Ski Safari Review

Why someone would decide to rent/own a cabin on a mountain in what seems to be avalanche-heavy territory is beyond me. Seems like it’s just asking for trouble. Fortunately, one man’s trouble makes for plenty of fun for the rest of us.

Ski Safari puts players in control of a rather unfortunate skier and tasks them with keeping him out of harm’s way for as long as possible. Once he’s forcibly ejected from his slumber it’s a mad dash to keep away from the impending wall of snow while avoiding lots and lots of rocks. The controls are as straightforward as it gets: tapping jumps and holding will flip. Completing full flips grants a temporary speed boost and doles out more points. Rounding the whole package out is the inclusion of special objectives such as doing X number of flips in one run that can unlock new starting “vehicles” (bed, penguin, etc) as well as permanent score multipliers.

As expected, all the “classic” runner elements come together to make Ski Safari quite a bit of fun. Even more entertaining are the off-kilter power-ups. Penguins, snowmobiles, eagles, and yeti can all be used to put some real distance between the accident prone man and the avalanche. Not only are they useful, they’re also pretty funny. Watching the yeti run wildly or slide along on its stomach never gets old. The same can be said for seeing a penguin ride along on the fuzzy mythological beast.

Even though I could play Ski Safari for hours and never get bored, there’s one’ major flaw that gums up the works. I’m talking a massive problem that almost breaks the experience. Ending a run requires players to go back to the title screen. In other words, there’s no super-quick way to dive right back into the game after getting swept up in the snow. Yup. That’s it. Oh, and I was exaggerating by the way. A lot.

Honestly, Ski Safari is just plain old great. It’s simple enough to get into right away, but has just enough intricacies to keep things interesting. The added tasks and quirky power-ups are also a big plus. Yet another high-quality runner to add to that ever-growing library.