FILE INFORMATION

Ranked as 1856 on our all-time top downloads list with 11637 downloads.

SCREEN SHOTS

REVIEWS

Review

Review by  Doug Kay Reviewed on 2004-11-22 Attention span: 6/10 Gets boring after you master it. Controls: 10/10 What you'd expect. Implementation: 7/10 It's your basic racing game. Overall: 7/10 Download it for limited fulfillment Ski89 is a clone of the somewhat popular Slopes, by Ian Graf, for the TI-83. Therein lies the downfall of the game; it is an exact clone of the TI-83 game. It does not use much, if any, of the superior advantages to 68k assembly. It does not support grey-scale graphics or smooth-scrolling, two things I would have liked to have seen implemented. Even the individual sprites are similiar on both Slopes83 and Ski89 as far as I can tell. For those of you who have not ever played Slopes, I will tell you what to expect from Ski89. It is, in its basic form, the same as any other racing game where you have to avoid the walls. Instead of walls though, in Ski89, you have to avoid dangers like rocks and trees. It features three different difficulty levels (slow, medium, & fast speeds) and a high score feature. It comes with two external levels. Graphics include flags, pine trees, regular trees (without leaves, it's winter), rocks, dirt, the skier, and obviously, the snow. The controls are what you would expect, left and right on the arrow pad. The game is an extremely difficult challenge the first time you play. However, once you get used to the controls, and get used to the level you are playing, it turns into a delightful challenge. A downfall is that, since the highscore is based on how far you get, once you get good enough to beat the level, you get the highest score possible and therefore cannot beat that score ever again. That does not add much to the replay value. That and the fact that you are only given two levels to conquer, makes the game a waste of space quickly. Suggestions for improvement are few. After all, it is just your basic race game and there is not much you can do to make it anything more than that. The main suggestion (do I really have to say it?), is of course to add a level editor. Improvements in the graphics would not hurt either. You see this is the thing; the dimensions of the individual sprites of the TI-83 version and the TI-89 version are the same (8x8 I believe). Since the resolution on the TI-89 is practically twice that of the TI-83, (you guessed it) you have that many more sprites jammed into the small screen of the TI-89. Why not make the sprites 12x12 or something? It would allow for better detail and would make for easier viewing.