Ski Jumping 2011

Considering the delays created for Christmas travellers by giant dumps of snow across Europe and parts of the US, there’s been plenty of time to sit down in a packed carriage or airport lounge and boot up a game on your mobile.

Whether you'd want to escape a snow-slow, deathly-dull journey by playing a game about zipping along at speed across a snow-swept landscape is another question entirely however.

Taking its inspiration from the sport with the similar name, Ski Jumping 2011 puts you in the boots of a dare-devil skier as he plummets down a ramp at a ridiculous speed before launching off into the blue and (hopefully) landing at the bottom of the slope.

Everything is controlled via the ‘5’ key, with each of the three separate elements – takeoff, balancing in the air, and landing – managed via one of those power bars often seen hanging around the fairways in golf games.

The aim is to either match the moving arrow with the stationary green arrow placed along the bar, or to constantly tap to keep said arrows close together (during the airborne section).

The system is fairly simple to grasp, but does take a few goes before everything flows naturally. A helpful tutorial does its best to get you up to speed in this regards, although it would be more helpful if it described a little more about how wind can affect your jump.

There are three tournaments to take part in – World Cup, Vivid Tournament, Skijumping.pl Cup - spread over a number of venues across Europe and Japan.

Don’t expect much variation from what has been described though – you’re always going to be going down a ramp and leaping off in each – but the World Cup is long with upgradable equipment, while Vivid Cup introduces a round-robin element to proceedings (and is incredibly easy to win).

Despite the simple setup, Ski Jumping 2011 is surprisingly good fun to play, mainly due to the pick-up-and-play nature of the controls and the tight timing windows.

It doesn’t take too long though before you’re hitting all the green arrows, which does hinder long-term enjoyment of the game, despite the three separate tournaments, record-tracking, and multiplayer modes.

So while Ski Jumping 2011 is sure to fill a few spare minutes here and there, it’s not likely to fill that immense snow-shaped hole in your schedule.