Winter Sports: The Ultimate Challenge

Written by Matt Swider  on January 31, 2008

Review: The quick alternating controls of speed skating and being whipped in the face by a wire prove there's a place for Nyko's fully wireless remote and Nunchuk.

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The 2008 Olympics are fast approaching, but they're the Summer Olympics, so it doesn't make much sense for Winter Sports: The Ultimate Challenge to release on the Wii right now. For whatever reason, Conspiracy Entertainment delivers nine different physically-enduring Olympic events that use the Wii Remote in less than physically-enduring ways. You won't get a real workout with its skiing or sledding, but this oddly timed title offers average rental fun.

Winter Sports contains a variety of events: ski jumping, alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, speed skating, figure skating, bobsled, luge, skeleton and, the Olympics' underappreciated darling, curling. The game also includes an assortment of modes to experience these events: career mode, competition, and single events. However, both the variety of events and assortment of modes boil down to a lot of the same, so numbers can be deceiving.



Cross-country skiing and speed skating, for example, require you to alternate push and pull movements with the Wii Remote and Nunchuk. Basically, you're using your hands to mimic the slide motion that would be made by your feet. But, the events start to feel too alike except for environmental differences. Cross-country's on snow and involves left and right turns, while speed skating is on ice and you only go left around a circle.

The Уsame-differenceФ gameplay feel applies to the bobsled, luge and skeleton events even more. You crank the Wii Remote by rotating it while the onscreen athletes push the sled, then once they hop on you turn the remote sideways to steer through the turns. Shifting your weight using the remote when the sled is taking turns at breakneck speeds is a lot of fun, but there's absolutely no difference among these three events.

Ski jumping and alpine skiing are different enough, but they're not as fun. Ski jumping has you to flick the remote and Nunchuk in a downward motion to begin your descent on the slalom, flick them up in the air while going off of the subsequent jump and then flick them back down just before landing. It's too short and the graphics don't capture the rush or mid-air experience.

The alpine skiing has a problem with its graphics, too. It's difficult to see the tiny flags and skinny poles because of their paper-thin size and the game's terrible draw distance. These gates can also get lost against the dark trees in the background. Since you're supposed to go in between two gates, you may only see one of the two initially and be forced to guess which side of the one you see to go on. Because the motion controls don't react quickly enough for when you do finally realize where the second, almost camouflaged flag is, it often leads to frustrating penalties. The graphics on the back of Winter Sports' box don't hold up and, worse, often affect your performance.

Figure skating, a Dance Dance Revolution knock-off on skates, is enjoyable as you shake the remote and Nunchuk in time with the music and onscreen indicators. Your skater in the background performs graceful spins and triple axels if you successfully complete the rhythmic motions or, if you're timing is off, he or she will go down faster than Nancy Kerrigan in '94. Finally, the curling event does what it can to liven up what amounts to pushing polished granite stone with brooms. You line up your shot with the Wii Remote and sweep the ice surface in front of the curling stone with the appropriate motion controls.

Whether or not you like a particular type of game, you'll probably enjoy the announcers who inject humor into each of the events. They'll mock you if you do poorly and compliment you if you do well with the usual banter. They also comment about advertisements being the real reward during the ceremonies and late starts before almost every event.