'Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games' Hands-On Preview with Video
posted December 18th, 2009 8:03 PM EST by Eli Hodapp in Games, Sports, Upcoming Games, iPhone games, iPod touch gamesSonic is coming to the App Store soon to compete with other Sega characters in four Olympic events. The only two we're able to discuss in this preview are curling and snowboard cross, although it doesn't take much imagination to guess what the other two events might be.
Curling is a team game where two teams of four players take turns sliding polished stones down a stretch of ice towards a target. Two sweepers walk in front of the stone sweeping the ice to change its direction and speed. It seems that curling has gained a curious amount of popularity in recent winter games, but if you haven't heard of it before I recommend reading the Wikipedia entry, as it downright crazy how complicated such a seemingly simple game can be.
The curling game is controlled by drawing on the screen to determine the direction and strength of your throw, and then swiping back and forth to sweep. The second event is snowboard cross, which is a short and simple snowboarding race with four characters racing at once. Snowboard cross is controlled with tilt controls, and you need to tilt to steer and land properly off of jumps.
Both games can be seen in our gameplay video:
Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games is coming in early 2010.
Woah! For a second there I thought something officially Nintendo was on the app store!… then I saw the title was missing something…
Where's Mario!!? Haha (I know Nintendo would never allow it!)
Come on Sega, you know we're all dying for Sonic CD for the iDevice platform.
Crazy Taxi and Chu Chu rocket more like it, would be so well suited.
If Capcom released Power Stone, my head would explode.
Curling????
You've gotta to be kinding? No one in America even likes or knows what it is. Not sure how they ever call that a sport either. That's like calling Skee-Ball a sport..
But the other sports look very nice.
Weird… Since when did America become the World?
The game seems to be well known in Canada (You know? Where the Olympics are going to be?).
It just seems of all of the great Olympic games, they pick curling??
Curling over: Ski Jump? Hockey? Bob Sled? Luge?
OK you get the idea!
I LOVE the Ski Jump!
>Since when did America become the World?
I would say since things like this: http://metrics.admob.com/2009/07/june-2009-mobile-metrics-report/
Don't get all pissy and territorial, people. That's what animals do. Nobody said America was the World. Its all about demographics, sales, and target audiences.
I like curling and I'm from the ol' US of A.
My guess is they chose curling because it is being held in Canada this year (as a homage).
Besides, it's not exactly tapping on some touchscreen == aerobic exercise. Who really cares what sport they chose as long as the gameplay is fun.
Oooo…
Big Olympic and Sonic fan. I hope there's some hockey…
I think there should be ice skating and feature Steven Colbert.
Only 4 games? Come on…they can do better than that!
"Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games features four different events : snowboard cross, curling, skeleton, and figure skating. These can be played individually, in a tournament spanning all four, or against friends via local multiplayer." -STP
no thankd. will pass
Typical 'Murricans…
"What is curling?"…
Sheesh!
SONIC CD!!!! MAKE IT!!!
They could at least port the DS-Version (without Nintendo characters). This one is a joke. Epic fail, SEGA!
I'm pretty sure the last time there was a good game with Sonic in it was in the 16-bit era, doubt this one will change that.
Have you tried Sonic Rush on the DS, it had some of the best gameplay in a sonic game for a while. The gameplay was the only good thing however.
No Mario, too bad Nintendo doesn't want to see him on the iPhone
(although they had Philips let make Mario games for the CDi in the past).
cdi rules^^
glad to see mario isnt in here,
i hate the bastard
Wow. Instead of starting to make cheesy sports games for the iPhone they should rather finish Shenmue 3. Shenmue 1 & 2 are the only games that are bearable from Sega so far.
come on SEGA! Throw us a friggin' bone here! Give us Sonic CD or an exclusive Sonic game… OR SOMETHIN'!
Most users of iDevices are in the 20-35 year range. We don't want "My Little Pony" games, "Hello Kitty Island Adventure" games, or "Sonic has a happy Winter" games!
And yes, the Sonic games on DS and GBA were fan-frickin-tastic. Give us somethin like that.
tim
I have a feeling they're cooking up either a platform specific Sonic platforming action game, or revving up a port of the Gameloft developed Sonic Unleashed Mobile game that hit cell phones earlier in the year. The latter is more likely, as that game already utilizes touch controls.
There's a vid of the Gameloft developed game here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hToyP7sby_U
Hopefully they do not just port that game. Java games suck.
Four events? FOUR?!?!! Is this a joke? Wii-version offers 20.
Wii = $50 = 20 events.
iPhone = $10 = 4 events.
1/5 the price (or less) = 1/5 the events.
Could this be a port of a mobile version? (heard there was a Sonic at the Summer games mobile phone version).
Of course-while Sega features both Sonic and Mario and Sega/Nintendo characters in the DS/Wii versions, the iPhone version only features Sonic and Sega ones (likely as Nintendo would object to seeing Mario on something ther than their consoles).
Sonic Adventure anyone? I remember SEGA boasting that the chipset of the iPhone was almost if not on par with Dreamcast's GPU. So with that said…where the heck is a port of Sonic Adventure? Would be nice to have running on a 3GS perhaps? (crossing my fingers)