The cell phone is where extinct genres drag themselves to be reborn. And frankly, if this action leads to more games like Playman Winter Games, then we're fine with it. This latest edition to the Playman series of casual sports games is very accessible and fits the medium well, even if it's just another chapter in Mr. Goodliving's cartoony lineup.
Winter Games features four events plucked from the Winter Olympics stable: bobsleigh, ski jumping, slalom, and biathlon. None of these events is a button masher in the classic Hyper Sports mold, as was the case in previous Playman titles. Instead, gameplay emphasis is on rhythm and timing. With the biathlon, you press 4 and 6 at the appropriate points to gain speed as you ski, and then you quickly enter a sequence of numbers to hit targets during the shooting portion of the competition. With slalom and bobsleigh, your only job is to steer left and right. In the former competition, gameplay is about passing through gates to avoid time penalties, while in the latter competition, gameplay is about maintaining optimum position in the halfpipe. The most demanding event, however, is ski jumping, where pressing 5 as you approach the end of the ramp builds your launch angle, and 4 and 6 correct your skis while in flight. Finally, another push on 5 sorts your landing. Fail to touchdown correctly and your skier becomes a human snowball as he hopelessly rolls down the piste. It's a funny sequence, which is just as well, because you'll see it quite a few times as you struggle to get your timing right in the event.
While slalom could be mistaken for a dozen other downhill racers, its three companions are idiosyncratic, challenging, and crafted with inspired economy. Sure, the controls are basic, but they're also perfectly responsive, so you get a real feel for the events as you gain experience in them. And although your interaction with the game is minimal, the margin of error is large enough to guarantee there's always another second you can shave off your times. Plus, the turn-based pass-and-play option adds greater longevity as you compete against up to nine friends. The events are short and sharp enough to ensure that no one gets bored while waiting for his or her go.
As usual for this series, the visuals combine cartoon-style characters with deftly defined locations. In fact, the game presents a similar graphical style to Konami's defining Hyper Sports and Track & Field coin-operated arcade offerings, so experienced video game athletes will feel warm, nostalgic glows inside. Audio is limited to a couple of fun dance tunes that provide another nice '80s-revival touch, although a few more sound effects would have been nice.
The limited controls and uncomplicated visual style inherent to Playman Winter Games make it apparent that Mr. Goodliving is one of those rare mobile publisher-developers that understands the limitations of the platform. And more importantly, this is a publisher-developer that's keen on employing the ways in which people are used to interacting with their phones. The shooting aspect in the biathlon is testament to this, because instead of presenting you with an obvious, but much less intuitive cursor-controlled shoot-'em-up, what you get is a little fast-dialing challenge, which is something all mobile users can immediately get to grips with.
It's a small but important point that phone games should be accessible to all phone users, and they should work with, and not against, the unique properties of tiny keypads. Playman Winter Games is a defining example of an accessible phone game. This is by no means an ambitious game, but it's a thoughtfully constructed and fabulously playable addition to an entertaining series.
