Ski or Die

The Good
One thing: the soundtrack. This is one of a few games that showed how FM music could really sound. The distorsion guitar instrument has been well designed and there are lots of effects such as vibratos that make the songs extremely realistic.

I once had a friend who didn't beleive me that owning an AdLib was worth 150 bucks. I taped him the theme song from this game and he got convinced immediately. I can't speculate on the MT-32 sound, but I guess it must be as good.

The Bad
You get bored quickly. There are not a lot of games and they don't get harder as you get used to them. After a few days, you'll have enough. Therefore, buying this game at the full retail price is not a good investment.

The Bottom Line
Without the great AdLib soundtrack that blew me out of my socks, this game wouldn't have much to be remembered of.

The Good
Well like the other reviewers have pointed out, the music is great. Especially the Adlib tunes. When this game came out I had to listen to the PC-Speaker but nowadays I realize what I've been missing.

Ski or Die has some of the best EGA graphics ever. The game is very colourful and the designers paid a lot of attention to little details. I thought the main menu (event selection screen) and Rodney's shop fitted in with the theme very well and there's usually a lot to see on the screen. The character animations are also very nice, for instance I enjoyed watching my character shake in his inner tube when he bumps on the moguls. The game is not too serious. For your enjoyment it throws some humor and attitude into the mix. It's the little things like crashing through the roof of the house during the downhill blitz that make you remember a game. This is something I like about the early sports games from Electronic Arts

Both the downhill blitz and the halfpipe events are very good. The Halfpipe may be inspired by the halfpipe event from California Games but this one is a lot better since you can do tricks at the bottom of the pipe and at the edges and there are three different levels of speed with their own range of tricks (of course you can do the best tricks at top-speed but you're prone to crashing). The Downhill Blitz is fun because you can make big jumps, choose between different routes and do some stunts along the way.

The Acro Aerials is a nice event but the problem with it is that variety is not rewarded. There's one jump, which does require some skill, that always receives the best marks. Why even try to perform another trick?

The Bad
Well, there are only five different events which is not very much. It's even more problematic that some of the events are not much fun. Inner Tube Trash (inspired by Toobin'?) had the potential to be a lot a fun, at least to me the idea behind it was appealing. Unfortunately it's much too slow. Everytime one player's tube is empty the other player has to wait. It completely bogs down the pace. This event should have been implemented with a split-screen. Another gripe: why do the different weapons all handle exactly the same?

The Snowball Blast looks great and it's good fun to see a spoof of Operation Wolf but the novelty wears off quickly and you need to press the ENTER key so often you'll get RSI in no time.

The Bottom Line
Ski or Die looks good and is a great game to listen to, but having two good events (OK 2.5 if you count Acro Aerials) just ain't enough.

The Good
This game features some of the best AdLib music I've ever heard, by that incredible music man Rob Hubbard (of C=64 fame). Too bad my SB 128 PCI can't play it like my SB 2.0 could... Anyway, the graphics are also great, colourful EGA, with well defined and animated characters.

The events are pretty nice, too, with a snowball fight, downhill skiing, snowboard half-pipe, and acro aerials...

The Bad
...but I never did quite get the hang of the stupid innertube trash event, and some of the events are way too fast on a new computer.

The Bottom Line
This game is like Summer/Winter Games meets Skate or Die. The actual gameplay is pretty much like WG, with the option of choosing between practicing or participating in one or more events and waggling the joystick to get speed and ranking lists and such. It runs great on a 286 and the sound is superb for its time (and pretty good even today, unless you want environmental audio or something silly like that). If you don't like ice-hockey or football (soccer) games, maybe you should give this a try, as it is great fun - with one or more friends! I wouldn't play this by myself if you paid me. (Is that a checkbook I see? All right, I lied, but I wouldn't enjoy it.)

The Good
The events in this game are really cool, and differ from the classic Olympic games. The sound is amazing, and the graphics are very nice, colorful and detailed. The snowball blast is my favourite, because its very intense when you need to watch every direction for those snowball throwing kids.

The Bad
Its a little hard to perform very good because the controls are quite difficult. Also, the game could have more events and more diversity in the moves and the tricks that you can do on the half-pipe and the big jump.

The Bottom Line
This game is a lot of fun. its looks good, its sound good and even though you probably won't play it for a long time, it's gonna be good hour or so you will spend with this game.

The Good
The game utilizes some nice EGA graphics for its time. Nothing spectacular, but the background and the sprites are pretty realistic, and it utilises the EGA's 16 color palette quite well.

The Bad

As a game it is horrible. It is NOTHING like the fun I had playing california games on my XT with a CGA monitor.

Ski or Die obviously borrows the basic concept from California Games by Epyx. It also borrows some more, like the snowboard halfpipe which is obviously based on CG's skateboard halfpipe.

The problem is that the games are not fun to play. I got tired of each game in 15 minutes, and the entire game in two day. The problem is not the premise, but the implementation of the ideas. The interface is pretty bad, the sound effects (on PC speaker) are truly horrible, and the gameplay is repetative. It all becomes very annoying real quick, and I simply quit the game.

I tried coming back to it a few times, to see if there's is something I missed, but there wasn't. The fun game just isn't there.

**The Bottom Line**
A really BAD game, not fun at all. If you want to see how it should be done - go play California Games or any other Epyx sports game.