Bit of an odd one this. I just received a promotional link to this free skiing game on Greentube, and it reminded me of one of the oddities of my game reviewing career: the annual skiing game. Each and every year I review a skiing game. I did one for PC Gamer a couple of months ago. It was so indistinct that I can’t even remember what it was called. In fact, what makes skiing games so exceptional in the scheme of games is their utter lack of identity. Each one is the same as the last, and none of them really have the kind of vigor and excitement that is owed to the experience of flying down the side of a mountain on two strips of fibreglass. Yes, I’ve been skiing, I love skiing. But…
So, yes, I understand the appeal of most sports games in their champion-on-the-world fantasy-fulfillment way, and even snowboard has a certain youth-culture extreme-sports niche to fill: but who is buying the skiing games? And why, when so many other games have graduated to higher and higher accomplishments of simulation or arcade abstraction, are the skiing games so conservative and unambitious?
And so I ask you, RPS readers, have you ever bought, or intentionally played a skiing game? While you answer that I’m going to Google up a decent curling sim. That’s a real man’s winter sport.
