” in “team” theology and his refusal to do team sprint, and the failure of Bode (he who had his own webpage) to score (for starters). Basically all the quirks that make the games “human” and then some. Sure, they could wait and put that all in the present Beijing games... but at least the last host of the Winter Olympics wouldn't have minded the addition of "quirks" into their game, which I am sure isn't going to happen with the present iteration of the game and it's "host". Yeah... right.

Because of this please don’t expect to see any “human”-izing elements in the PS2 games of the Winter Olympic Games because (apparently) speed of release was more important than making the game actually “human”, or interesting, thereby worth playing (or worth owning for that matter). And if this holds true then you can expect to see this same lack of humanizing elements in the 2008 Beijing video game Olympics. Sucks, but nothing we can do about it.

Oh, you'd like to know how'd that could posisbly be. Well, let me tell you, you see because the game was rushed out prior to the Olympics the game is nice and it does it’s job (no question about it), but that is just about it. It’s passable, but lacks life and unexpected quirks of real human competition. The game has nice visuals and it looks good, but it lacks any real energy to get you hyped about the games well after the games are done and done (and the sameness of the arenas and so forth will eventually numb you to even the look of the Torino competition locales). That and the whole thing just sits there with little emotion.

Instead of starting you out on the Opening Ceremonies and giving you a 16 day march through the trials and tribulations of the games your given some choppy game modes that really don’t do much to instill a sense of excitement or energy in the game. Really, was 2KSports in such a hurry that they had to bang out a half(bleep) Olympics game as fast as they did? Because of their “need for speed” to rush out a game prior to the Olympics the game suffers, lacking any of the quirks that happened during the Olympics that challenged the will and determination of all the athletes. Of course I'd like to think that all these problems were fixed in Beijing 2008 (the game developers only had 2 years to fix all the bugs of Torino 2006 after all) but somehow I bet none of these problems were fixed. Damn.

There will be no sudden snowstorms during competition to hinder your efforts, athletes won’t be quitters and cripple your medal hopes so they can “rest up”, others won’t have groin problems (which wouldn’t have happened anyway with the notable sport cut out of this game)… basically what I said above and then some.
Heck, the game even lacks any personality when it comes to who is announcing the game!

I did like that there are several announcer pairs (English and European) doing the commentary, but for the English commentators I found a total lack of interest in the announcing they were doing! The two English announcers sound like they’re completely bored with their job no matter what your doing, even when your splaying yourself over a mountainside or something like that, you don’t seem to get much in the way of actual spirit or energy out of their commentary. Sure there is lots of interesting Olympics factoids in their commentary, sure, but since it’s delivered with all the energy of a Senate Subcommittee hearing (and by that I mean a boring Senate Subcommittee hearing) the factoids just come out as a poor attempt to dress up the lacking emotion of the commentary with some body and soul.

Also it bears to note that no matter how many times one of the commentators quotes Homer Simpson from time to time, belting out “D’oh” here and there whenever you screw up? That does nothing to instill anything remotely resembling “spirit” into this game.

Next up is the competitions left out of Torino 2006.
We have downhill skiing, ski jumping (but no aerials competition), the bobsled, the luge (no skeleton), biathlon (ski and shoot), nordic combined, speed skating and crosscountry. Also there is supposed to be snowboarding but if you look at the 15 events you don’t see snowboarding at all… what gives! Oh, and then there’s the obvious omission. Yeah, you might have noticed that something is missing here… noticed it yet? You have most certainly noticed a primary Winter Olympics genre missing!

And by that I don’t mean “curling”. You know, curling, the sport where guys shove gigantic stone “pucks” down the ice while they use the power of their brooms and yelling to make it go… lots and lots of yelling! People hollering like nobody‘s business yelling. I mean the omission of … no, not Hockey, there is more than enough hockey themed video games out there (ditto with soccer, basketball and baseball which I think was removed from the Summer Olympics)… I mean figure skating/ice dancing.

No pairs, no males, no females, no ice dancing with the ability to dress your female partners up in oh so cute little outfits… none of that. Now, you might ask, is that such a bad thing -- other than the fact it’d jack up the age rating to T for Teen since little boys shouldn’t be making cute girls skate… I think.

That, by the way, was such a major mistake I can’t tell you how much of a mistake it was! Whether you are a fan of figure skating or not you can’t dismiss it’s audience drawing power. It is, after all, one of the major target audience sells during the Winter Olympics that bring the crowds back again and again. Sure, you and I might not be the biggest fanatics of the sport of figure skating, but that doesn’t mean it’s not one of the big cash cows of the Winter Olympics, which it is.

Along with speed skating, hockey and a few other sports? Figure skating is one of the major draws of the Olympics of Winter, which means an omission of a Figure Skating mode in Torino 2006 was no doubt a severe tactical error that’ll haunt 2KSports, especially since it means 2KSports has effectively ignored a vital “target” audience that might have overlooked most of this game’s flaws in order to play the figure skating venue, but can‘t because it doesn‘t exist. Bad move, people, bad move.

Then there’s the lack of major interest in snowboarding. The game talks about it, and I’m sure it’s in there, but it’s not a prominent thing that‘s for sure which is another fatal flaw of the Torino 2006 games. It should have had a major spot on the lineup, complete with it’s own category… so what gives!

Also the game fails to take advantage of the 2006 Olympics’ newest event despite the fact that the Torino (Turin?) games premiered Snowboarding Cross! That is yet another reason why 2KSports should have kept their tights on and waited for the Olympics to play out so they could have added more snowboarding events including Snowboarding Cross! Definitely another bad dismount by the people at 2KSports!

Of course I bet there are other events not put in here, like short track and skeleton for instance, not to mention no figure skating slash ice dancing (d’oh, to paraphrase the bored sleepy announcers). No spirit, no soul, no… nothing. The games couldn’t be more of a turnoff even if it tried! If given the choice? I’d rather recommend the only seen in Japan PS2 game known as “Party Game“, the Japanese Olympics for Super Deformed animorphic athletes who do the Summer thing (with curling from the Winter Olympics added in) as well as sports not usually associated with the Olympics… but who cares! It looks like it’s way more fun than Torino 2006 and at least I’d rather you play that than this snoozer!

Yeah, the Olympics may come but once every four years but it seems as if the people at 2KSports doesn’t see it that way since they went out of their way to make a half (bleep) attempt at a game!

Then there’s the fact that the game promises to be easy to pick up, and easy to learn, which it is only half true. While, yes, you can pick the game up with little muss or fuss (‘cause it’s only a few ounces in weight) learning to play it fast is another matter entirely. Promises to make the gameplay easy to learn apparently is a lie, especially since you have to first read the “instructions” on each while practicing in a singles mode which is more “trial by error” learning than an actual tutorial that’ll teach you how to play this game! I don’t know what 2KSports concept of “easy to learn” is, but this isn’t it.

Higher, Faster, Stronger eh?
Thanks to 2KSports and the inattentive people at the IOC (who seem to miss a great deal, including how half(bleep) the recent hellspawn of Winter Olympics games is it should be changed. I like to call the Torino 2006 games Lamer, Clunkier, Sleepier… d’oh! Of course I heard the Summer stock of games do fare a little better than the Winter ones in terms of game content, but I suppose that is something only a real full out review of last Olympics Athems 2004 and this Beijing Olympics 2008 can answer... maybe... but for now this game gets it's athletes one dishonorable mention out of 5. Bad game! BAd! Bad game!