Winter Sports The Ultimate Challenge

List Price: $29.99 Discount Price: $17.88

Features:

• 15 playable disciplines spanning the 9 most popular winter sports
• Brand new campaign mode with 42 missions including boss rivals
• Multiplayer party fun: hot seat (4 players), split screen (2 players)
• Controls perfectly adapted to Nintendo Wii¿
• Lively sports events with mascots, opening ceremony, presentation ceremony, national anthems and many more

Customer Reviews:

Harder game than I expected [Posted on 2008-06-03]
I have only spent about two hours with this game so far, but it is quite difficult. The downhill skiing takes quite a bit of practice to just get down the mountain. The bobsledding/luge doesn't give the player a lot of feedback on what one should be doing to perform better. The controller vibrates when you bump the sides but there are no visual queues to respond to. The curling is out and out confusing. After 15 minutes I couldn't figure out how to even toss a stone.

Bottom line, if you bought this game hoping to jump in and do some ski jumping, downhill, etc from the get go, then you will be disapointed. Some people will appreciate the difficulty. I just didn't expect it. The Wii is used by my kids (oldest is 6) 90% of the time and the controls are much to subtle for them - and for me, still, at this point.

winter sport  [Posted on 2008-06-13]
it was hard game but when u know how to do the moves it becomes wow

A Complete and Total Flop [Posted on 2008-06-24]
The Wii belongs to my Wife. I'm an Xbox/Playstation kinda guy.

My wife likes games that are easy to understand, not too challenging, easy to play/win and fun enough to keep her interested for 45 minutes to an hour, at which point she usually gets distracted by something else.

Me, I can play games for hours. I want a game that's difficult, challenging, and unique. I like games that make me think, and challenges me to find new ways to complete tasks.

NEITHER of us liked Winter Sports on the Wii. The controls are completely senseless, and have no relation to the task at hand, spare possibility the luge/skeleton/bobsled games which require nothing more than tilting a controller to keep the craft centered on the track. The controls for speed skating made no sense whatsoever, and the curling controls were, in a word, stupid. The controls for ice skating were so frustrating that we only played it once! They simply had you jerking on the Wii controller and nunchuk attachment when icons for the two controllers reach a circle at the bottom of the screen. The problem was, we could never get the controller to read accurately, and felt like there was a literal 1/10th second gap of opportunity to register the movement. Very, very frustrating.

The other various subgames give you instructions on how to control the sport, but no indication of how to reach success in the game. For example, it took a few passes down the bobsled track before we realized that you wanted to aim your craft for these light-colored strips impossed in the ice while a "success bar" would fill at the bottom, indication successful completion of each turn. If we had been instructed in this method before our first time down the track, it probably wouldn't have been so frustrating.

The graphics look nice until you realize that there's little intelligence behind it. During a two-player, speed-skating challenge, I pressed the Ready button, and both character figures on my split screen took a launch stance at the starting line. My wife had not pressed the Ready button yet, and so both of the character figures on her split screen were still stretching.

I love the winter olympics. I love winter sports. But this game isn't worth it's value in melted plastic. I'd have more fun falling repeatedly on my butt on an ice rink then playing this game for any length of time.

Save your money. Buy something else.

Fun, challenging and intriguing [Posted on 2008-07-09]
We haven't tried all 15 events in Wii Winter Sports yet, but wife and I completed the 7 event competition earlier this evening. My second day of playing with it, her first. It took 55 minutes to complete the 7 event competition although there were a few pauses, as reported by the game itself. I'm not sure if it stops timing during pauses, but it wouldn't have made much difference either way. We were both breathing hard and sweating (and I swim about 500 yards each day). Then I did curling, which isn't in the 7 event competition and now my arm is sore from sweeping.

We've done ski jumping, 4-man bobsled, skeleton, figure skating, alpine skiing, 500M speed skating, and slalom skiing. You can compete against time or the Wii, depending on the sport, or against another team. You can have multiple people on a team. Many of the activities require you to use both the controller and the nunchuck, but there is very little use of the buttons on the devices. You use them to control or gain speed and to control direction. In curling you also use the controller to sweep.

There is an opening ceremony like the Olympics and medals are awarded - if you earn one. There are a pair of announcers and they don't mind making fun of poor performances.

Winter Sports doesn't use the Mii's. It does have more lifelike characters although you have no control over what your character looks like. Operating these games is more complicated than any of the games in Wii Sports, and the manual is only OK. I still don't know what "carving" is in downhill skiing, but the onscreen instructions tell you how to do it. For each event the game presents illustrated on-screen instructions before the event begins. It is easy to skip them and even to prevent them from being displayed. You also get to control the relative volume of the background music, the sound effects and the voices of the announcer. I have to reduce the volume of the music for the announcers to be understandable.

Overall, so far it isn't as natural to us as tennis or any of the other games in Wii Sports, but it is fun and exercises different muscles. These are sports that we've never actually participated in so none of them are as natural to us.

I've posted a note in the Amazon Forum asking for tips on how to use the controls in the curling event. I'll also ask in a Wii Usenet newsgroup.

Wii controller does not work properly with this game. Very frustrating. Waste of time. [Posted on 2008-07-26]
Wii controller does not work properly with this game. For example, in Alpine Skiing, I can't accurately steer in the direction I want. It's very frustrating. It's a huge waste of time.

The music and the graphic are okay.
I regret buying it. I should have rented it. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games is much better in terms of good controlling, better graphic, and more fun.

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