[04] A Rad Execution of a Quarterpipe by a Computer Semi-Pro

Well, it seems Mom won't drive me all the way to Keith's house, so we'll go halfway -- to my friend Troy.  Not a massive gamer of his time, he would later go on to work at a local McDonald's in high school, help me get a job there with him, and use that money to buy his first car, a 12 year-old Pontiac that he would upgrade with, among other things, a light-up neon license plate border.  But this isn't the tech you were expecting to read about -- so, back to the topic on hand.

Up to this point, I don't think I owned a lot of commercial releases of software myself.  Most of what I had gotten, some with my grandfather's help, were shareware and freeware titles.  And the rest, well, were (ahem) obtained over the SneakerNet.

Technically, this ad campaign didn't come about until a few years after this post...

So there were some games that Troy had purchased that would join my library of BASF floppy disks.  Two arcade/action type games, and my first animated graphical adventure.  Let's start with the game that wasn't released by LucasFilm Games: Skate or Die.

For authenticity, I played it the same way that I did at age 10 -- using a keyboard, and a CGA monitor.  I had a joystick at one point, but I never used it.  Then, one day, my desk lamp fell on it while I was eating dinner, and I came back to a melted stick (and fortunately, not a fire in my bedroom).  It was never replaced, as I never noticed it missing.

The last known photo of the deceased joystick, just below my right elbow.

The keyboard controls work fine for this game, that won't be an issue to me.  The fact that I only had a CGA monitor at the time, however... ugh.

As with most CGA games of the time, you'd better get used to the cyan and magenta overload.

The PC speaker's version of the soundtrack, designed by Rob Hubbard originally for the C64, is grating as it is often repeated in each event.  The sounds off button becomes my friend quickly.  When I was 11, I wouldn't have minded as much -- I didn't yet own a SoundBlaster card, which I think I got when I was 13.  So it was all I knew.

Downhill Jam

There are five competition areas.  I have never in my life played this against another person, even when I was with my friend.  The five are a Pool Joust, Downhill Race, Alley Jam, High Jump, and Freestyle.  Replaying now, I remember that I only liked one of the competitions, so I only played that one exclusively.  That would be the Alley Jam.  As I replayed it now, very, very badly, I still consistently won each race against my computer opponent, Lester.   In the last dozen matches, each time I beat Lester to the finish, where a police car waited to presumably apprehend us.

EA would go on to create many games in the series and similar to this one, including another I would obtain, Ski or Die.  But I never got fully interested.  In my next post, we'll get a new game flowing.