Game Review: Horace Goes Skiing (Dragon 32, Melbourne House)

More associated with thw ZX Spectrum, Melbourne House’s Horace character has become more well known these days as a figure of controversy more for the approach towards its IP usage rather than the game franchise itself. Despite that, it’s a series that many are still fond of with two of them making it over to the Dragon 32 including this one – Horace Goes Skiing.

Horace Goes Skiing… But Has To Get There First!

If the name doesn’t give it away, the core of Horace Goes Skiing is the same as the countless downhill slalom skiing games released throughout the 8bit era. Take control of Horace and ski from the top to the bottom of the slope, avoiding trees and other obstacles, making your way through the gates until you reach the finish line, earning points for every set of gates you pass through.

But there’s a lot more to this game than that… Horace doesn’t start off on the slopes. He doesn’t even have any skis in his posession and that’s where the other half of the game comes in.

Ribbit!

To start off with, you have £40 in cash. You need to hire some skis before you can get on the slopes but the ski hire shop is the other side of a very busy road. As you can probably guess, you have to cross the road, avoid all the traffic and enter the shop. Once you’ve got the skis (which cost £10), you’ve got to make it back across the road to get to the slopes so you can start skiing.

However, if you get hit by any of the traffic, you need to pay £10 to be rescued by an ambulance  (the NHS must have been desperate back in the early 80s). There’s no time limit, but the longer you take, the more traffic appears on the road so you need to be quick!

When you complete each ski run, you’re awarded a points bonus, an extra £10 reward and start again at the ski hire shop (so you only have to cross the road one way). But if you run out of cash it’s game over.

Addictive Fun

What surprised me with Horace Goes Skiing was how much fun it was to play. While the Frogger-inspired stages weren’t the best clones of Konami’s classic that I’ve seen, they were a welcome extra challenge and served their purpose well to break up the skiing sections. These – I have to be honest – were much better and seemed to offer completely randomised layouts for the gates every time you played. In fact, if the game had been released solely as a skiing game I wouldn’t have been disappointed as this part easily held its own against others I have played in the genre.

Graphics And Sound

Running in four colour mode, the graphics are bold but well defined and move quite smoothly. There’s relatively no sign of slowing down even when things get busy on screen on the road sections. Collision detection is pretty good as well and for the most part you won’t find yourself blaming the game when you hit anything – it will be down to your own fault and nothing else!

Sound is limited to a few sparse sound effects and blips as you crash or miss gates during the ski section. There is a title tune and while its inoffensive, it repeats after about 30 seconds or so, so it does get irritating quickly.

Overall

Horace Goes Skiing is a genuinely fun blend of two completely different game styles. While the skiing is definitely the better of the two, the game has been planned to connect them in a natural rather than a forced way so at least there’s logic behind them both being together. While I’ve never been particularly enamoured by the Horace character himself, this is still a fun game and one worth checking out if you’ve never played it before.

* * *

You know what we think but why not share your thoughts on this game! Let us know what you think of it in the comments below, or add your own score using the slider in the summary box at the top of the review!

Please follow and like us: