Intelligent Game Reviews

For whatever reason winter sports have never been particularly well represented in the world of computer games although of late ice hockey has seen a few simulations. Still, skiing has never been a topic of a lot of games. Which is too bad, since I recall fondly many hours spent with Activision Skiing for the original Atari 2600 computer game console! Sierra has seen fit to remedy that situation by bringing us Front Page Sports Ski Racing just in time for the Nagano Winter Olympics. Put on your parka, gloves and boots and let’s head on out to the virtual mountain to take a look.

Downhill is a Way of Life

There are four skiing disciplines in the game, sorry folks no snow boarding. These are Downhill, Super G, Giant Slalom and Slalom. You can also compete in the all-around which includes all of the events combined. Each event requires a unique set of skills. Downhill is all about maintaining speed, slalom is all about turning rhythm. I found the Downhill to be by far the most fun. It’s easier to tell where the gates are (something that in the Giant Slalom and Slalom I found visually difficult at times) and the feeling of speed is quite intense.

Oddly enough, Sierra also included tricks in the game. You can perform back flips, helicopters and so forth. I’m not sure how much use this is… but as you catch big air in the downhill I suppose you could do a helicopter for extra style points on the replay movies that you can create of your best runs. Maybe they were planning on adding a free style skiing discipline and ran out of development time?

Courses and Seasons

Front Page Sports Ski Racing models six distinct ski resorts: Aspen, CO, Vail, CO, Mt. Bachelor, OR, Whistler, BC, Val d’Isere France, and Garmisch Germany. I’ve never skied any of them, but they are all different and the graphics and backgrounds seem in keeping with what I’ve seen watching World Cup events on television. While six courses and four different events does provide quite a bit of variety, I wished for more mountains to conquer.

At any mountain you can ski a single race and event or string them together into a six race “Sierra Cup”. This season mode is available for a single discipline or the all around. Points are won depending on your order of finish in each race and the total determines the cup winner after all of the races are complete. I haven’t yet won a cup, the same skiers tend to end up on top in most races, so you need to win 3 of six to even be in the hunt.

Customization Possibilities

There are a variety of customizations in the game. First you can customize the look of your racer: helmet color and ski outfit style and color. You can also choose unique skis for each discipline and select your boots. I don’t know how much this impacts anything, but it does add to the sense of realism. One thing to note, it did seem harder to ski the downhill in slalom skis!

You also have complete control over your controls. Regardless of whether you decide to use the keyboard, mouse or joystick, all of the controls can be remapped using a simple utility built into the game. One note, you’ll really want to use a joystick for the controls. It’s far more difficult to control your skier using the mouse or keyboard, they don’t allow the subtle control needed for nicely arched turns.

Finally, for each single mountain race you can control the difficulty of the course (there are three levels) and the weather conditions. The weather is nicely modelled graphically in the game, and the snow condition does change how you can ski a particular course. For a full season you can control the difficulty level of the courses over the season, but weather is determined randomly at each event.

Graphics, Sounds, etc.

The look of the game is crisp and simple, with simple to use menus and setup screens. On the slopes the frame rate on my machine (well over minimum spec) was good at all times and the scenery, mountains and snow all added to the feeling of “being there”. But, this is one game that does benefit from a good 3D card. With a Monster 3D the events themselves look fantastic and the frame rate is superb. Especially in the faster events like the Downhill and Super G the graphics and the sheer feeling of speed is great! Trees and the mountain backdrops look realistic, the only blight is the fairly uninspired fans along the course. Still, you don’t see them long at 80 mph!

The music is suitably pulse pounding and can be turned off should you choose. The sound effects of your edges cutting through the snow or your skis sliding over ice around a corner are fun and helpful to tell you what is happening. All in all the sound effects do add to the experience. You’ll even hear the cow bells as you pass fans and the cheering as you approach the finish! For those that have them, the game also supports force feedback joysticks, although I was unable to try that.

As is Sierra’s seemingly maddening policy the manual, such as it is, is an insert in the CD case plus a quick reference for the default controls. A total of 14 pages, only 3 of which discuss the game! There is a reasonable online help system which includes video segments featuring 1996 World Downhill Champion Picabo Street. These are fun, but there are not many and they certainly don’t make up for a real manual. C’mon Sierra get with the program!

The Verdict

If you want to try ski racing for the PC, Front Page Sports Ski Racing is really your only choice. So, it’s a good thing that it is generally well done. Especially if you have a 3Dfx card the in game graphics are super and the physics of skiing including various snow, wind, and ski combinations seems accurate. All in all a nice change of pace, but I wish there were a few more courses included.

Front Page Sports Ski Racing Screenshots

I think I’ll try these Rossignol skis…	Yeeha! Down the mountain at up to 120 mph!
I win the downhill in an avalanche! Ha ha ha!	There are six ski resorts to try.

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