As featured in Retrogaming Times Monthly issue #21, February 2006.

When the snow starts falling the slopes come calling, even for Lester and Rodney of 8 bit skateboarding fame.  After establishing Skate Or Die as a reputable franchise on the NES and Gameboy, Konami / Ultra introduced its winter cousin, Ski Or Die.  The game borrows heavily from the original Skate Or Die in both interface and events.  Rodney's Ski Shop is the center hub of five events which can be participated in:  Snowboard Halfpipe, Acro Aerials, Downhill Blitz, Snowball Blast, and Innertube Thrash.

Snowboard Halfpipe gives you two minutes to score as many points as possible with Lester judging your performance.  Tricks are performed off of the surface of the tube itself, moguls, or the lip of the halfpipe.  You begin in the slowest of three speed settings, picking up momentum as you successfully complete tricks.  Trick by holding the A button and pressing the control pad in different directions for different tricks based upon speed and location.  Pull off a good variety of tricks and earn a higher bonus at the end.  As expected from Lester, duplicate moves earn half the points.  This is by far my favorite event in Ski Or Die, be sure to watch out for the chainsaw wielding rabbits!

Acro Aerials is extreme ski jumping in which a panel of five judge your moves on a sale of zero to ten.  Similar to the High Jump in Skate Or Die, speed is controlled by rapidly moving the control pad left and right while holding either A or B.  Most will find doing well in this event, as with the High Jump in Skate Or Die, is only possible by using the NES Advantage's joystick.  Once airborne holding the A button along with different directions on the control pad allows you to pull off a handful of tricks which must be chained together for big points.  Oh, and don't forget to stick the landing.

Downhill Blitz borrows much of the Downhill Race portion of Skate Or Die except this time you're on skis.  The objective here is to get down the mountain as fast as possible, tricking off anything you can.  As with most of the game the A button + a control pad direction is used for airborne tricks.  It's a little more fun than the Downhill Race from Skate Or Die was but that isn't saying a lot.  If the controls were a little more responsive this would have been an excellent event but as things are take it or leave it.

Snowball Blast is the only radically new addition in terms of this series of games.  Instead of skiing or snowboarding this event has you shooting.  You must defend your ground as waves of humans, the chainsaw rabbits from the halfpipe event, polar bears, penguins, and abominable snow monsters cross the screen.  Watch out for ski instructors though, hitting one will cost you 50 snowballs and the last thing you want to do is run out of ammo.  The control pad moves a crosshair and pressing the B button causes you to throw a snowball.  However what's really cool about this event is the multi-dimensional feel of its design.  On the HUD in the bottom right there is a four quadrant radar that displays how many enemies are in each direction.  Pressing the control pad in the direction you'd like to face + the A button will allow you to move to that quadrant.  Enemies will run from one side to the other, gang up behind you, and run away if you have them pinned down.  There's probably no AI here but it does add quite a bit of challenge to what would otherwise be a static minigame.

Innertube Thrash is the icy version of the Jam from Skate Or Die.  Race Lester down the mountain riding on innertubes, attempting to pop his while defending yours.  Avoid bear traps and mousetraps along the way, picking up air pumps and patches will help you recover from damage.  A true to form weapon system has you picking up dinner forks, lawn darts and finally a pocket knife to slow Lester down with.  The control pad dictates player movement, button A + the control pad rotates your 'tube and the B button attacks.  I'll say one thing, it controls a lot better than the NES version of Toobin' does.

With how snowboarding and extreme skiing have become olympic sports in recent years you could say that Ski Or Die was ahead of it's time in bringing these events to the common household.  Sure the game didn't have huge success during its commercial release but for extreme winter sports on the NES you simply cannot go wrong with this game.  That goes double if you enjoyed Skate Or Die since they are very similar in execution.
 
 

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