''Winter Games'' is a 1985

sport Sport is a physical activity or game, often Competition, competitive and organization, organized, that maintains or improves physical ability and skills. Sport may provide enjoyment to participants and entertainment to spectators. The numbe ...

video game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...

developed by

Epyx Epyx, Inc. was a video game developer and video game publisher active in the late 1970s and 1980s. The company was founded in 1978 as Automated Simulations by Jim Connelley and Jon Freeman, publishing a series of tactical combat games. The Epyx ...

and released in

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

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 ...

. A snow-and-ice themed follow-up to the highly successful '' Summer Games'', ''Winter Games'' was released in 1985 for the

Commodore 64 The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit computing, 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7–10, 1982, in Las Vegas). It has been listed in ...

and later ported to several popular

home computer Home computers were a class of microcomputers that entered the market in 1977 and became common during the 1980s. They were marketed to consumers as affordable and accessible computers that, for the first time, were intended for the use of a s ...

s and

video game console A video game console is an electronic device that Input/output, outputs a video signal or image to display a video game that can typically be played with a game controller. These may be home video game console, home consoles, which are generally ...

s of the 1980s. Based on sports featured in the

Winter Olympic Games The Winter Olympic Games (), also known as the Winter Olympics, 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 held in ...

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

IOC The International Olympic Committee (IOC; , CIO) is the international, non-governmental, sports governing body of the modern Olympic Games. Founded in 1894 by Pierre de Coubertin and Demetrios Vikelas, it is based in L ...

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 Slalom is an alpine skiing and alpine snowboarding discipline, involving skiing between poles or gates. These are spaced more closely than those in giant slalom, super-G, super giant slalom and Downhill (ski competition), downhill, necessitating ...

Ski jumping Ski jumping is a winter sport in which competitors aim to achieve the farthest jump after sliding down on their skis from a specially designed curved ramp. Along with jump length, competitor's aerial style and other factors also affect the final ...

Biathlon The biathlon is a winter sport that combines cross-country skiing and rifle shooting. It is treated as a race, with contestants skiing through a cross-country trail whose distance is divided into shooting rounds. The shooting rounds are not ti ...

Bobsled Bobsleigh or bobsled is a winter sport in which teams of 2 to 4 athletes make timed speed runs down narrow, twisting, banked, iced tracks in a gravity-powered sleigh. International bobsleigh competitions are governed by the International Bobs ...

Figure skating Figure skating is a sport in which individuals, pairs, or groups perform on figure skates on ice. It was the first winter sport to be included in the Olympic Games, with its introduction occurring at the Figure skating at the 1908 Summer Olympi ...

Speed skating Speed skating is a competitive form of ice skating in which the competitors race each other in travelling a certain distance on skates. Types of speed skating are long-track speed skating, short-track speed skating, and marathon speed skat ...

Luge A luge () is a small one- or two-person sled on which one sleds Supine position, supine (face-up) and feet-first. A luger begins seated, propelling themselves initially from handles on either side of the start ramp, then steers by using the Ca ...

Freestyle skiing Freestyle skiing is a skiing discipline comprising aerials, Mogul Skiing, moguls, Ski Cross, cross, Half-pipe skiing, half-pipe, slopestyle and big air as part of the Freestyle skiing at the Winter Olympics, Winter Olympics. It can consist of a ...

; the aerial skiing discipline, called "Hot Dog Aerials" in the game *

Free skating The free skating segment of figure skating, also called the free skate and the long program, is the second of two segments of competitions, skated after the short program. Its duration, across all disciplines, is four minutes for senior skaters ...

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

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

to the

Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers produced by Commodore International, Commodore from 1985 until the company's bankruptcy in 1994, with production by others afterward. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16-b ...

Apple II Apple II ("apple Roman numerals, two", stylized as Apple ][) is a series of microcomputers manufactured by Apple Computer, Inc. from 1977 to 1993. The Apple II (original), original Apple II model, which gave the series its name, was designed ...

, 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 The commonly shortened to the Famicom Disk System, is a peripheral for Nintendo's Nintendo Entertainment System, Family Computer (Famicom) home video game console, released in Japan on February 21, 1986. The system uses proprietary floppy disk ...

video game consoles. In 2004, it was featured as one of the games on the

C64 Direct-to-TV The C64 Direct-to-TV, called C64DTV for short, is a single-chip implementation of the Commodore 64 computer, contained in a joystick (modeled after the mid-1980s Competition Pro joystick), with 30 built-in games. The design is similar to the At ...

. A

Virtual Console The Virtual Console was a line of downloadable retro video games for Nintendo's Wii and Wii U home video game consoles and the Nintendo 3DS family of handheld systems. The Virtual Console lineup consisted of titles originally released on pa ...

version was released in Europe in February 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 Info is shorthand for "information Information is an Abstraction, abstract concept that refers to something which has the power Communication, to inform. At the most fundamental level, it pertains to the Interpretation (philosophy), interpr ...

'' 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 ''Zzap!64'' is a computer games magazine covering games for computers manufactured by Commodore International, especially the Commodore 64 (C64). It was published in the UK by Newsfield Publications Ltd and later by Europress Impact. The magazi ...

'' 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 A dragon is a Magic (supernatural), magical legendary creature that appears in the folklore of multiple cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but European dragon, dragons in Western cultures since the Hi ...

'' #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 Next Generation or Next-Generation may refer to: Publications and literature * ''Next Generation'' (magazine), video game magazine that was made by the now defunct Imagine Media publishing company * Next Generation poets (2004), list of young ...

'' 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 Atelier Double games Commodore 64 games Epyx games Famicom Disk System games Incredible Technologies games MSX games Nintendo Entertainment System games Single-player video games Skiing video games U.S. Gold games Video games developed in the United States Virtual Console games Winter Olympic video games Winter sports video games ZX Spectrum games