Sunday 28 December 2014

12 Days of Midas (and other Budget games) - Day 5: Ski Air Mix


Game: Ski Air Mix
Console: Sony Playstation
Developer: KID
Release Date: 1st September 2000

As is often the case with Midas published games Ski Air Mix was brought over from Japan, having been published there in 1998. The concept of the game is fairly simple; players make their way down 5 different slopes, attempting to beat the record for either fastest descent or highest number of "air points". Once at the bottom of the slope, scores are ranked against the high score list and the game resets.

Overall the experience is as short as it sounds; each run only lasts a few minutes and everything the game has to offer can be played in around an hour. There are options of different skis which change the top speed and handling whilst descending, and a few player models and outfits which seem to change nothing, but besides this there's very little other content except for a two player mode that pretty much mirrors the single player arcade style campaign.


Controlwise the game is fairly easy to play until the harder slopes are reached. While many of the earlier courses feature wide, open corners later stages seem far more confined and colliding with the edge of the course is a common problem. The overall gameplay experience leaves much to be desired as there's little sense of speed or excitement, and pulling off tricks is near impossible, especially if you want to get a large amount of points.

Graphically the game is impressive for having been on the original Playstation, though perhaps not as impressive for having been released in the year 2000. Most of the time its easy enough to see obstacles to your descent, and only hitting the edges of the course seems to hinder progression. Overall Ski Air Mix is a short game with very little content, barely enjoyable gameplay, and poor slope design in the later stages; a typical Midas experience.

Rating: 30/100
Grade: E

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