Val d'Isère Skiing and Snowboarding

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.