Game Review: Olympic Skier (Commodore 64, Americana)

Olympic Skier was first released by Mr Chip Software, and back then had proved to be a hit with reviewers, with its three sections working well together.  There was then the Commodore 16 and Plus/4 version, later re-released by Mastertronic as part of the C16 Compilation (which curiously did not get an Americana re-release first) which shifted the sections around, added some classic scrolling message insults such as “You’ve hit more trees than a flying squirrel” when you hit an obstacle or a tree, and was more of a race against the clock rather than scoring points.

For the Americana re-release, it is notable that Shaun Southern, along with Andrew Morris adding additional graphics, made some changes.  The first change made is loading the game itself.  No blank screen loader but a fast loader, and a nice little logo of the game and an Americana logo that has sparkling stars on the logo during the game loading itself.  It adds nicely to the presentation and added to the faster loading, will get you into the game quicker too.

Ski Sunday

Once the game has loaded, you will hear another improvement itself – in the music.  The single channel rendition of Pop Looks Bach (known by British viewers as the theme tune to BBC’s Ski Sunday programme) is upgraded to two channels of SID and nicer instruments too, which enhances the introduction nicely.  There are still some good high scores at aim at on the high score table, and you can press fire to start, which leads you straight into the first of the three events which all score points – the slalom.

Speeding on the Slalom

As you start off, your skier needs to head between several slalom gates, cleanly, and get to the bottom in the fastest possible time to get the best score possible.  You can move left or right and pressing down speeds up the skier with up putting the brakes on.  In a very sensible move, you can also turn faster when going at a faster speed, meaning that the event retains the playability and allows you to make some excellent turns to get through the gates, noted by a ping sound effect when you are clean.  You can hit the gate full on or smash into the trees or rocks to crash, and if you miss three gates you are disqualified.  The key is to find the right speed where you can steer and take the gates cleanly.

If you are successful and get to the bottom, you are penalised three seconds for each gate that you have missed (up to the maximum of two allowed to be missed) and the overall time is set up against a score system.  If you manage to get to the bottom in thirteen seconds or less, you will get the maximum three hundred points, with every 0.1 of a second after that knocking off 2 points.  If you are disqualified or fail to finish, you will get a score up to a maximum of 99 for how far you get down the course.

Fly Like Eddie the Eagle

The next event is the ski jump.  On the approach and down the ramp, hammer the fire button as fast as possible to build up speed, and at the last possible moment, press up to jump.  You can keep up held to get as far as you can and in the correct position, and the at the last moment you can, press down to land.  This does take some practice to get the take off and landing right, and then you can build up the speed nicely.  The points awarded are depending on distance, to a maximum of two hundred points, but your score is halved if you do not land correctly, so a costly mistake to make if you do crash out.  The scoring system has been slightly tweaked from the original here so you can score the maximum number of points a little easier.

Franz Klammer Klaxon

The final event is the downhill run.  The controls are the same as the slalom event with an added option of pressing fire to jump.  This can prove very handy to head over logs and rocks in the snow and progress further down the ski run, but you cannot turn whilst in mid-air jumping, so you need to be sure you take the jump at the right pace to be able to steer cleanly and not crash into anything.  If you do happen to crash here, then there is a nice animation of an air ambulance arriving, collecting you on a stretcher, and airlifting you away, presumably to the nearest hospital so that you can recover fully.

There is a time limit of forty seconds, and after that you will automatically crash out.  Therefore, you need to make it to the bottom by this time and if successful, a maximum of five hundred points are awarded if you complete the course in under twenty-five seconds, with two points lost for every 0.1 of a second you are beyond that time.  If you get so far and crash, how far you get down the course will be your total score for this event, and after a while, you will get to learn the best route to take and avoid any dead ends along the way.

Rating Your Runs

At the end of the three events, your total score out of a maximum of one thousand points is added up.  Depending on your score, you can be rated anything from hilarious and amusing if you are  bad, all the way to super skier, mega skier and perfect if you manage to get all one thousand points.  Once the ratings show, if your score is good enough, you will be able to enter your name in the high score table.  It is good that you can aim for a big score here and certainly the way that the events are graded means that you can really do well on the slalom and help to a bigger score, but the downhill having the most risk and reward scores higher too.

Graphics and Sound

The graphics in Olympic Skier have been enhanced slightly from the original Mr Chip release – so the trees on the title screen and in the slalom and downhill events are more nicely defined, as are the clouds in the background on the ski jump event too.  The graphics still scroll smoothly with some nice animation on the ski jump, and the air ambulance helicopter swooping in is always a nice touch.  The music has gone with more SID channels and sounds a lot better, not just the Ski Sunday rendition on the title screen, but all the in-game pieces at the end of an event that play are all much improved.  This adds a solid amount of polish and enhancement along the way, along with its nice new loading screen and little effect on the logo during loading.

Final Thoughts

Olympic Skier was already a solid and enjoyable game on first release, with the urge to score high and perform well across the three events keeping you occupied with that “just one more go” factor.  Whilst the graphics and sound have been improved here, they crucially have taken nothing away from the gameplay, which is still addictive and has a good amount of challenge along the way too. It can be a little unforgiving for making an error on the downhill run, but then again in real life if you crashed you were not getting back up quickly either.  The whole package amounts to a very enjoyable game with three different ski events that, when put together, has plenty of playability and fun in equal measure.  It is yet another example of why Shaun Southern was so reliable and highly regarded as a game developer.

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