''Summer Games II'' is an

Olympic Olympic or Olympics may refer to Sports Competitions * Olympic Games, international multi-sport event held since 1896 ** Summer Olympic Games ** Winter Olympic Games * Ancient Olympic Games, ancient multi-sport event held in Olympia, Greece b ...

sports video game A sports video game is a video game that simulates the practice of sports. Most sports have been recreated with a game, including team sports, track and field, extreme sports, and combat sports. Some games emphasize actually playing the sport (s ...

developed and published 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 r ...

in North America, and published by

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 H ...

in Europe, based on sports featured in the Summer Olympic Games. It is a

sequel A sequel is a work of literature, film, theatre, television, music or video game that continues the story of, or expands upon, some earlier work. In the common context of a narrative work of fiction, a sequel portrays events set in the sam ...

to '' Summer Games'' released by Epyx the previous year. ''Summer Games II'' was originally written for the Commodore 64 and

ported In software engineering, porting is the process of adapting software for the purpose of achieving some form of execution in a Computing platform, computing environment that is different from the one that a given program (meant for such execution) ...

to the

Apple II The Apple II (stylized as ) is an 8-bit home computer and one of the world's first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products. It was designed primarily by Steve Wozniak; Jerry Manock developed the design of Apple II's foam-mold ...

, Atari ST,

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few oper ...

ZX Spectrum The ZX Spectrum () is an 8-bit home computer that was developed by Sinclair Research. It was released in the United Kingdom on 23 April 1982, and became Britain's best-selling microcomputer. Referred to during development as the ''ZX81 Colou ...

Amstrad CPC The Amstrad CPC (short for ''Colour Personal Computer'') is a series of 8-bit home computers produced by Amstrad between 1984 and 1990. It was designed to compete in the mid-1980s home computer market dominated by the Commodore 64 and the S ...

and

Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore International, Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and sign ...

Gameplay

The game was presented as a virtual multi-sport carnival called the "Epyx Games" (there was no official

IOC The International Olympic Committee (IOC; french: link=no, Comité international olympique, ''CIO'') is a non-governmental Sports governing body, sports organisation based in Lausanne, Switzerland. It is constituted in the form of an associ ...

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. World records could be saved to the game disk. The game features the following eight events:

Triple jump The triple jump, sometimes referred to as the hop, step and jump or the hop, skip and jump, is a track and field event, similar to the long jump. As a group, the two events are referred to as the "horizontal jumps". The competitor runs down t ...

, High jump,

Rowing Rowing is the act of propelling a human-powered watercraft using the sweeping motions of oars to displace water and generate reactional propulsion. Rowing is functionally similar to paddling, but rowing requires oars to be mechanically at ...

Javelin throw The javelin throw is a track and field event where the javelin, a spear about in length, is thrown. The javelin thrower gains momentum by running within a predetermined area. Javelin throwing is an event of both the men's decathlon and the ...

Equestrian The word equestrian is a reference to equestrianism, or horseback riding, derived from Latin ' and ', "horse". Horseback riding (or Riding in British English) Examples of this are: *Equestrian sports *Equestrian order, one of the upper classes in ...

Fencing Fencing is a group of three related combat sports. The three disciplines in modern fencing are the foil, the épée, and the sabre (also ''saber''); winning points are made through the weapon's contact with an opponent. A fourth discipline, ...

Kayaking Kayaking is the use of a kayak for moving over water. It is distinguished from canoeing by the sitting position of the paddler and the number of blades on the paddle. A kayak is a low-to-the-water, canoe-like boat in which the paddler sits facin ...

Cycling Cycling, also, when on a two-wheeled bicycle, called bicycling or biking, is the use of cycles for transport, recreation, exercise or sport. People engaged in cycling are referred to as "cyclists", "bicyclists", or "bikers". Apart from tw ...

. The game allows the player to compete in all of the events sequentially, compete in some events, choose just one event, or practice an event. This version also features both the opening and closing ceremonies, where the closing ceremonies features a "fan man", the flame extinguishing as the sky goes dark, a blimp passing by and some fireworks. Certain ports also allow for participants to compete in events from the original Summer Games events, but they had to have the original Summer Games diskette for this to happen.

Ports

The original Commodore 64 version of ''Summer Games II'' was created by Scott Nelson, Jon Leupp, Chuck Sommerville, Kevin Norman, Michael Kosaka, and Larry Clague and published in 1985. The same year saw an Apple II version, ported by John Stouffer, Jeff Webb, Doug Matson, Greg Broniak, Tim Grost, Matt Decker, Vera Petrusha, Ken Evans, Pat Findling, Dr. Keith Dreyer, and Chris Oesterling. It became a bestseller in the UK. A year later it was ported to the IBM PC by Phil Suematsu, Jeff Grigg, Don Hill, and Jimmy Huey. Richard Wilcox and Steve Hawkes ported it to the ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC. In 1992 Adam Steele, Phillip Morris, and Dave Lowe ported it to the Atari ST and the Amiga. ''Summer Games II'' was re-released on the

Virtual Console A virtual console (VC) – also known as a virtual terminal (VT) – is a conceptual combination of the keyboard and display for a computer user interface. It is a feature of some Unix-like operating systems such as Linux, BSD, illumos, Un ...

in Europe on June 27, 2008 and in North America on March 16, 2009. A port for the

Atari Jaguar CD The Atari Jaguar CD is a CD-ROM peripheral for the Jaguar video game console. Atari announced a CD-ROM drive for the Jaguar before the console's November 1993 launch. Codenamed Jaguar II during development, the Jaguar CD was released on Septemb ...

was under development by Teque London, but work on the port was discontinued sometime in 1995 and it was never released.

Reception

''Summer Games II'' was Epyx's second best-selling Commodore game as of late 1987 after ''

Winter Games ''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'' ...

''. ''

Ahoy! ''Ahoy!'' was a computer magazine published between January 1984 and January 1989 in the US, focusing on all Commodore color computers, but especially the Commodore 64 and Amiga. History The first issue of ''Ahoy!'' was published in January 1 ...

'' stated that "the production values of ''Summer Games II'' are absolutely top of the line, even better than the original ''Summer Games''". The magazine cited equestrian and fencing as the best events, and concluded that it "covers itself with glory from the familiar opening ceremony to the closing festivities. Put simply, if you own a Commodore 64, this disk is a must".

References

External links

* *
Images of ''Summer Games II'' box, manual and screen shots
{{Epyx Games series 1985 video games Amiga games Amstrad CPC games Apple II games Atari ST games Cancelled Atari Jaguar games Commodore 64 games DOS games Epyx games Summer Olympic video games Teque London games U.S. Gold games Video game sequels Video games developed in the United States Virtual Console games ZX Spectrum games Multiplayer and single-player video games

Gameplay

Ports

Reception

See also

References

External links