Winter Games is an ambitious port of the Epyx computer
game of the same name. The sports featured are Slalom,
Bobsled, Ski Jump, Biathlon, Speed Skating, Hot Dog, and
Luge. You can play the events in order, or practice them
individually.
Depending on the sport, the graphics vary in quality.
However, all the graphics are colorful and nicely detailed.
Three of the sports use graphic variations of other events
to save space. The Bobsled and Luge graphics are particularly
nice using a "warp" effect to show the turns in the course.
Sound is middle of the road, being niether exciting or
annoying. The controls vary for each event. You'll want
to look them up before playing, as not all of them are
intuitive.
The individual events vary in depth and fun. Slalom, while
graphicly superior to Activision's Skiing game,
is too simplistic to be much fun on its own. Bobsled,
my favorite event, is quite fun and offers an excellent
sense of speed. Luge is just like Bobsled with some variations
in the controls. The rest of the events are for the most
part just okay.
While not as fun as the Commodore 64 version (and missing
figure skating), the 2600 version of Winter Games
is pretty good in its own right, and impressive that it
exists at all.
2008 ben langberg, all rights reserved.