ESPN International Winter Sports 2002

10 amazing events on Ice, Snow, and on Nintendo GameCube!

JP release: 31st January 2002
NA release: 4th February 2002
EU release: 3rd May 2002
Developer: Konami
Publisher: Konami
NGC Magazine Score: 37%
Mods Used: Widescreen Hack

Four years earlier, Konami produced the official Winter Olympics game but this time round, Eidos got the license instead. That didn’t stop Konami from still making a winter sports game without the Olympic license though and, just like their N64 game, it’s a small number of events that aren’t much fun.

One additional issue this time round are the control explanations, which are now videos. This means you can’t read them at your own pace and have to wait as it slowly says that you have to go when it counts down and says “go”, and trying to skip to the next instruction skips the entire thing. As there are only 10 events, I may as well go through them.

Downhill

A basic but fairly promising start. Head down the slope, stating within the flags. It’s not terribly exciting, but it’s the best part of the game, as it controls quite well.

Slalom

You’d think this would be similar to the downhill, but the turning sensitivity is massively increased so you flail about uncontrollably. You need a ton of luck to finish the event, let alone set a high score.

K90 Ski Jumping

While the instructional video explains that you need to go when the timer start for every event in far too much detail. But when it comes to explaining complicated stuff, it lacks any detail. This just says “use L and R for balance” without telling you what any o the bars mean. I managed to get it to work once.

K120 Ski Jumping

This version of ski jumping is more about timing and mashing buttons. It works fine.

Moguls

Mash L and R to the timer, then push the sticks to perform stunts. There’s little to no feedback on if you’re doing things right. I thought I did OK, but came 8th. Oddly, I also set the 3rd best score in the leaderboard.

Halfpipe

Since the last Konami winter sports games, stunt based sports games have come along massively, with lots of cheap ones. So it shouldn’t be difficult to have a somewhat decent snowboarding minigame here. Instead, you have no control over movement and just select stunts and push the control stick in different directions.

Speed Skating

The traditional mash a and b for speed 100m style race. You have to slow down slightly on turns. This one isn’t too bad.

Bobsleigh

This feels very different to the rest of the sports. The bobsleigh course is quite unrealistic, which makes it more exciting, and there are boosts on the track as well. In two player, you both go down at the same time, bumping into each other. With downhill, these are the two good parts of the game.

Curling

Boules on ice. Matches take ages and this goes in the opposite direction of the bobsleigh, going into a full on simulation as the ice gets damaged throughout the match and impacts how the pucks move.

Figure Skating

It’s a simplified Dance Dance Revolution using a controller and with a couple of pieces of classical music.

On top of the poor events, the game feels rather lacking in other areas. The game has set characters with different stats, none of which have any kind of personality. These kinds of games really suit creating your own characters, so it’s a shame there’s nothing like that here.

Poor

As it is, we’re stuck with this. Not just the worst Olympics tie-in in living memory; not just the least-interesting sports title on GC; but one of the worst games we’ve ever played. The last time we felt this suicidal about a game was… four years ago, when Konami vomited up Nagano Winter Olympics for N64.
Mark Green, NGC Magazine #67

Remake or remaster?

Mario & Sonic do a much better job.

Official Ways to get the game

There is no official way to play ESPN International Winter Sports 2002.