Reviews

Marvelous. Two games in one, a bit of a frogger clone followed by a bit of slalom action. Fun for a while, but its not going to keep anyone busy for months.

Very fun game, gets boring after a long while but doesn't stop this from being a great legendary classic. The frogger part at the beginning can get pretty annoying though but the skiing part is always enjoyable.

Great game with tons of nostagic value.

Marvelous game introducing the legendary character of Horace. Priceless !!

2 games in one pack .

The slalom part is always fun to play .

The image of Horace crashing will stay in your mind forever , and the ambulance sequence ... mmmm ... what to say ?? Delicious ! ! !

Like I said before ... priceless and very 80´s .

A cute-little game ideal for kids . The nostalgic element of this game is bloody marvelous ! ! !


Ps - There should be a TV cartoon show starring Horace ... it would be great to see Horace on the TV screeb , in a soap opera !!! That would be fun . . . 5 / 5 .

1982 Sinclair Research (UK)
by William Tang

This time around Horace got the role of 'Frogger' and his reign as a game star was on the move.
The skying part was quite wonderful and magic back then and the road bit was also very well made and very chalenging.
I remember still playing this in 1990 once in a while just for the fun of it.

Have you ever wondered why Horace is such a strange shaped creature? Is he an alien or some strange animal? My personal view is he's been disfigured in some horrible road accident. You see in order for Horace to go skiing he has to cross an extremely busy road, Frogger stylee to get to the ski shop. Having picked up his skis he then has to cross the road again to get to the ski slope. Having reached the slopes you may wonder why you bothered as the skiing element isn't really much fun.

Before Willy, Dizzy and Monty there was Horace, a rather strange looking creature who had a series of games, this being his most remembered.

Horace Goes Skiing is pretty much two games in one. The first part is a Frogger-esque element that has you cross a busy road to the bottom to collect skis, you start with $40 and each set of skis cost you $10. Once you collect the skis you must cross up the road once more to the top where you will begin skiing. Should you be hit by a vehicle you lost $10 for the ambulance fee.

The skiing part of the game consists of bumps, trees and flag gates, you must go through the gates during the course to score points, skipping gates deducts you points. Bumps slow you down and make you lose control while trees are hazardous, if you hit a tree you can lose your progress if your skis are broken but if they are ok you continue on. You have to reach the finish gate and go through it for a bonus. If you finish the course you only have to cross the road from the ski shop where if your skis were broken you have to cross toward the ski shop again and purchase new skis. The game ends when you run out of money.

There isn't much really to say about this game other than if you have nostagic values to it you will probably enjoy it, that's personally how I feel about it. It honestly isn't the best game out there, nor is it brilliant, but having played it so much growing up and even now I can't give it less than 4 due to the nostalgia the game brings me. But I can't give it a 5 for the reason that it's far too short and there isn't really much in it apart from crossing the road and skiing. Personally speaking the gameplay is enjoyable, there's just not a lot to it.

The nostalgia isn't the only reason why it scores 4 however. The graphics are nice and colourful with some nice detail in the vehicles. The course itself is pretty nice as well. There isn't a lot for sound but for what it is it's quite nice. The title music isn't much as well, in fact some might say it's not even music, but again it's nostalgic.

Horace Goes Skiing on paper doesn't seem like much of a classic, but given the vast majority of Spectrum players have played the game and it can be called one of the original Spectrum games it holds its placed in gaming folklore.

My first review in about three and a half years and it's nice to be back. Having broke my foot in an industrial accident I decided to get back on the Spectaculator emulator and play these games again. I start off with this one because it's one everyone seems to have played and I never bothered to review it up to now. It's not as good as it was back when I played it, the traffic bit is annoying and the skiing part is somewhat bland but it's still a nice game and it has a great bit of nostalgia to it, even if Horace is more fitting for Halloween than Christmas.