Family Ski

Now there's a word to strike fear into the hearts of hardcore gamers, "family". To them, it means the people that they avoid when locking themselves away for a night of JRPG action. However, in this current generation, to the likes of Namco and Nintendo, it means "ker-ching".

To the Wii gamer with copious amounts of cash, this adventure on the slopes can be played using the Wii Balance Board. But, if you were one of those unlucky few cursed by out of stock notices or unwilling to pay the inflated prices charged by unscrupulous indies, the Wii remote and nunchuck are perfectly valid control options. Of course, if you truly want to do the whole family thing with this, you'll need four of each of them, which amounts to just under £200 as it is!

With a wide variety of techniques and tricks to learn, it's wise to start your Family Ski experience in the Ski School area, where you can be taught everything you need to know with little fuss. Casual sweeps of the controllers will help you build momentum, while various twists and turns will allow you to steer, crouch and generally go where you want to go. Meanwhile, tricks are executed by quick presses or remote poses while in mid-air. The school will teach you all of these, without taking up too much of your time. The only slight troubles may occur from some moves that are executed in similar manners, with the occasional tendency for you to do something completely different from what you intended.

The main portion of the game, Freestyle mode, allows you and up to three other players (using your Mii characters to represent you, if you so wish) out on the slopes undertaking a variety of tasks. These can include races, mogel runs, slaloms or even simple collection objectives, often with time limits attached. As you might imagine, the further that you go with the game, the trickier these tasks become.