I had been looking forward to this game based on my experiences with Epyx’s Winter Games Hot Dog event, which was very fun. I couldn’t imagine how they were going to turn that one event into an entire game, but I was anxious to try. What I got was a totally different experience.
The game seems a bit ambitious. It’s a 3D skiing simulator, undoubtedly a daunting task for early-80s computers. For what it is (the screen is like 75% white), the graphics are reasonably nice. Gameplay is choppy, but that improves as you go faster.
Here are some photos from the opening demo, which is first-person. There may be a way to switch to first-person in the actual game, too, I am not sure.
Here is from the actual game play. Amazing, they actually allotted enough characters to enter my full nickname!
Here’s what I don’t like. There are some events (all skiing). Perhaps it is my Epyx upbringing, but when there are multiple events, I want the opportunity to practice them or jump to my favorites. This game forces you to qualify in order to proceed to the next event. This seems to be a common approach in these Japanese mini-game games. The Hyper Sports and Hyper Sports Olympics games work the same way.
Somehow, 12 minutes was okay to qualify for the slalom (I *think* I know how to go faster now!) so I was able to proceed to the Mogul. Over 2 minutes means you are disqualified from the Mogul, which was surprising because I was going much faster! You probably can’t tell, but I got “serious air” in the first picture here.
