The games series created by epyx were very popular in its days and it spawned several different games. Winter games was the first in the series that revolved around the winter olympics but it has the classic formula with each player selecting a country and then competing in several events. There are seven events in total (differs per version) and you can choose to practice one, play one or several or go into the tournament and play them all. After each event the winner is declared and the winners national anthem is played.
Here is an overview of the seven events:
– Hot dog: this looks like a ski jump but instead of maximum distance you have to do tricks in the air like twisting to gain points.
– Biathlon: you have to do some crosscounty skiing and after a set amount of rounds you have to shoot at five targets with your gun. Missing a target means you will have to do extra rounds.
– Figure skating: Do pirouettes and all manner of moves on the ice to impress the judges and gain max points.
– Ski jump: Jump as far as you can off the ramp.
– Speed skating: Skate as fast as you can round the track against an opponent. This is the only event in which you compete directly with another player instead of back to back.
– Free skating: The same as the figure skating except that you get two minutes instead on one, I have no idea what the differences are.
– Bobsled: Control a bobsled down a twisty and turning track as fast as you can while trying to keep the sled from tipping over.
The winter olympics are less high profile than the summer olympics because there are fewer sports and many of them are less popular. That said the game does have some interesting events like the hotdog. The really bad event is the figure skating and the fact that they used it twice in the game with practically no changes only makes it worse. Beside from that I have no idea how the points are calculated (max 6.0) and how often make moves. If you simply ignore these two events the game is much better though and if you like the games series then you’ll definately have some fun with this.
Overal rating: 7/10
This game was released for many different systems here are some notes:
| Atari 2600 | Released in 1987. Game has been tested but not completed with Stella v1.4.1. The weakest version obviously, it’s missing one or two events (I forgot which ones). |
| C64 | Released in 1985. Game has been tested but not completed with CCS64 v2.0 win. The original and the best in my opinion. |
| DOS | Released in 1986. Game has been tested but not completed on a DOS PC. CGA colors are never much good but seeing as much of the game is white it’s better than most games. Gameplay is still intact though. |
| NES | Released in 1987. Game has been tested but not completed with FCE ultra v0.98.12. Pretty good version. |
| ZX Spectrum | Released in 1986. Game has been tested but not completed with emuZwin v2.5. Graphics are somewhat small and the lack of colors is occasionally annoying as spotting a white guy jumping from a white ramp into the snow is rather difficult. |
| Others | These versions are not available. Amiga released in 1987. Apple released in 1985. Atari 7800 relesed in 1987. Atari ST released in 1987. |
| Date added | Jul-29-2005 20:43 |
| Name | Winter games |
| Developer | Epyx |
| Publisher | Epyx |
| First released | 1985 |
| Genre | Sport |
