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CURLING WORLD CUP (PC)
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Publisher: Simulators Live.
Developer: Simulators Live. Released: May 2018. Genre: Curling. Posted 18th February 2022. By Tom Clare © 2022 |
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“Those who speak that curling is a worthless and boring sport, just have never played it.” Whilst I admire the sentiment behind the above statement, alarm bells are surely set a-ringin’ when a game opens its blurb with such a zinger. Curling World Cup is that rarest of gaming sights: a standalone curling title. The thinking man’s winter sport demands a mix of dexterity, judgement and strategy. You’re drawn to the Winter Olympics by the high-octane: half-pipe, skiing, bobsleigh, but it’s the curling that holds the longer-term fascination. Ideal fodder for video gaming, then. Sadly, where CWC is concerned, those aforementioned alarm bells weren’t wrong. It’s an all-too-embryonic interpretation of the sport that cuts too many corners and comes up woefully short in terms of quality and content.
To say Curling World Cup feels underdeveloped would be incredibly generous. Some of the basics are in place for a fun, if excessively simplistic, facsimile of curling. However, it feels entirely incomplete, serving as little more than a demo. After choosing from a curious array of nations (curling powerhouses Canada and Switzerland conspicuous by their absence, but you can go with Peru or Jamaica), it’s straight into the action without any preamble.
Curling World Cup occasionally gets in a pickle with its scoring: this shot landed Norway a whopping 7 shots, despite only having 6 stones in the house
The first thing you’ll notice is there are no players, crowds, officials, commentators, or indeed any representation of human life whatsoever. Unsurprisingly, this puts a bit of a crimp on the game’s attempts to drum up atmosphere and excitement. Secondly, CWC takes the extremely odd decision to point the camera down the rink as you select the weight of the stone, only to swing around to the back of the house as you release it. Not only is this rather disconcerting, but the spin imparted at the beginning of the shot reverses direction when travelling down the rink, which is a careless bit of design.
Not that it matters, as you’ll never need to use this feature. After releasing the stone, the keyboard arrows allow for the manipulation of stones in a way that is more akin to controlling a drifting car than sweeping a curling stone. Finesse is never a factor as swerving around stones is easy. It’s all very quick-fire, but winning is a doddle as the computer operates only in straight lines, never curling a shot. Furthermore, placing guard stones seems to confuse the AI. They regularly end up bumping the player’s rocks into the house, actively helping your cause.
Not that it matters, as you’ll never need to use this feature. After releasing the stone, the keyboard arrows allow for the manipulation of stones in a way that is more akin to controlling a drifting car than sweeping a curling stone. Finesse is never a factor as swerving around stones is easy. It’s all very quick-fire, but winning is a doddle as the computer operates only in straight lines, never curling a shot. Furthermore, placing guard stones seems to confuse the AI. They regularly end up bumping the player’s rocks into the house, actively helping your cause.
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Giving fringe sports the priority of accessibility over realism is often a smart move, but in failing to observe some of the sport’s most fundamental rules, the intrigue and challenge rather evaporate. It’s impossible to burn a stone by leaving it short, meaning you can place some comically high guards to mess with the computer. The ‘five rock rule’ that stops players blasting guard stones out the way in the early exchanges also isn’t observed, meaning you can prevent the computer from mounting a comeback by blasting their stones out. It also seems to miscount the scores, with stones that sit well outside the house seemingly sometimes counted. This isn’t to say there’s no fun to be had, it just doesn’t feel like curling.
The visuals are depressingly bare, with a showroom-clinical nature pervading the whole experience. Curling’s ambience tends to consist of modest crowd bustle, teams conversing between shots and shouts from the skips as to line and weight of the stone in play. Curling World Cup has none of this, opting instead for a single, fairly generic, looping guitar track. Furthermore, stones take only a couple of seconds to travel to the house. That’s barely enough time for the camera to adjust and so there’s little room for meticulous shot planning.
The visuals are depressingly bare, with a showroom-clinical nature pervading the whole experience. Curling’s ambience tends to consist of modest crowd bustle, teams conversing between shots and shouts from the skips as to line and weight of the stone in play. Curling World Cup has none of this, opting instead for a single, fairly generic, looping guitar track. Furthermore, stones take only a couple of seconds to travel to the house. That’s barely enough time for the camera to adjust and so there’s little room for meticulous shot planning.
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Perhaps most damning of all, the trio of three-match championships can be beaten in a little over an hour. That’s the entirety of what the game has to offer. There are no other modes, not even a two-player option. This is an absolutely criminal omission, given how simple alternating turns would be. Matches are just two ends long and whilst eight or ten might have seemed a touch heavy, it’s odd that there are no gameplay options to tweak, whatsoever.
It isn’t completely irredeemable. I mentioned earlier that CWC has some of the basics and there is some (very) short-term fun to be had trying to land on opponents’ stones, playing daring takeouts, nestling in behind guards or placing them smartly to help ensure a heavy score. There's just very little depth.
It isn’t completely irredeemable. I mentioned earlier that CWC has some of the basics and there is some (very) short-term fun to be had trying to land on opponents’ stones, playing daring takeouts, nestling in behind guards or placing them smartly to help ensure a heavy score. There's just very little depth.
Doping makes a surprise appearance at the curling rink
Matches are rapid, though the lack of fanfare and the simplicity of the controls (no joypad support, which is poor for a 2018 release) serve as a reminder of all that’s missing. It’s impossible to recommend a game that offers less than the curling mini-games featured in Winter Stars and Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games. Curling World Cup is little more elaborate than a web browser game and not worth the £9.99 asking price. An anaemic take on a cerebral sport, its lifespan measuring almost zero.
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VERDICT
"In failing to observe some of curling's most fundamental rules, the intrigue and challenge rather evaporate... an anaemic take on a cerebral sport, its lifespan measuring almost zero." OVERALL: 3/10 |