• Challenge mode offers a number of diverse and fun objectives.

The Winter Olympics are known for their collection of sports that only raise their head out of the snow once every four years. From the intense sweeping action of curling to the celestial tango of figure skating, families crowd around their glowing televisions to watch superniche athletes compete in these quadrennial events. In Vancouver 2010–the video game adaptation of this year’s winter games–many of these uncommon sports have been removed, stripping away much of the novelty of the real Olympics. Curling and figure skating have been unceremoniously left out of the game–and don’t get your hopes up for fast-paced international hockey either. The 14 included events are most notable for their lack of variety. There are seven ways in which you can race down a snow-covered mountain (skiing and snowboarding) and three ways to hurl yourself down a frozen chute (bobsledding, luge, and skeleton). This means you are left with only a few unique activities to take part in, which removes any sort of long-term appeal Vancouver 2010 might have offered.

At least most of the included events are well done, even if they do veer on the shallow side. The last Olympic video game, Beijing 2008, was plagued by an overload of events that forced players to frantically tap buttons–an activity that is the polar opposite of fun. That mindless control method is used only sparingly in Vancouver 2010, resulting in a much more enjoyable experience. The controls change little between skiing and snowboarding down a mountain, but they are responsive, so it can be fun to fly down an icy hill a few times. The problem is that there are only a few different courses (which change depending on the event), so you’re forced to wind your way down the same path every time you replay the event. You only have to go down the hill a few times to memorize the layout, and after you know the exact route to take, there is little incentive to improve your time or play again.

The bobsledding events are even more repetitive. Two-man bobsled, skeleton, and luge are all represented here, but they all control in almost exactly the same way and all take place on the same frozen water slide. It is certainly fun to careen down that slippery track the first few times–making sure you don’t slam into the walls that hover dangerously close to your sled while zooming up as high on the banked curves as possible without flipping over–but once you’ve done it a couple times, there isn’t any reason to go back. And that is the biggest problem with Vancouver 2010. Skiing, snowboarding, and bobsledding events all control well and are pretty fun at first, but there are only a few different courses to go through, which severely limits the replay value. With a whopping 10 out of the included 14 events essentially boiled down into two unique activities, the entire package ends up being skimpy and forgettable.

The other four included events do inject a dose of variety, but they lack the fun of the racing activities. Ski Jump and Aerials, for instance, require players to tap a specific button at the right moment, but it takes only two or three practice runs before you master this technique. The 500-meter speed skating event forces players to frantically mash a button to maintain top speed, and though it requires a bit of skill to take corners at top speed, it’s too tiring and repetitive to entertain for long. The 1,500-meter variety introduces a rhythm game mechanic for most of the race, but is too simple to make repeat runs entertaining. And that is the entirety of the included events. There is no score-based snowboarding competition, biathlon, or even the crazy mixed doubles luge. Even considering the reduced price of this game ($50), there is a dearth of content.

The Olympic mode continues the theme of a stripped winter sports experience by offering a very bare-bones take on the spectacle. You compete in a series of one-off events–without any commentary or special visual touches to make the events mirror the television broadcasts–and are then thrust on a podium afterward to receive your medal. There are only 24 countries to choose from (compared to the more than 80 that will compete in the real games), and you can’t even customize the appearance of your competitors. Furthermore, the events themselves are lacking in presentation, diminishing the thrill of striving for a gold medal. Weirdly enough, many events blast rock music while you’re trying to focus, which clashes severely with the otherwise serene, wintry atmosphere. There is little incentive to play these events more than one time in Olympic mode, which is awfully strange. One would think that the Olympic mode would be a key aspect of an Olympic game, but it feels like an afterthought in Vancouver 2010.

La Couve takes its latest victim.

Thankfully, there is one mode in which to take solace in Vancouver 2010. Challenges let you take part in a variety of objective-based events that are the most interesting aspect of this game. Most of your goals involve tearing through an event as if you were a real life competitor, keeping your speed above a certain average in downhill skiing or taking corners perfectly in the luge, which forces you to master the intricacies of the courses and controls. However, there are a few objectives that seem flat-out game-y, sucking you out of the otherwise simulation atmosphere offered in the rest of the game. For instance, during one downhill skiing event, you must slam into snowmen to earn time bonuses, and in a snowboarding event, your controls are inexplicably reversed. Nevertheless, every one of these 30 challenges are fun, and it’s rewarding trying to shave off a second or land a particularly difficult jump. It’s a shame the rest of the game doesn’t have the same care found in the Challenge mode because there is good deal of entertainment in these winter events.

Because of the lack of variety among the events, the multiplayer mode has only a little bit more appeal than the standard single-player competitions. You can play online or off, with up to four players, and it is fun striving for the best time against your buddies. But like every other element of Vancouver 2010, the fun doesn’t last long. With only a few unique events and even fewer courses to choose from, everything becomes stale soon after you start playing. Only the difficult Challenge mode is really interesting, but with only 30 challenges to take part in that too is only fun for so long. Although Vancouver 2010 is vastly improved from Beijing 2008, it is ultimately lacking in many key areas. It’s still more fun to watch the real lugers do their thing than take part in this shallow digital representation.

Fans of online shooters have had a great past few months with games like Left 4 Dead 2 and Modern Warfare 2 occupying the disc trays of consoles the world over. Those post-headshot cackles of glee shouldn’t be letting up anytime soon, because a number of intriguing shooters are slated for release in early 2010. One of the most promising of the bunch is DICE’s Battlefield: Bad Company 2, a game we’ve had our eye on for quite some time. Previously, we’ve covered some of the new vehicles you can expect to see on the snowy Port Valdez map, and we’ve detailed the new class customization options on the dusty Arica Harbour map. Our most recent look at Bad Company 2 gave us a chance to see two new locales and a new gameplay mode: Squad Deathmatch.

Laguna Presa is one of the new maps in BC2.

As the name implies, Squad Deathmatch is a twist on the most basic of shooter modes. The difference here is that it’s not a free-for-all, nor is it a one-team-versus-the-other situation. Instead, it’s four teams of four all duking it out to be the first squad to reach 50 total kills. It makes for quite a different style of combat and a much more tense and unnerving experience. Even if you manage to survive an encounter with an opponent from one squad, you never know if there’s a member of another squad just waiting in the bushes for the right moment to pull mop-up duty. You also feel much more connected to your squadmates knowing that it’s four of you, and 12 of them.

Another thing that makes Squad Deathmatch interesting is the way certain endgame scenarios change your play style. Say your squad and another squad are both tied at 45 total kills, with the other two teams so far behind that they’re basically out of the competition. Suddenly, the strategy becomes seeking out the losing squads and trying to avoid the one that’s close to you in total kills. Who cares if you die while going after the weak guys? They’re already out of it. But a death against the team that’s tied with you suddenly matters a whole lot more. There’s also one single tank in Squad Deathmatch that acts as a sort of centerpiece for the action, allowing one team to both go on a rampage and signal to the other teams with a very loud voice where they are and where they can be killed. Overall, Squad Deathmatch adds a few very interesting risk-reward dynamics to the usual Deathmatch formula.

Panama Canal isn’t the greatest place for boats when tanks are firing everywhere.

We played Squad Deathmatch on the new Laguna Presa map, an area set in a vibrant jungle where a series of small islands are separated by knee-deep pools and streams. This map has a lot of small patches of foliage to hide in, as well as a number of rickety wooden buildings that don’t provide a whole lot of protection from incoming gunfire. This map is a stark departure from previous Bad Company 2 maps we’ve seen, which were set in snowy Alaska and parts of arid South America. We also got to play on another new map called Panama Canal, which is a shipping yard set on the famous maritime passageway in Central America. This industrial-themed map offers a demolished collection of rusted freighter boats and shipping cans and gives you the chance to cruise around in several tanks and quad ATVs.

On the Panama Canal map, we played that old Battlefield standby known as Conquest mode. As fans of the series will recall, this mode sees two teams fighting for capture points spread across the map. The first team to exhaust its total number of respawns loses, and the point of maintaining capture points is that they offer a boost to the total number of respawns your team has left. In contrast to the measured jungle-stalking of the Laguna Presa map, we found Panama Canal to be a more frenetic and explosive experience. With the ATVs zooming around and the capture points serving as magnets for a flurry of incoming grenades, this map and mode certainly felt a lot more chaotic than Squad Deathmatch on Laguna Presa.

Laguna Presa: Your ideal vacation getaway.

We’ve seen Bad Company 2 several times now, and we’ve had fun with it every time we’ve picked up a controller. The large-scale maps, destructible buildings, and vehicle options make for a fun and varied experience that allows you to pursue victory from a number of different angles. Whether you play as a rooftop sniper, a tank driver, or a deranged medic running around zapping enemies to death with defibrillator paddles, there’s a lot of room to play how you want. Bad Company 2 is due out March 2.