''Winter Games'' is a

sport Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, ...

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

developed by

Epyx Epyx, Inc. was a video game developer and publisher active in the late 1970s and 1980s. The company was founded as Automated Simulations by Jim Connelley and Jon Freeman, originally using Epyx as a brand name for action-oriented games before ren ...

(and released in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

U.S. Gold U.S. Gold Limited was a British video game publisher based in Witton, Birmingham, England. The company was founded in 1984 by Anne and Geoff Brown in parallel to their distributor firm, CentreSoft, both of which became part of Woodward Brown Ho ...

), based on sports featured in the

Winter Olympic Games The Winter Olympic Games (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques d'hiver) is a major international multi-sport event held once every four years for sports practiced on snow and ice. The first Winter Olympic Games, the 1924 Winter Olympics, were h ...

. 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 console A video game console is an electronic device that outputs a video signal or image to display a video game that can be played with a game controller. These may be home consoles, which are generally placed in a permanent location connected to ...

s of the 1980s. The game was presented as a virtual multi-sport carnival called the "Epyx Winter Games" (there was no official International Olympic Committee, 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: * Slalom skiing * Ski jumping * Biathlon * Bobsled * Figure skating * Speed skating * Luge * Freestyle skiing; more precisely, the aerial skiing discipline, called "Hot Dog Aerials" in the game * Free skating The game allows players to compete in all of the events sequentially, choose a few events, choose just one event, or practice an event.

Ports

''Winter Games'' was porting, ported to the Amiga, Apple II, Atari ST, Apple Macintosh, Apple IIGS, Apple IIGS, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, and IBM PC compatible, IBM PC 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. A Virtual Console version was released in Europe on February 20, 2009.

Reception

''Winter Games'' was Epyx's best-selling Commodore game as of late 1987. Its sales had surpassed 250,000 copies by November 1989. ''Info (magazine), Info'' rated ''Winter Games'' four-plus stars out of five, stating that each event was good enough to be sold separately, and concluding that it was "sports simulation at its best!". 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 (magazine), Dragon'' #132 by Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser in "The Role of Computers" column. The reviewers gave the game 3½ out of 5 stars. The Spectrum version topped the charts for the month of April. However, the NES and Famicom Disk System versions were critically panned for unresponsive controls, abysmal music and poor graphics. The Angry Video Game Nerd reviewed the NES version of the game in December 2009. In it, he calls the game's controls some of the worst in a game ever. In 1996, ''Next Generation (magazine), Next Generation'' listed the "Games" series collectively as number 89 on its "Top 100 Games of All Time". The magazine wrote that though the games had great graphics for their time, their most defining qualities were their competitive multiplayer modes and "level of control that has yet to be equaled".

References

External links

*
''Winter Games'': Package and Manual Scans
- images of ''Winter Games'' box, manual and screen shots at c64sets.com * * {{Epyx Games series 1985 video games Amiga games Amstrad CPC games Apple II games Apple IIGS games Atari 2600 games Atari 7800 games Atari ST games Commodore 64 games Epyx games Famicom Disk System games MSX games Nintendo Entertainment System games U.S. Gold games Video games developed in the United States Virtual Console games Winter Olympic video games ZX Spectrum games Single-player video games Atelier Double games Incredible Technologies games Skiing video games Winter sports video games