Game Review of:
Sierra Sport Skiing '99 
by Joe Brazell 

The graphics are pretty good and the system gives you control on the level of detail that you see. This includes trees, signs, ski lifts, net/fence texture, skier detail, horizon and distance down the course. This makes it easy to adjust down the detail to give better performance on slower machines. The Skier Setup allows you to set the skier name, sex, clothing colors, sponsor name, type of skis and boots. You can select from half a dozen ski resorts and go hot-dogging or choose from 5 types of races. You can make practice runs before you begin competing. I found this to be useful in helping me learn the course before I began competing against the pros. I also could adjust the temperature, sky, snow conditions, skill level and wind settings to guarantee optimum conditions as I learn. 

I started out with a little hot dogging or open skiing. Just head down the hill and let it rip as you hear the crunch of the snow and the air rushing by your face. With speeds reaching up to 100mph or better you can get in some great jumps and perform up to seven different aerial stunts such as back flips, the helicopter and the back scratcher. Watch out for the crash-and-burn though, it hurts just watching it. Once you reach bottom you can do an instant replay and even record portions of it to show off your greater moments or watch the agony of defeat. 

Once I "mastered" that, I moved on to racing and the Downhill which was harder than I thought. It took several runs (OK — a lot of runs) before I managed to begin making runs without missing a gate and being disqualified. During the practice runs Picabo Street will offer you advice about when to skate and staying in a tucked position. Video clips were also included where Picabo gave you tips on racing techniques for each type of race. I had to race several times before I actually did well enough to earn any points towards my season stats. As a ran a few of the other races, I learned that I probably would have been better off starting with the Super G then moved on to the Downhill, Slalom and Super Slalom. Once I get these down I will move on to the All Around and see if I can make it through a season. 

Overall, I would rate this game a 4 out of 5. The body of the skier is a bit squared off and the snow could use a little more contrasts to help show you the moguls otherwise the graphics are very good. Configuration flexibility let me modify the keys, joystick buttons, etc. as well as level of details on the course. While on the course I could use the function keys to adjust the level of detail as well. The shortcoming was that the on-course changes did not give a direct indication of what changes were made (a little pop-up text could have solved that) and you had to back out to the first screen to get to a screen where you could make all of these changes. Sierra should have made the Options Screen accessible through a function screen while you were on the slopes. The other thing that I did not like was when you were disqualified for missing a gate the course time was set to zero so you could not check out how you were performing as you completed the run. In my opinion, if Sierra let you complete the run as they do, they should leave the time running and mark the run as disqualified, especially in the practice runs. It was frustrating to barely miss a gate at the bottom and not be able to tell if my time was improving any. 

Skiing '99 comes on CD-Rom requires Pentium 90 or faster, Windows 95 or newer, 16 MB RAM, SVGA 256-color graphics, Windows-compatible sound card, 4X CD-ROM. I have run it acceptably on a Pentium 66, with 48MB of RAM as well as on my Pentium 150 and have used it with a joystick, a mouse and a keyboard. As with many of the sports related games on the market, it has its celebrity endorsement. This endorsement is from Picabo Street, one of the leading women skiers in the USA. She has video clips with tips on skiing each type of event and voice clips offering minor type in some of the practice runs. The software comes with the CD and that's about it. There is a registration card and a card that is less than 6" x 9" listing the control keys which seems about standard these days for most software packages. Installation was easy. Pop the CD into the drive and let Autorun do its stuff. Yes, you do get to tell which directory to install in. 

I have several other suggestions for Sierra but I really enjoyed the game though and look forward to playing it more. Sierra Sports Skiing '99 lists for $29.95 and can be found in some of the local stores. A demo, screenshots and video clips can be downloaded from http://www.sierra.com