Torino 2006 Review

Costas Stephanides’s Review

Hooray to London for 2012 but lets not forget Torino in 2006 and of course the official Winter Olympics mobile game courtesy of I-Play.

Torino 2006, the game, is a four event multi-discipline game. Think of the Playman Sports series and add a hint of Olympic branding. As a long time player of Playman I cant help but compare the two game styles. Playman is cartoony, fun and fairly easy to pick up (as long as you have fast reactions and nimble fingers). Torino 2006 has a much more controlled and steady approach to the gameplay.

The four events are Downhill Skiing, Curling, Ski Jumping and finally the 2 man Bobsled. The graphics are very good throughout and I was especially impressed with the graphics and fluidity of the skier in the Downhill event. Click the 'more' button for all the screenshots. The events can be played individually in Training mode or as a series in the Competition.

In the Downhill, you have to pass through alternating red and blue gates and battle your opponents against the clock. The controls are very straight forward in this event, just push left and right to turn - you can even change direction in mid-air. Haviing played previous winter games, I am pleased to say that your skier cannot fall off. If you need to hold a direction for ages, you will only lose speed and not your balance. Although this does make the game a little easy, after a few attempts, you should be easily under the 2 min 50 sec mark and pushing for the gold medals. The only thing missing is the sound of the goat bells clanging as you start the race. I would love to see the developers make a complete game based around this event with a few more courses and better sound.

As they say, it goes a little downhill from here. The next event is Curling. No doubt British interest will be high next year for this event, so I suppose they would want to play the game - now you can. As with all the events, it is technically very good. You can release your stone with as much angle and spin as you want and you can even control your brushers at the other end. While you have plenty of choices, an easy winning tactic is just to send it down the middle and pick off the opponent's stones. The event comprises two ends with 6 stones for each opponent and the event can drag a little. Unfortunately, there is no 2 player versus mode; the game can be played by up to 4 players but they must each separately battle the CPU.

The Ski Jumping is an interesting event. The basics are very simple; press 5 to start and then again to improve your launching power. 4 and 6 control the skis when in flight and you must then press 5 to land. It may sound easy but timing the landing can be very difficult. Both your distance and style are scored over two jumps to give your final mark. Once again, the graphics are great but I didn't hear the sound of any bells or yodelling Austrians.

The final event, the Bobsled, was the hardest (for me). The gameplay is very similar to Playman Winter Games' Bobsleigh. Try and keep the dot in the green zone by pressing 4 and 6. As you speed down the course, the corners get very difficult and I have found it very difficult to avoid crashing out. Much more practice is needed on this one.

Usually, you think of branded games (especially movie tie-ins) and you associate them with rubbish - not in this case. It is clear that a lot of time has been spent to recreate an accurate simulation for all the events. This is one license that has not been wasted and they get their Gold medal for effort.