Ride the waves with Taito’s 1983 release Water Ski

Have fun like Liz here

There’s something inherently old-school about water skiing. One of the more classic water sports (grow up) water skiing wither conjures up images of girls from the 1930’s forming dangerous pyramids, or some poor sap getting annihilated in movies like Jaws 2, Piranha, or Yogi Bear. Still, if you fancy both a taste of the old-school and a ride on the ocean waves, then maybe you could check out this week’s retro release from Hamster: Taito’s Water Ski.

Arriving in arcades in the halcyon year of 1983, Water Ski is a simple affair that has players control a skier as they negotiate hazards, dodge windsurfers, whiz up ramps and swerve through tricky slaloms. Naturally, a shark shows up every now and again, its presence signaled by a Jaws theme knockoff. At the end of each stage, the skier arrives at a tiny desert island populated by a single hula girl, because old video games were frikkin’ wild.

Water Ski is available now on PS4 in Japan an Nintendo Switch worldwide, priced at around $8.