ESPN International Winter Sports 2002

Do you remember the old Nintendo game "Track and Field"?  Well the creators of ESPN Winter Sports 2002 obviously did, because other than a graphical facelift this game could be slated for the Nintendo 8 bit system.  It uses the same button mashing techniques that made "Track and Field” famous.  Unfortunately a game play system that was revolutionary at the time seems to have progressed remarkably little.  To be fair, the game offers an extensive list of events such as figure skating, bob sledding, skiing, or even curling, but the incredibly basic control system that runs through the game makes many of the separate events seem to blur into each other.

Graphically this game is up to par with other sports games on the PS2 but it was a definite disappointment in the sound department.  One particularly annoying feature was that when a character was selected for an event they would appear to say something but there would be no sound to accompany it.  It just looks sloppy. 

With the exception of curling most of the games come down to hitting the correct button when the screen tells you to.  Fans of the dance game genre may appreciate the familiar elements present in the figure skating event.  That would be before they realized that without good and varied music button mashing in response to the screen can get very dull.

ESPN Winter Sports 2002 is really a collection of rather weak mini games.  They have taken a quantity over quality approach.  However, the lack of variety in characters music or gameplay (and I don't think having to bash R1 instead of Triangle counts), quickly cancels out the large selection of events.  

Gameplay: 4
Some variety but barely any real player control.

Graphics: 7.5 
Pretty decent graphics.

Sound: 5
Even the event based on music (figure skating) had a poor selection.

Difficulty: 5
Just depends on your button mashing ability.

Concept: 4 
There is no room for player creativity.  Blitzball, a mini game from FFX, allows more room for customization or creativity than this entire game.

Multiplayer: 6
I like curling with my friends...

Overall: 5.5
It’s a game for people with extremely short attention spans.