Vancouver 2010

Athletics Games Generally have two types of event in them: ones that involve hammering-two buttons for a while and ones that replace the mashing with lots of relatively complex timed button presses. Vancouver 2010 is generally in the latter camp, with most of the events requiring more digital dexterity than finger endurance. There are 14 sports here in all, although the main problem is that most of these events are pretty much identical. For example, the luge, skeleton bob, and two-man bobsleigh events are all, essentially, copies of one another. Same course (mind you, in real life each of these are run on the same track as well), same mechanics (barring the luge using the trigger buttons instead of the analogue sticks for control), same everything. During the skeleton bob the slider lies on their front rather than their back, but otherwise it's a guy sliding down a tube of ice.

Of course, there's only so much you can do with the events at hand, other than going with things like figure skating, curling or the biathlon, but it's going to get very repetitive, very quickly. Usually you'd get a few people round, get the beers in and have a bit of a laugh, but there aren't enough events that cater for split-screen play, so the best you've got to look forward to are "beat my time, sucker" challenges.

You can see Eurocom have tried hard to inject some longevity into the game -the AI players are tough to beat, there are substantial number of challenges and achievements, and they've added multiplayer - if you can find anyone playing - but their task is akin to painting a lovely winter scene and finding out you've run out of white paint.

We're not sure it's possible to create a great sports game when half of it involves skiing, even if you adore skiing. Vancouver 2010 isn't a bad game, just very limited by its subject matter.