Foreword

Continuing the topic of Winter Olympic Games, it’s the turn to write about a videogame of skiing. Videogames of this sport are common in the first consoles and/or in arcade, being this one of the Intellivision one of the first ones. The most of the first videogames of skiing are based in events DownHill or Slalom of the sport Alpine skiing present at Winter Olympic Games since 1936 without fail.

Game

The full name of the game at first was U. S. Ski Team Skiing but after the license of the Ski Team expired was known as Skiing, the only word appearing when you turn on the console with the game, the same title used in future recopilations. Mattel, company owner of the Intellivision, achieved to get licenses to use the names of many sporting entities of the U.S. for its games, but all of those licenses expired, and they were not renovated.

The game is very simple, the goal of downhill the hill as fast as possible, trying to get behind the flags and jumping obstacles. With the controller disc, you can turn the direction the skier is facing, trying to get it pointing face-down the longest time to descend faster. If you press the disc towards left, the skier will rotate towards that direction, and if you press right, the skier will rotate right.

The top button of the controller is used to make sharper turns, useful when consecutive flags are at opposing sides of the screen. The bottom button is used to jump moguls of snow. Of course, you must avoid the trees that appear frequently. Fortunately, not avoiding a tree, or not jumping a mogul, translates in minor time penalties and not stopping the downhill.

When you start the game, you must specify the number of players (up to 8, they can be distinguished by colors), then the game asks for the throttle to down (Indicated as slope in the game, with values from 1 to 15). Lastly, the event, DownHill or Slalom (the first one has more space between flags and moguls, the second is larger, with flags closer between them).

Legacy

Mattel often created sequels of many of its sports titles, in this case, the sequel was called Mountain Madness: Super Pro Skiing, which we’ll probably make an entry in a future time.

Sidetracking, the videogames of sports of Mattel, were the best of home videogame consoles of the Second Generation.

Epilogue

Skiing games, particularly those of Slalom, never have been the kind of games I excel at, but for some (probably masochist) reason, I like to play them. Because this kind of games are usually short for the speed you have to play them at. I took a bit of time to get the rythm for the sharp turns, but they are very helpful if you can master them. I suggest for begginners start with Slope at 4 and DownHill.

Although I recommend this game, the one made by Activision for the Atari 2600 which will have an entry, is a worthy contestant.

References

Sport Icon designed by Smashicons of FlatIcon licensed by CC 3.0 BY.

Console Icon taken from Retroarch.