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Skidz BMX and skateboard game

Updated 26 April 2022

I review the Gremlin game Skidz for the Commodore Amiga. BMX was big in the 1980s. Skateboarding was starting to come into its own but it took its time. I was lucky in being the owner of a Redline BMX with red tuff wheels. It is tuff wheels in bright orange that appear on the Skidz splash screen. It could be just me but the guy on the splash screen looks a little like Michael J. Fox but tough. This game goes all out for street action. So let's load this retrogaming gem up and take a look.

Skidz BMX and skateboard Amiga game

Skidz BMX game

I had an original boxed version of this game. Unfortunately, due to space restrictions, I had to sell my copy. The game comes in a typical Commodore Amiga game box that is brightly colored. The front side shows an airbrush version of the Amiga Skidz spash screen. The back cover is multi-lingual, with a description in English, French, German, and Italian. The screenshots on the back cover do not do the game justice. The game description is only two sentences. "Hit the streets and take on the town on your skateboard or BMX. Your aim is to be the hippest and smartest kid in town." The description is not very inspiring at all. It is up to the screenshots from various formats to do the selling.

My first thoughts before playing the game is that this was going to be a Paperboy clone. Both feature kids, bikes, and a road. Well, I was wrong. Look at those gorgeous graphics on the Skidz screenshots. The Skidz developers really worked the Amiga's color palette. This is a good looking game. The street furniture is entertaining and there are plenty of moving objects to attract the eye. With decades of hindsight, it would have been nice to be able to modify your character. A choice of male or female, age, size and the like would have been a nice option. Customising one's character was not a big thing back then. Getting into a game with minimal joystick clicks was, and still remains, of prime importance.

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