Alpine Skiing

About

Alpine Skiing lets you tackle three competitive downhill events from the 1979 Odyssey 2 era. Control a skier using a joystick to move straight, turn left/right, or execute a stop. Three modes, Downhill, Slalom, and Giant Slalom, each demand precise timing through 55 gates. Miss a gate or go off-course and you lose time or get penalized. Two players can race head-to-head on identical tracks, with the winner determined by fastest time or fewest violations. The action button gives a 30% speed boost after practice runs, adding a layer of strategy to each descent. What sets this apart is the sheer variety. Over 65,000 unique track layouts exist per event, letting you ski more than 195,000 total runs. The game tracks times in 0.1-second increments, and violations are tallied in real time. Combined competitions mix events like Downhill-Slalom hybrids, keeping the challenge fresh. Despite its 1970s tech, the mechanics feel surprisingly responsive, with players often fixated on shaving fractions of a second off their best. It’s a relic that still tests reflexes and patience in equal measure.

Storyline

One or two players can choose among three kinds of skiing competitions to play: Slalom, Giant Slalom and Down Hill. In the Slalom event, players must ski through 55 gates. The winner is the fastest player to conclude two runs down the courses. If a player misses a gate, the timing stops and the counter registers the numbers of violations. The winner then is the player with the lesser number of violations. The Giant Slalom event follows the same rules to the slalom, but is longer than the slalom, with gates farther apart. In the Down Hill event, the winner is the player to achieve the end of the marked course in the shortest amount of time. If the player goes off-course, the violations are counted instead, and the winner is the player with the lesser number of violations.