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Game Title: Winter Sports 2009: The Next Challenge
Published by: RTL Sports
Release Date: February 2009 (UK)
PEGI Rating: 3+
Platform For Review: Microsoft Xbox 360
Genre: Sports
Players: 1 to 4 player
Amazon Product Description- 18 disciplines out of 11 different, action-packed sports
- New disciplines: Snowboard Half pipe & Biathlon
- Optimized commentators and Interface
- A challenging campaign and reworked career mode
- 20 gadgets and several special characters to unlock
- Multiplayer party fun: hot seat (4 players), split screen (2 players).
Winter Sports 2009 is a high-quality implementation of the successful and innovative Winter Sports series.
Total Format Product Description
The first thing you should do is go to Options and kill the commentary that otherwise plagues you throughout your chilly career. If you don't, then you may find yourself wanting to throw your controller at the screen if the two dimwits don't stop describing how awful you are.
Following on from the previous title in the series, Winter Sports 2008 The Ultimate Challenge, Winter Sports 2009: The Next Challenge is a decent update that includes new sports, including the Snowboarding Half-pipe and the Biathlon.
Single Events is, obviously, the place where you can choose any of the winter sports that you wish without worrying about unlocking stuff...mostly. Here, you can play a single set or a tournament with up to four other players (some sports only allow three players). There are three types of bobsledding alone, and these all appear very similar, but closer inspection reveals distinctions: ride the usual four-person bobsled, or do a Skeleton, or the Luge - a backwards-facing sled. As you would expect from such a game, there's also the usual Slalom runs, Ski Jumping, Alpine Skiing, Speed Skating, Figure Skating and the likes.
Back to the main menu and on to Competitions. These are the aforementioned sports spread between 5, 9 or 16 events in a row (or you can customize your own). Career mode allows you to build up what are called 'experience points' starting on the Rookie Cup (3 events) and working your way all the way up to the mammoth World Cup (16 events). All but five of the cups will be locked at first, but by winning these cups you'll unlock the rest.
Finally, Campaign mode offers the most fun, with a honeycomb menu structure that houses challenges such as 'do a perfect Ski Jump' or 'collect all the coins on a Slalom run'. Dozens more tasks like this are unlocked for each one that you complete.
Total Format Scoring Details For Winter Sports 2009: The Next Challenge
Graphics
I found the graphics to be smooth and fairly detailed for the most part, although it feels a little rushed in places and a little more attention to the finer details would have made this games graphics really stand out from the crowd.
Sound
The commentators will drive you completely crazy after a while and so the score has little choice but to reflect that, which is a shame, as the sound is perfectly ok besides those damn commentators. You can disable the commentators, but despite the pair of them driving you insane, it feels less real without them, so your caught between a rock and a bit of a hard place with it.
Gameplay
Game play really is a bit hit and miss, some of the events feel like they are missing something, i can't quite put my finger on exactly what, but it feels a little like the developers spent a little less time on on certain events and in it's movement and too much time on certain other bits.
Lastability
Unfortunately, this is the area that I feel this game will fall down on. It's fine playing with friends, it will keep you amused for a fair while, just as most sports games have in the past, *rubs hands and thinks of joystick burns as a result of Daly Thompsons Decathlon*, but when it comes to playing it alone, it won't keep you engrossed for very long before the commentators start driving you mad and wanting to hit the off switch.
Overall
This is a fair game, that could have been better. It will have an attraction value for older gamers and will offer fun and so is worth the money, but between now and Vancouver 2010 I can see better winter games coming along. The controls for the game aren't always 100% reliable, which makes what is a fairly complicated learning system exhausting at times. Personally, I really enjoyed the game, but when you've played games like this on the ZX Spectrum, you are always blown away by how far gaming has come. I'd like to see a little more time taken on games like this, they have more potential than is often see as the end user.
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