For a long time I no longer entertained myself with simulators of the Olympic Games. If you remember, then the first to mind, of course, is an old one Track & Field times NES (or deny in our country). There we jumped, ran, shot at the plates – in general, the old -time eight -bit fun. The second Olympics in my life was already winter – as I remember now, in Nagano. On the same disk for PS, you could fight in two dozen different disciplines. I liked Kerling the most – there you can at least think. Freestyle was the most difficult thing – it was necessary to knock out long combo in a short time. Something reminded of “brutali” in Mortal Kombat. Anyway, a distinctive feature of all these games is the buttons. Back in 1992, these foundations were laid – if the athlete needs to run, then you need to press the button as quickly as possible. If he needs to jump after that, then you will have to press the key in the pad until it stops at a certain moment. In fact, there was no question of any simulator and does not go – this is all the pure water of the Arcade, but in the Olympic guise.
Sports Festival in Vancouver – a great occasion again to “comb” the topic. In 2008 there was a summer Chinese, but now, please, – winter games. What awaits virtual athletes on a snowy Canadian coast?
Break off your hand
I don’t like to reproach games for crooked management at all – the main thing is the content, but this time the crime is so serious that I don’t even give a chance to forgiveness. The developers were too lazy to smear the buttons from the cross -shaped box. At the start, we are joyfully greeted by colored letters A, b, y … click on them, but nothing happens! The salt here is that management, even to get to the settings, will have to be sought at random … And when we get it, we will understand that … the Xbox pad was simply dragged from the console to the keyboard. Nobody thought about any ergonomics – just the input data was replaced. So if you still dare to drive in Vancouver, then know that WASD is a cross, and h, j, k, y, u, i is everything else.
Now you can proceed to the insides-competitions and appearance. It is clear that there is nothing more here and cannot be – the plot is useless;Seasons and pumping players in the manner FIFA -also not (athletes, in my opinion, are generally faceless);Pure Olympics – nothing more.
Our main task is the pursuit of gold, it is obvious. It is not obvious who we will compete with, actually. Having restrained all kinds of menus, we will find out that we will resist .. Board of Records! That is, we connect to a godly Live, roll a good time, and then send it. Everything is cooler, well done. Honestly, such an incentive did not skill me, but this is another half of the trouble – remember, I said that we have since long ago – a pure arcade? So nothing has changed. I’ll tell you in more detail, wait a minute pulling ski caps and heated.
Winter sports in the virtual Vancouver is not enough: you can go skiing from the mountain (different options for tracks plus women);The same thing, but on snowboarding – a slightly different specificity of management;We jump from the springboard;We twist the freestyle;Fight in skates;and we rode bobs and sleigh under the eyeballs. And all. Although, on the other hand, the choice is clear – these are the most speedy and spectacular sports. Biathlon, where the race can last more than an hour, is unlikely to fit for entertainment.
This is how competitions are. We choose, say, slalom. We get to start – you need to press the A button (which is actually not A, but J) to the signal GO. Managed – we get points for the push. Now we hollow J to gain speed – this must be done really violently. After we must drive along the highway without missing by the multi -colored gate. Accelerate on I, slow down on y – everything is simple. We get to the finish line, time goes into offset. Easy, is it not true? And in general, it’s even funny – the graphics for the project are by no means massive and not a chitly very decent. People look like people, not revitalized sausages. Motion Blur successfully emphasizes the speed of movement, and even with a first -person view (as it should be in a mask and glasses), and in general, it is at times in a breath.
While everything goes well, we move on. Snowboard turned out to be almost a clone of skis – nothing complicated, except that the speed is smaller, and the turns are abruptly. The speakers are not enough, I fall asleep, but pretty good alternative music from the speakers encourages – the compositions are selected correctly, especially for large speeds.
With almost rainbow thoughts I go to jumps. There is generally a continuous arcade. We stand at the start – catch the wind. The runner moves from right to left, try to get into the central position, we are starting. We are approaching the end of the springboard – we clamp the J button, another scale appears – you need to get into the center to jump Right, Errors are not forgiven. Missed – get a fine. Finally, in flight you need to clat on J to land in time, and control the flight buttons Y and I so as not to fall to the side (this is also evaluated). We complete the jump – we get points depending on the accuracy of our actions. From the fifth time I managed to do everything at 100. Three times in a row. I won so easily in the world?!
After the jumps, it became somehow suspicious-the player in them at all almost does not take part. Rare spot presses to the reaction – no control, little participation and involvement in the process.
Now skates. Here things are more fun here – even though we are not chasing
with time, but with opponents … But an annoying problem got out. To move along the highway and turn, you need to press not only left and right (a, d), but also Y. At the same time, you still have to put pressure on the acceleration button, and there are not enough hands on everything-after all, the gamepad has something Shifts. And the fingers there simultaneously participate in the process of six (and more). In general, I never mastered the battle on the ice – I broke the limbs.
However, if I pounded my hands slightly on the skates, then freestyle chopped off them on my elbow. It is known that various figures have different complexity coefficients. The higher it is – the more points for the jump. Here everything is also arcade, but Sado-Maza, as in Nagano 98, is not (there it was necessary to fill with twelve-bearing combinations of crosses, zero, squares and triangles in a matter of seconds). Start with the sight – we need to get to the springboard. The runner moves quickly, try to press the button when it stands in the center. We accelerate – a familiar scale (as on skis), jump – here a pitch and fierce surprise awaits us: one or two circles appear depending on the complexity of the figure, along which colored balls run in different directions. We must fit the strips in these circles so that the balls are always inside them. This is done by the cross (a, d) and shifts (y, i). On the gamepad is convenient and easy, I’m sure. But on the keyboard, the brain all the time resists to understand which strips and where to twist. And after the jump, you still need to land – and this is again j. You can, of course, set your fingers in advance, but this, frankly, does not even smell like a convenience.
Bobsley and sled do not paint a gloomy picture. Racing on a speed track is funny, but before the start you need to scare the acceleration button. Yes, so fiercely that after a dozen races the keyboard will have to be changed – but I appreciate my own and love. The choice was simple – and it was not in favor of the game.
Closing ceremony
Virtual Winter Olympic Games is cool. If only because they can theoretically attract people to sports. And this is health, good. On the other hand, such a disregard for the implementation will rather turn away a potential medalist from skis, skates and sledges. Ergonomics in the digital Vancouver – neither in the Red Army, nor in any other place. We will engage in a pause over the body of a fallen porcelain portion. Amen.
Pros: The only Olympics simulator in the market;Cute graphics.
Cons: The terrible management that puts the cross on all the attempts of the developers;little competitions;Weak motivation.