Winter Games

Winter Games
Amiga cover art
Developer(s) Epyx
Atelier Double (NES)
Publisher(s) Epyx (US), U.S. Gold (EU)
Acclaim (NES)
Composer(s) David Thiel
Kenichi Tomizawa (FDS/NES version)
Series Epyx Games
Platform(s) Amiga, Apple II, Atari ST, Apple IIGS, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, PC, Atari 2600, Atari 7800, C64, NES, Famicom Disk System, Virtual Console, Apple Macintosh
Release 1985
Virtual Console
  • EU: February 20, 2009
Genre(s) Sports game
Mode(s) Single-player

Winter Games is a sports video game developed by Epyx (and released in Europe by U.S. Gold), based on sports featured in the Winter Olympic Games.

A snow-and-ice themed follow-up to the highly successful Summer Games, Winter Games was released in 1985 for the Commodore 64 and later ported to several popular home computers and video game consoles of the 1980s.

The game was presented as a virtual multi-sport carnival called the "Epyx Winter Games" (there was no official IOC licensing in place) with up to 8 players each choosing a country to represent, and then taking turns competing in various events to try for a medal.

Events

The events available vary slightly depending on the platform, but include some or all of the following:

The game allowed you to compete in all of the events sequentially, choose a few events, choose just one event, or practice an event.

Ports

Screenshot from Winter Games (C64): the "Hot Dog Aerials" event.

Winter Games was ported to the Amiga, Apple II, Atari ST, Apple Macintosh, Apple IIGS, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, and DOS computer platforms, and to the Atari 2600, Atari 7800, Nintendo Entertainment System, and the Family Computer Disk System video game consoles. In 2004, it was featured as one of the games on the C64 Direct-to-TV.

Reception

Winter Games was Epyx's best-selling Commodore game as of late 1987.[1] Its sales had surpassed 250,000 copies by November 1989.[2]

In 1985 Zzap!64 gave 94% for the game calling it "another classic sport simulation from Epyx". Lemon64 website users have given average vote of 8.6 which places the game on top 20 list on the site. The game was reviewed in 1988 in Dragon #132 by Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser in "The Role of Computers" column. The reviewers gave the game 3½ out of 5 stars.[3] The Spectrum version topped the charts for the month of April.[4] However, the NES and Famicom Disk System versions were critically panned for unresponsive controls, abysmal music and poor graphics.

References

  1. Ferrell, Keith (December 1987). "The Commodore Games That Live On And On". Compute's Gazette. pp. 18–22. Retrieved 24 January 2015.
  2. Staff (November 1989). "Chart-Busters; SPA Platinum". Game Players (5): 112.
  3. Lesser, Hartley; Lesser, Patricia; Lesser, Kirk (April 1988). "The Role of Computers". Dragon (132): 80–85.
  4. "The YS Rock'n'Roll Years - Issue 4". Ysrnry.co.uk. Archived from the original on 2000-11-21. Retrieved 2012-12-06.
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