Playstation 2 - Salt Lake City 2002

Format
Playstation 2
Publisher
Eidos Interactive
Developer
Attention to Detail
Country of origin
UK
Genre
Sports

Salt Lake City 2002

By David Rasmussen
2nd Apr 06

Hey kids! Looking for a knockout Winter Olympics game that gets you pumped up and keeps you Higher Faster Stronger all night long without the use of performance enhancing pills to keep you in the ga -- wait, am I shilling Salt Lake City 2002 or Viagra… Viagra possibly. Why? Because you’ll be sadly disappointed with the “service” put out by this Winter Giggolo as you’ll soon discover Salt Lake City 2002 to be another disappointment in the long chain of disappointments that is the Winter Olympic adaptations.

Obviously innovation in these games has been dragged kicking and screaming out back as somebody at the IOC put a bullet through it’s head. Here we go again. Another cheaply made, poorly crafted, lackluster attempt at gaming which falls flat on it’s face in one gigantic heap. And because of that I am certain that the money I spent for this new copy (as new as an unopened 4 year old game can be) was barely worth it… yeah, I spent $2 on this game which is basically what this tripe is worth, $2.

Apparently the Rumsfeld “logic” that you have to go to Olympics with the game you got lives and breathes foul tepid breath here as you march into battle in Salt Lake City and find that you are under-evented once again in a game lacking much depth or replay value short of the limited gimmick of dragging this out every Winter Olympics for multiplayer “action”… which won’t be much, I assure you.
Sure, a few of the events are improvements over their Torino 2006 counterparts, but with only six events to go through you are severely shortchanged here. At least Torino 2006 had 15 events, double and half that of Salt Lake City 2002. In mean how dull can you make these games anyway! And the real sad thing is that this game is from Eidos, and heck I expected better from Eidos! Damn! Oh, and the events are “split” between male and females… only you can’t tell much difference between the bulky action figure looking males and the not so feminine bulky action figure looking females! Freaky!

One improvement over Torino is that you can customize the few events while practicing in Freemode with light conditions (day or night settings with everything from full daylight to setting sun to nighttime) and customizable weather conditions (which you choose prior to entering each event in Freemode).
Otherwise the gameplay is the same as Torino 2006, right down to the way it demands you learn the game via trial and error which sucks majorly.
The rest can be sorted out in Breakdown.

Salt Lake City 2002 Breakdown
What’s Hot?
What’s hot? Really? There’s something hot here? Good question! I hope you got a good answer for me because even at $2 (if you can find it that cheap, and “new” at that) is there anything hot about this instantly forgettable piece of fluff? I don’t think so.

What’s Not?
Everything is a Not here. I mean what the hell! At least PRETEND you care about your own franchise to make a half(bleep) game that somebody might play! And yes, IOC, I’m looking at you.

Moments to Remember?
Uh… zzz… (bleep)y games makes… me sleepy… yawn…

What to Ignore?
Basically the fact that somebody could justify releasing (bleep) like this even if it is to throw out a quickly forgettable down and dirty quick cash cow to milk and bleed bone dry in a matter of weeks.
Disappointing to say the least, the IOC’s attitude towards their game franchise future. Bleah.

Overall?
Bleah… having to review… half (bleep)ed games… yawn… like this… makes me slee-- slee-- tired.
In it’s defense… it’s only worth… $2 if… you can find it… as I did… bleah. But in this… this case… you get what you… paid for… and that’s (bleep)… zzzzzzzzzzzz.
(Good night everybody)

-- David Rasmussen 2nd Apr 06

Playstation 2 Salt Lake City 2002 Images