OC HIGH: STUDENT NEWS AND VIEWS : Skiing and Snowboarding Tommy Moe’s Winter Extreme; <i> For Super Nintendo by Electro Brain, $62.95</i>

You can experience snowy thrills from the comfort of your home, courtesy of Electro Brain. Take a run down the slopes with Skiing and Snowboarding Tommy Moe’s Winter Extreme.

Aside from the unwieldy title, this is an interesting and unusual game. It covers two areas that rarely (if ever) show up on video game shelves--downhill skiing and snowboarding.

And it does it in a very realistic, graphically exciting and entertaining way.

In this one- or two-player cart, pick skis or snowboard and select training mode to practice the runs. The runs are against a clock; in training you’re racing against the best time for that run.

The Freeride mode pits you in competition against the clock. You start out with a set amount of time and must reach certain checkpoints before that time expires. If you do, additional time is added and you head for the next checkpoint.

If you fail, you have to walk back to the top and start over. No chairlift for you, loser.

In the compete mode, you can race in the slalom, giant slalom or downhill. In each, you can choose either snowboard or skis to try the four “challenges.” Each challenge consists of three races.

In the first race of each challenge, you have to finish in the top seven to move on; in the second race, the top five; in the third, the top three. You do receive a password after each challenge, so you don’t have to do the entire competition over again.

The track is littered with moguls, trees, rocks and chunks of rock, not to mention the gates in the slalom competition.

And yes, it’s as hard as it sounds. You set the speed with the B button on your controller, and you can go as slowly as you want to avoid becoming one with a tree or rock. But speed is the name of the game, and if you cruise, you lose.

When the game first arrived, I was dubious. I’m often that way, in fact.

But Tommy Moe won me over. It’s fast, it’s fun and it’s really unusual. There are plenty of ninjas, space aliens and superheroes around, but there’s only one Skiing and Snowboarding Tommy Moe’s Winter Extreme.

With a title like that, it may be a good thing.

*

Tetris is perhaps the most acclaimed--and maybe the most popular--puzzle game in history. It hit the gaming world like a bomb, sold zillions of copies and variations have poured from the minds of programmers ever since.

Well, there’s a new one, with a hallowed name--Tetris 2.

T2 (not to be confused with the movie blockbuster, please) is a Nintendo production ($49.95 for SNES) and it’s even more entertaining than the original.

T2 offers two modes. The first is similar to T1, requiring the player--that’s you--to rearrange falling blocks so three or more blocks of the same color line up and are blipped off the screen.

But unlike the original, there are three types of blocks on screen--flash blocks, fixed blocks and falling blocks.

The fixed blocks are on the screen when the game begins and you have to get rid of them to clear the round. The flashing blocks have a special value--get rid of them and all the blocks of that color are gone.

I’m not explaining the falling blocks. Sorry.

The puzzle mode works about the same way, but gives you only a set amount of falling blocks to work your magic.

My favorite was playing a two-player game against the computer, racing to clear the screen before the guy in the box does.

If you liked Tetris, you have to get Tetris 2. It may be twice as much fun.