Winter Games 2023 for PlayStation 5

Grandsons in 7th grade think it isn’t exciting

THREE IMPORTANT NOTES:IMPORTANT NOTE # 1: Despite me giving Winter Games 2023 an overall 4 out of 5 stars, I am going to be giving each of the ten events their own scores using the 5 star system. Some events I thought were AWESOME (like curling) and some events had me almost throwing my controller across the room (I'm looking at you Snowboarding!!!). I figure I should score each event since some events are definitely much better than others in Winter Games 2023. But the overall score here for entire package is a 4 out of 5 stars after adding up all the scores for each of the individual 10 events I gave and then dividing by 10 to get the average (mean) and then adding on a few tiny bonus points because of a few other things I liked about Winter Games 2023 (for example: I like how the game has multiple difficulties. There is easy, medium, and hard. Adjusting the difficulty for certain events definitely helps a lot in some cases).IMPORTANT NOTE # 2: The tutorial / practice mode in this game is excellent with one HUGE (and I mean freaking HUGE!!!) major, major, MAJOR flaw: it gives incomplete instructions on how properly play snowboarding (snowboard cross) and Ski Cross. I had to figure out how to PROPERLY play these events myself (even other people playing these on certain streaming video websites were having major problems figuring out how to play these events and as a result kept failing at them). As a result, my review will also serve as a guide / tutorial on how to PROPERLY play snowboarding (Snowboarding Cross) and Ski cross so YOU reading this aren't throwing your controller across the room.IMPORTANT NOTE # 3: I like the graphics in Winter Games 2023 very much. They look much better on an actual TV screen than they did in some streaming videos I saw. I like them. With that said, are they "Triple A" high budget graphics? NO. You will NOT find high budget, super realistic, ultra next gen looking graphics in this game (you will NOT find Plague Tale Requiem style super realistic graphics here. This is not fancy NBA 2K graphics where you can see every droplet of sweat pouring down the faces of all the players. This is not a "Triple A" high budget game). However, this is NOT a shovelware super LOW budget looking game either like that OTHER Winter sports game on Playstation 5 (you know, the one claiming to have 4K graphics for it's alleged "4K edition" but in reality it looks like it's graphics are a weird mixture of Atari Jaguar and lower tier Nintendo 64 graphics).The graphics for Winter Sports 2023 are "Double A" budget graphics. They are acceptable and I like them. They look nice to me (I especially really like how they look in the Curling event). They aren't "Triple A" high budget graphics (you won't find EA sports high budget production values here for the graphics), but they aren't super low budget shovelware graphics (glances at the OTHER Winter Sports Games with it's alleged 4K edition on Playstation 5 which is about as 4K as the alleged 64-bits in an Atari Jaguar). Winter Games 2023 has "Double A" budget graphics (which is why it's brand new launch price is $30 and not $70 at the time of it's release) that look nice to me and are acceptable. I'm cool with them.With that said...Let me score EACH INDIVIDUAL EVENT:and we start... now!!INDIVIDUAL SCORES FOR EACH OF THE TEN EVENTS:1) CURLING = 5 out of 5. I'll keep this short: the curling in this game is excellent. Gameplay is awesome, the graphics look the best in this event out of the entire game, etc, etc. Definitely play the practice mode first to see how it's done. After about 5 to 10 minutes you will be an expert at it.2) BIATHLON = 5 out of 5. This is a really fun event. You have to race on skis and when you reach a certain point in the race, you pull out a SNIPER RIFLE and you fire at little circular targets (you can even have your character hold their breath to steady their aim if your character's arm starts moving too much during aim). Granted, the button mashing while racing uphill can get a little annoying, but it's not bad. Holding down "O" while racing downhill is fun. The only thing I didn't like were the short QTE's for X and O during certain segments while racing, but they weren't too bad. Overall, I really enjoyed Biathlon. The sniper rifle part where you get to shoot at targets is the best part.3) DOWNHILL = 4 out of 5. As the name implies, you race downhill on skis and try to stay between the flags. Pretty easy and fun. But nothing too remarkable, so that's why it's only a 4 out of 5, but still fun.4) SUPER G = 4 out of 5. Almost the same as the Downhill event, even though it’s a little trickier since the course is more twisty at times. But still a very fun event.5) SKELETON = 5 out of 5… I’ll keep this short: your single character jumps on a bobsled and you race head first down a frozen track. VERY simple, but fun. Just steer your character, don’t flip her over (be careful) and you will win the gold. Simple but fun. I enjoy this.6) TWO-WOMEN BOBSLEIGH = 5 out of 5 … I’ll also keep this short… it’s almost the same exact thing as Skeleton, but you have two women on a bobsled instead of one. Really fun event, but a little trickier sometimes to steer because of the extra person. But overall, I really enjoy this event.7) SKI JUMPING = 4 out of 5…. You ski jump. Pretty simple. You control your direction (very super easy to do) and when you jump a bar appears and you press a button at the right time so it stays in the green so your ski jumper lands perfectly and safe. Very easy to keep the bar from entering the red area (don’t enter the red area or else your ski jumper is going to get hurt).8) SHORT TRACK = 2 out of 5.... Yeah… 2 out of 5… now we get to the part of this review where I start getting rather critical… one of the reasons why I am giving individual scores to each event. I did NOT like Short Track very much. The problem here is that as you race your skater around, the game most times FORCES you focus on QTE's for the X and O buttons.. while also trying to control your character and make sure she doesn't crash / fall over. Unlike Biathlon where I don't mind the QTE's, the QTE's in Short Track are EXTREMELY annoying (I'm busy looking at the button prompts to the point where I don't even notice the graphics in front of me at times, and that's a huge problem when I have to go back to trying to steer the character), they are sometimes NOT very responsive at all (most times they work with no problems but sometimes I swear they don't respond at all even if you press the X or O buttons on time).Good grief...I can't believe I'm going to have to bring up Shenmue 3 in this review, but here is the thing. In Shenmue 3 (it's an action adventure game) when a QTE shows up and you press a button, it's very noticeable and it feels very super responsive. It SOMETIMES doesn't feel very responsive for Short Track in Winter Games 2023 (most times it does, but sometimes it isn't). That's a major problem. Nonetheless, with enough practice, you can definitely make it in first place and win the gold in Short Track even if you miss a few button presses. But expect to practice A LOT as you get use to the crappy QTE system in Short Track.If they make a Winter Games 2024 or 2025 or whatever sequel, they definitely need to do away with the QTE thing and make a better control scheme for Short Track.9) SNOWBOARDING / Snowboard Cross = AAARRGGHH!!!! GGRRRR!!! Okay, I’m going to punish this event and give it a 2 out of 5 (even though it really deserves a 3 out of 5… but I’m going to be evil and I’m not going to give it that score because the tutorial failed to mention some VERY important things about this event which made this a pain to play till I figured it out myself. So I’m knocking the score down to a 2 out 5 because of horrible tutorial).Okay…Here is the thing…HOW TO PROPERLY PLAY SNOWBOARDING (yes, this review is now a tutorial. Hopefully this helps you and will bump the score of snowboarding up to a 3 out of 5 for you personally).Holding down the R2 button will SPEED UP your snowboarder. The X button does NOT do this (despite what the tutorial guide in the game says. Pressing the X button is to speed up your snowboarder at the BEGINNING of the race and when he falls down and you need to start him back up. But pressing X repeatedly will NOT speed up your snowboarder for the rest of the race.YOU NEED TO HOLD THE “R2” button down TO SPEED UP YOUR SNOWBOARDER!!!!There, I just provided important info that the game’s guide during the practice mode miserably failed to do. LMAO.Now, with that said, does that mean you should ALWAYS hold down the R2 button? NO!!! Don’t do that or else your snowboarder will speed up too much and you will end up wiping out. You only want to speed up on certain parts of the course. My advice is to play the PRACTICE mode, hold down that R2 button as much as you can and release it at times when you feel you are losing control of your character, and when you feel at ease hold down that R2 button again to speed back up. PRACTICE the race in the practice mode doing this and you will eventually learn when to speed up and when not to during the race and you will win first place.With that said… there is ANOTHER VERY IMPORTANT THING you need to learn about snowboarding… when you are at certain jumps, a HIGHLY ANNOYING bar will show up to the right of your character. VERY CAREFULLY, when the rising "cursor" on your bar starts to rise and gets near the white part of the bar, you need to HOLD DOWN X (not press X, HOLD DOWN X) and it will start to turn the white part of the bar green. Right BEFORE you reach the end of the white part of the bar, you need to LET GO of the X button. If you fail to do this, the bar will turn RED after the white part ends and the top black part of the bar will turn red and your snowboarder will FALL DOWN!!! You don’t want this to happen… so be careful. Again, use the practice mode in this game to practice. Just be careful to HOLD (not press, HOLD DOWN) the X button at the right time, right before it enters the white part of the bar (if this sounds confusing… yeah, it is. But with enough practice it will make more sense as you play the game and you will become an expert at this within 10 to 20 minutes). But WARNING: while the button presses respond perfectly 90% of the time, sometimes 10% of the time they do not. If you find yourself wiping out, sometimes it is a good idea to RELEASE the X button BEFORE it finishes coloring the white part of the bar green. It might leave the rest of the white bar red, but it will not color the upper black part of the bar red, meaning you won’t wipe out and your snowboarder will be safe.In other words, sometimes it’s perfectly fine to NOT have a perfect jump and just concentrate on getting your snowboarder down at the end of the track as fast as possible. It’s better to do poor jumps but to race as fast as you can to win first place than it is to try to make perfect jumps and screw up and wipe out and find yourself in last place at the end of the race.Practice makes perfect, so take advantage of the PRACTICE MODE this game has before you compete in the actual events for the medals.10) SKI CROSS = AAARRGGHHHH!!! Same exact thing as Snowboarding above, but it’s easier (unlike snowboarding, you can hold down on the R2 button at almost all times during Ski Cross to keep your racer super fast so you easily win the race). While part of me wants to give this event a 3 out of 5 (just like snowboarding), I’m knocking it down to a 2 out of 5 (also just like snowboarding) because of the horrible tutorial in the game. Please see my tutorial for snowboarding above on how to PROPERLY control Ski Cross (again, the only difference is that you can hold R2 at all times to speed in Ski Cross, where else in Snowboarding it’s only a good idea to hold down R2 at certain times to speed up because if you don’t slow down at certain spots, you will wipe out). With this tutorial in the review I have written to help you, the score might pop up to a 3 out of 5 for your personally regarding this event, but because I'm angry at the crappy in-game tutorial for this event that failed to mention some very important things, I'm personally giving it a 2 out of 5... even though it does deserve a 3 out of 5, just like Snowboarding (hopefully the developers patch the tutorial through a future update to fix this).Okay…With that said…If they plan on making a sequel to this Winter Games 2023 game for 2024 or 2025 or whenever… I strongly suggest: 1) PLEASE… get rid of the QTE’s for the Short Track!!!! Short Track needs a better control scheme. 2) For any remaining QTE’s that get used in other events, IMPROVE THEM. They need to be more responsive (they most of the time they are, but sometimes they aren’t). 3) For the love of humanity, GET RID OF THAT BAR SYSTEM for the jumping in the Snowboarding and Ski Cross events (or at least greatly improve on it in some way). 4) The sequel needs figure skating. I remember YEARS ago on the Xbox 360 or Playstation 3 there was an old Winter games style game that had a figure skating event (it didn’t use real figure skaters, just made up ones they created). A sequel to this game needs a figure skating event… but please… NO QTE’s or annoying bar systems… come up with something better (or if you MUST use QTE’s in some way, PLEASE make them noticeable and responsive at ALL times and do NOT over do them to the point where I am staring at a button prompts far more than I am staring at my actual figure skater. That would be highly freaking annoying).Anyway,The Average (mean) to all 10 events I scored above comes out to a 3.8… adding on little bonus points to the game (I like the "Double A" style graphics and I like the multiple difficulty levels), that bumps my final score for the OVERALL game to a 4 out of 5.The total size of the game is slightly over 2 GBs (which is nice since my SSD storage in my Playstation 5 is getting full and this game only takes up a tiny bit of room) and the entire game is on the disc. Also, while it doesn't have online multiplayer, it does have local multiplayer (so you and a few friends can play against each other while sitting next to each other in the same room) or you can just play by yourself and compete against the computer controlled opponents for the medals if you wish.It’s a fun, good game… it has a lot of really fun events… but some of the events need improvements… and some of the tutorials need to be A LOT better at explaining how to properly play some of the events (as mentioned above). But overall, I really liked Winter Games 2023 and I give it an overall score of 4 out of 5 and I hope to see a sequel in the future.

I bought this for my kids and they said the game is boring. Now it's collecting dust.