Tommy Moe's Winter Extreme: Skiing & Snowboarding


Tommy Moe's Winter Extreme: Skiing & Snowboarding, known in Europe as Val d'Isère Championship, is a winter sports video game for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System that uses skiing and snowboarding as extreme sports in freestyle mode, training mode, or competition mode.

Gameplay

Competition mode gives players three chances to successfully complete the challenges. Otherwise, players get the "game over" screen advising them to try again. The freestyle mode plays like a video arcade racing game, the training mode allows players to use any course, and the competition mode is like the Winter Olympic Games. Controls can be modified and players can either use skis or snowboards. The game is named after US alpine skier Tommy Moe and is co-endorsed with Val-d'Isère, which hosted the men's downhill skiing event during the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, France. The Japanese version of the game also features as endorsement from Italian ski equipment company Nordica, evident on the game's box.
Conditions can change on the course, including dawn, dusk, darkness, and afternoon conditions, and even forcing players to navigate through a winter storm. Once players reach the bottom of the hill in freestyle mode, they must use the ski lift in order to climb to the top of the next mountain. There are less than 70 seconds to get to the next checkpoint. The fastest speed that snowboards can go is 66 miles per hour on hilly terrain and 88 miles per hour on flat terrain.
A password allows players to continue their saved progress as they explore new regions of the mountain and refine their skiing or snowboarding skills.

Development and release

The game was released in France in February 1994 and in the United States that same June. the United Kingdom, Germany, and Japan releases followed later that year.

Reception

Tommy Moe's Winter Extreme: Skiing & Snowboarding received an average reception from critics. GameFan awarded it "Best Simulation Game" on the SNES in their third Megawards edition.