Take to the slopes on your phone

If you’ve always dreamed of going skiing but don’t live near a mountain then Backcountry Ski could be your chance to try it.

Mind you, the game doesn’t exactly paint skiing in a good light. The story in Backcountry Ski is essentially that you’re trapped alone on a mountainside and have got lost. It’s getting dark, there are avalanches all around you and the only way you can see out of it is to follow the smoke you can see rising up in the distance.

You can control your skier in Backcountry Ski using the directional buttons on your device, or using the touchscreen. Pressing the up button moves you forward, down slows you down and left and right are used for turning. This control system is very comfortable and once you get a head of speed up you can pull off some cool jumps and turns, which is great fun.

The trouble with Backcountry Ski is that it’s usually all over very quickly. There is an energy bar at the side of the screen and this runs out as you burn energy or hit obstacles. Unfortunately, it seems to be set to ‘Really fast’ because it runs down far too quickly and makes it almost impossible to finish the first trail. The graphics in Backcountry Ski are also quite blocky and the animation gets pretty jerky at times.

Backcountry Ski is fun for a few minutes but it’s far to frustrating and repetitive to keep your attention for too long.