Game Review: Wii Winter Sports: The Ultimate Challenge

Race through the flags in the Slalom, go the distance in the Ski Jump and lead your bobsled team to victory as you go for the Gold In Wii Winter Sports: The ultimate Challenge.

Ratings: Graphics & Audio: 22/25, Gameplay: 20/25, Creativity 22/25, Fun 21/25
Total: 85/100

In my case it's more like try desperately not to hit the fences bordering the slalom course, be thankful when you do land on your two skis and remain that way and try not to collide with the boards too often as you hurtle down the chute. Winter Sports: The ultimate Challenge for the Wii is a pretty good Wii game with the Winter Olympics as the central theme, even down to the awards presentation and joking of the athletes.

Conspiracy Entertainment and RTL Sports bring the Winter Olympics to your Wii console in this team or single player winter festival of athletics. The Luge, Alpine Skiing, Figure Skating, Cross Country Skiing, Ski Jumping, Speed Skating, Bobsledding and yes even Curling are all here.

The events are either in a Competition, Campaign, Career or Single Event mode with or without other players. In the Competition they have set up very much like the Olympics with either a 15 event or 7 event competition. You can even create your own competition from all the various winter sports events in your own way. Your standing for the final ceremonies will depend on how many Gold, Silver and Bronze awards you earn in each event.

The Campaign is a set of events called combs where you start out with twelve available and after succeeding in mastering these you will be awarded with new challenges and higher difficulties. The Campaign is simply a bunch of events against the computer opponent with unlocks for getting good scores in various events.

The Career mode is a league standing with you choosing an athlete and country and working through four leagues of competitions. Each league consists of two competitions, one 7 and one 15 event competition. You have to win the 15 competition in order to continue on to the next league where your ultimate goal is to get as much experience as you can.

The single events is the quick play area with all the available events open for you to dash your way through the Winter Olympics with style and grace, or in my case crash and burn. I really am not that bad and some of the events merely take practice to get the hang of the controls, which work very well.

The Wii is probably the hardest system to create games for because you not only have to design and build a game but have to worry from the start about your control scheme as well as everything else in the game creation and building process. The controls are very good for the most part but some just are not easy to master. The Slalom and other Alpine events are a bit hard to get the hang of due mainly to your speed but you can get the kinks worked out and run a decent race.

The other events are pretty simple like Bobsledding and Luge where you mainly just steer and try to keep yourself or team off the sides of the chute. The Cross Country Skiing has several different control schemes where they had to come up with a very different movement for different parts of the course.

The tucking and skiing down a hill was easy, simply hold both controllers pointing down and steer. The kicking up a hill that looks like duck walking was harder but the general travel of skiing on level grounds was easy with the forward and back motion of the controllers.

All the sports except the figure skating are a matter of figuring out the controls and getting things to work when and how you want them. The figure skating is a mere matter of timing and nothing else. You do not pick the moves or choreograph the routine but simply move the controller at the right time when the screen bars tell you and when timed correctly pull off the stunt perfectly.

The events are fun and can be a challenge but the real fun here like many of the Wii games is getting a group together and having a fun night of gaming. The challenges of competing against others in the various events are fun and you get the full spectrum of gaming with all the events.

In the multiplayer you can compete one after the other or on a split screen with two players for some of the events through the competitions and have fun trying to win the Olympics. Conspiracy Entertainment and RTL Sports has done a really good job with some great graphics and really good sound track and audio.

The game is well put together and even has some good natured joking and competitive spirit in the ceremonies and commentary. The joking can be things like athletes stepping up to the wrong platform at the awards or the commentators joking about your performance. They did a great job with the commentators and how they give minute by minute updates to your performance while it's happening.

To be running down the chute on a bobsled and hitting the sides a bit too much with the big flash of red as warning is one thing. But to have the two commentators keep talking about leave the boards alone or they'll have to replace them soon gets to be annoyingly fun. The addition of these commentators up to the second additions is great and quite surprising, as well as totally realistic.

There are other parts of Winter Sports that show they did a good job of completing the game and put a lot of effort into thinking about many aspects of the game. There are several helper schemes like a ghost for telling you how good or bad your doing in many events. You can also switch on and off the ceremonies to participate in the fun of getting your awards or watching others get theirs.

Winter Sports: The Ultimate Challenge is really a very good and well put together game and one you should really check out if you're interested in Winter Sports or the family fun night type games on the Wii.