The new annual version of the ORF Ski Challenge has been released.

A quick roundup for those of you who don't know about it: It's a quite reaslistic alpine ski downhill simulation. The main "selling" points: It's completely free, and it's an online competition which allows you to win prices if you are quick.
As it follows the real life downhill worldcup, the different slopes are unlocked as the wc proceeds to them. The competition races are held at the same weekends as the real ones, so if you wanna win, you'll have a weekend's time to do so. Practice is always available, qualification only before (and during, I think) the event.

Don't know yet if you can set it to english, but if not, I'll try to guide you through the menues.

here's the hefty 32 megabyte download.
http://skichallenge.orf.at/sc09/stories/download/

EDIT: found a link to all the national versions here: http://www.ski-challenge.com/i ... p;sh=editions&lang=en
seems like there's no english version.

Don't worry...Even the first version you linked is in English. You just need to select English install language! Just tried it!

oh, allrighty then.

gonna give a try on it

I love winter sports, especially ski sports. Definetaly gonna try this, thanks for sharing

i have a mysterious problem. everything else in this game works like a dream but i have steering lag. when i press left it takes a second till the ski'er turns. tryed turning out the graphics to low, but still it kept doing it

So is it just DH or does it have SL/GS/SG too?

Quote from batteryy :

i have a mysterious problem. everything else in this game works like a dream but i have steering lag.

You probably have to recalibrate your G25.

Hmm, sounds strange. Sure it's not simply the intended inertia?

is the acual download 32GB big or is just how big it is when installed? cause i only have 23GB empy on comp and i can get rid of some stuff but when i get rid of it if the download is 32GB and it installs to something bigger well then thats another problem.

EDIT: I"M BLIND i know see its megabyte not gigabyte lol still though how big does it install to?

Quote from swisscosmo :

is the acual download 32GB big or is just how big it is when installed? cause i only have 23GB empy on comp and i can get rid of some stuff but when i get rid of it if the download is 32GB and it installs to something bigger well then thats another problem.

EDIT: EDIT: I"M BLIND i know see its megabyte not gigabyte lol still though how big does it install to?

Megabyte, not...oh.

About to finish d/l in a few mins. Been going at 6 kbps for about an hour

if the download is 32MB big how are the graphics? cause that small download and good graphics thats rare.

Mine is 93.9MB when installed.

A few screenshots. Not too shabby for a 32 megabyte download, but then it's just with one slope, the otehrs get downloaded automatically at startup as soon as they are in the world cup schedule.

Good grief you get mega understeer when you have extreme skis on :S

great game
love skiing. best time after around 10 tries is 2.17 for me so far...but still no idea where to find those 12 seconds...

Quote from Da Hoe :

great game
love skiing. best time after around 10 tries is 2.17 for me so far...but still no idea where to find those 12 seconds...

You got to experiment with the custom ski settings, and find the best compromise between speed and handling

send setup!

Played a little last night, quite fun. I can't get much past 2:17 on the first course either, no matter what I do with my skis. Guys are running 2:05?! There's one big right hander that I'm always a little late for, but not 12 seconds worth. The other thing I noticed is that when you select "ice," your times get slower instead of faster. Ice usually means speed in ski racing so long as you can hang on...

Anyway I'm glad this got posted as I haven't played a good ski racing game in at least ten years, and this is leaps and bounds ahead of whatever I played so many years ago.

Thanks, i'll try it, last two or three previous years games were pretty good.

Is it wheel compatible? That is a serious question btw!

Well, with extreme skis, I managed to get in the 2:15.9 region, but as my speed isn't consistant (I still manage to lose or gain whole seconds between split times), I guess that 2:10ers are possible without modifying the skis.

You can set the ghost to show you the best run, a 2:05 something something. The guy just takes off after that first big lip/landing/left hander and I can't even see him a few turns later... driving me crazy.

Also, I can't seem to absorb any of the jumps like you should be able to. Hitting spacebar to pre-jump doesn't seem to help, and opposite real life the more time you spend in the air the faster you seem to go...

titan, that's actually true for skiing, as you only have gravity to propell you. in air means less drag means more velocity.