Age of Curling

Curling may not be a very exciting sport for most people out there, but it does require a lot of experience and proper technique to play, as well as plenty of practice. There are curling teams all over the world, although countries like Sweden and Canada almost always leave the Olympics with a medal to their name, due to the fact that the sport is a far more popular there.

Age of Curling is a game that aims to provide you with the chance to experience the sport from the comfort of your own home and get an idea about what it takes to become a champion in the field. Naturally, there are various tournaments you can participate in, most of which pit you against a very decent AI that usually gives its best to cause you trouble and ruin your strategies.

In case you are not familiar with the sport, it all revolves around two teams of four players tasked with sliding granite stones across the ice, toward a target zone. Since both teams aim for the same spots, a great deal of their strategy involves hitting the opponent's rocks and pushing them out of the way. The team with the stone closest to the center of the target zone wins the points, although the other rocks inside the designated area are also counted.

To make matters more interesting, the game allows you to choose the amount of power you want to put into the slide, by using the mouse to increase or decrease the force of the push. Although you can learn exactly how much power is needed to land a center hit with an empty lane, it doesn't make any difference, since the opponent can simply target your stone and push it out of the way.

You can also decide whether you want to add a rotation effect to the rock, which is used to obtain a curbed trajectory. While this may not seem very useful, it can actually come in handy when you need to avoid the other rocks and even perform trick shots to confuse your opponent. Naturally, all of these gimmicks have a limited effect on the actual matches, since it all lies in the overall strategy.

In the end, Age of Curling is about as fun and entertaining as the actual sport, which is not a very convincing statement indeed. On the other hand, if you are a fan, then you might really enjoy this simulation, even if it isn't perfect and there are some things missing from the mix.