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Val d'Isère Skiing and Snowboarding

Moby ID: 6722
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Description official description

This is a skiing and snowboarding game that takes place entirely at the French Val d'Isère resort. Both sports are represented equally. There are three events: downhill, slalom, and giant slalom. There are also three game modes, free ride, training, and competition. Competition mode provides a series of timed events in which to compete leading up to a final timed event. The other two modes are self-explanatory.

Game play is presented with scaled 2D sprites that present a 3D effect, similar to many early racing games. Everything wooshes by at extremely high speed, and winning requires the player to have great reflexes.

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Credits (Jaguar version)

32 People (25 developers, 7 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 75% (based on 13 ratings)

Players

Average score: 2.6 out of 5 (based on 9 ratings with 1 reviews)

Perhaps the best racing(?) game for the Jaguar...

The Good
At a time when programmers were struggling to make flashy 3D polygon games work on the Jaguar, Virtual Studios wisely built a graphics engine that makes good use of large, colourful 2D sprites. Similarly to Super Burnout, the graphics are smooth and fast. VSS may not use 3D polygons, but it looks damn good for an early 90s game. One of my favorite aspects of VSS is its "roller coaster" effect: the graphics engine plunges your viewpoint up and down over a rapidly undulating ski slope. The effect really looks great; you can almost feel yourself getting motion sick! The music in the game is both funky and catchy; unlike most games I'm happy to keep the background music on. And I found the controls to be tight and responsive.

The Bad
But of course not everything is perfect. The sprites, while beautiful and well-made, are very repetitive. What, there's only one type of snow-covered pine tree on the entire mountain? And why do all the other skiers seem to have only about three different outfits? One thing that really irks me about VSS is the repeated display of the Virtual Studios logo. It's shown before the start of every race or practice, before every menu, and after every race. Alright already - we learned who made the game the first time!

The Bottom Line
Overall, VSS is one of my Jaguar favorites. It's a great game when you come home tired from work and just want to flop on the sofa and play something a little bit mindless and relaxing, rather than the high-strung energy of T2K or the tenseness of AvP. It's not in my top five Jaguar games, but I do believe it's somewhere in my personal top 10.

Jaguar · by Bruce Clarke (60) · 2006

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Game added by quizzley7.

Game added June 14, 2002. Last modified May 29, 2024.