Ski or Die

Moby ID: 496
DOS Specs
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Description official description

Ski or Die is a winter-themed extreme sports game in which the player can competes in 5 different events:

  • Downhill Blitz: Downhill skiing event in which the player can make large jumps over chasms and perform stunts in the moguls section

  • Innertube Trash: Two players descend a mountain in innertubes. Score points by picking up items, perforating your opponents tire with a knife or fork and finishing first.

  • Acro Aerials: Ski down a ramp and score points by performing acrobatic jumps.

  • Snowball Blast: First person snowball fight. Score points by taking out little that attack your snow fortress.

  • Snowboard Half-Pipe: Put on your snowboard and score as much points as possible in a limited amount of time by performing tricks inside a half-pipe.

Practice a single event or try the tournament. The tournament mode has hot-seat multiplayer support.

Spellings

  • שעשועי סקי - Hebrew spelling

Groups +

Screenshots

Promos

Credits (DOS version)

18 People

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 72% (based on 31 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.7 out of 5 (based on 61 ratings with 5 reviews)

Horrible gameplay - nothing like the old California Games it obviously borrows on.

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.

DOS · by Mickey Gabel (332) · 2000

I used to fire it up just for the music

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.

DOS · by Olivier Masse (443) · 1999

Don't die, Ski!

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.

DOS · by brother34 (3) · 2013

[ View all 5 player reviews ]

Trivia

Product placement

Ski or Die features quite a bit of product placement by snowboarding brand Burton. You can see their company name in Rodney's shop, on the event selection screen, and at the acro aerials event.

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Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 496
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Olivier Masse.

Amiga added by Famine3h. Commodore 64 added by Terok Nor. NES added by Indra was here.

Additional contributors: Roedie, Alaka, Crawly.

Game added November 29, 1999. Last modified January 24, 2024.