90 lines
4.5 KiB
Plaintext
90 lines
4.5 KiB
Plaintext
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DOWNHILL CHALLENGE
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DOWNHILL CHALLENGE from Broderbund is a graphically impressive game
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that's a pleasure to play. There are four events to choose from:
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Downhill, Slalom, Giant Slalom, and Ski Jumping, each of which
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offers three levels of expertise. The beginning course is similar to
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most beginner slopes in real skiing, and the advanced course is
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equally realistic and difficult. There are practice and
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full-competition modes within each event and difficulty level. In
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full competition, you can add quite a few names to the list of
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competitors; you may also compete against the computer by entering
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"Computer" as one of the names on the list. (This review is based on
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the Amiga version.)
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In both practice and competition modes, the main screen includes a
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number of useful info boxes surrounding the actual skiing display.
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You can tell at a glance how fast you're going (in
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kilometers/hour), which run you're making, which player you are,
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which event you're in, what your time and split times are, and how
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many poles you've missed. In the Ski Jumping event, the time display
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is replaced by a distance display, and the event box becomes a side
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view of your positioning as you come off the end of the slide.
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It's easy to control your onscreen skier: Pushing up on the stick
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moves you into an extreme tuck; pushing down stands you up
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straight; pushing right and left will turn you in those directions.
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Other combinatons of fire-button and stick movements turn you hard
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left or hard right, or bring you to a halt. In the Ski Jumping
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event, hitting the fire button at the point of lift-off gives you an
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extra push that lengthens the extent of your jump.
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The animation is quite good. People line the course at various
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points, and rush out of the way if you accidentally head in their
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direction. Flags bend just like the real ones when you hit them or
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tap them with your ski poles. If you go too fast over a rise and
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sail slightly into the air, appropriate shadowing appears. A hard
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right or left turn will plow up the snow. Should you tumble off the
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course, you'll turn into a big, messy snowball very quickly. The
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background trees -- completely free of any "jaggies" or
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artificiality -- scroll in such a way as to give you a sense of
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extremely smooth, rapid movement within a 3-D environment.
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DOWNHILL CHALLENGE was released previously for the IBM-PC and was
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faulted for its limited, 4-color CGA graphics. However, the Amiga
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version features full, rich coloring and shading. The screen update
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rate is refreshingly smooth and fast; for once, the people
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responsible for the conversion made good use of the Amiga's special
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animation and graphics-processing capabilities. (Too many
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IBM-to-Amiga conversions fail to take into account the phenomenal
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updating speed of the blitter.)
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Sound in the game is limited but useful. The whooshing of your
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skies is more electronic than realistic, and was probably
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synthesized rather than digitally sampled. Nevertheless, the whoosh
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changes with speed, position, and turning, and therefore will
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supplement your visuals as you try to make it down the course. The
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program requires one floppy drive and 512K of RAM, and accepts
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either keyboard or joystick control. (The joystick works just
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fine.)
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I'd be pleased and impressed with this game if it weren't for one
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very troubling drawback: Not only is DOWNHILL CHALLENGE plagued by
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on-disk copy protection, but it simply will not run unless you
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write-enable your sole (copy-protected) game diskette. Although some
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programs require that the disk be write-enabled in order to save
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high scores, they let you retain write protection during gameplay.
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But DOWNHILL CHALLENGE won't even _load_ unless the disk is
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write-enabled. The combined threats of viruses, power outages,
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dust, brownouts, and other imponderables make it far too easy to
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trash a disk that's not write-protected. I can only assume that
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Broderbund endorsed this scheme merely to encourage sales of back-up
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diskettes; no other explanation makes sense.
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That complaint notwithstanding, I highly recommend DOWNHILL
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CHALLENGE. Thanks to the game's phenomenal updating of on-screen
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graphics, you'll experience incredible speed and almost _feel_ the
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centrifugal force during turns along the courses. Whenever you want
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to head for the slopes without fighting the traffic along the way,
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slip this one into the drive and enjoy a few hours of brisk downhill
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fun.
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DOWNHILL CHALLENGE is published and distributed by Broderbund.
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*****DOWNLOADED FROM P-80 SYSTEMS (304) 744-2253
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