TGS '07: Go Sports Ski Hands-On

Skiing is a lot of fun. Unfortunately it requires snow--a small problem in places like Florida. It's also kind of dangerous--just ask Sonny Bono. Sony is tackling both these problems with Go Sports Ski, a downloadable game slated to hit the PlayStation Store on September 28.

We started our demo by picking a skier then fiddling with some of the customization options, such as changing our guy's hat, coat, and skis. Then it was off to the slopes. Our guy was the only skier on the standard-looking mountain, and our goal was to get to the bottom ASAP to beat the best time.

Like Lair, Go Sports Ski is controlled strictly with the motion-sensing capabilities of the Sixaxis. Tilting the controller forward puts your skier into a crouch, which allows him to go faster. Tilting it back, slows him down, and you turn by twisting left or right. If you alternate quickly twisting left and right, you'll use your poles to go faster. Should you fall--which you will if the sometimes unresponsive controls aren't improved--you twist the controller back and forth to get up.

There wasn't a whole lot to do as we traveled down the mountain. There were a few power-ups that had no noticeable effect on our performance and a couple of jumps. Once you've taken a jump, you can perform a trick by twisting the controller. Presumably, how you move the controller impacts the trick you perform, but there weren't enough jumps to really figure this out. The path down the mountain was mostly linear, but there were a few shortcuts here and there. We went straight through a lodge, jumped a car as we passed through town, and ducked right under a bridge in our futile effort to get down the mountain in record time.

While the skiing was less than exciting, there may be some light at the end of this 233MB-sized tunnel. It does have split-screen head-to-head racing and is from Yukes, which is known to make some pretty solid games. Its release is just a week away, so we'll find out soon enough.