Games of Christmas Past : Winter Games
US Gold/Epyx / 1985 / Originally £9.99 (£14.99 disk) / Commodore 64
Ding-dong-merrily-on-high, it’s another round of Christmas games on Antiques for Geeks! It’s been a while! Hope you’re well! Pull up a seat and let us tell you all about the games you couldn’t avoid owning, even if you wanted to!
Oddly, Christmas was not a rich vein of games for me. Whilst each year, festive editions of Zzap! 64, Commodore User or Commodore Computing International would tantalise with reviews for me to read, the games featured in them were not as readily forthcoming in the form of presents. No, as gifts, anything computing related would favour hardware purchases and whenever there was software bought, invariably it would be productivity titles. I think I was the only kid in my class that Santa decided needed Kindwords 2 for the Amiga in 1989.
Yes, while I was given the gift of word processing, everyone else was getting into Batman.
This time of year wasn’t a complete dearth of fun however. 1987 stood out as a vintage year; on Christmas Day morning that year, as it resolutely refused to snow outside, I unwrapped a compilation from US Gold. Solid Gold contained five of the publisher’s best-selling titles from the previous two years and offered them for the same price as a new game. As we know, especially with US Gold, best selling doesn’t always mean good, but there wasn’t a dud in the selection. I could wax lyrical about the different titles [And he did. For months. -Meat] but there were two that stood out from the others. Gauntlet and Winter Games.
Winter Games had been released for the C64 by Epyx in America during 1985 and had sold very well. Putting this on a compilation for Christmas in 1987 meant another bite at the sales cherry, but the timing was also well observed. After all, 1988 was an Olympic year...
Unlike later titles published by US Gold, Winter Games had no official licencing in place. Instead of playing out the Olympics, you are officially playing out a fictional event that by pure coincidence, pretty much mirrors the real Winter Olympics sanctioned by the International Olympic Committee. Complete with opening and medal ceremonies. Coincidentally, it’s also set in Calgary, Alberta, Canada in 1988, which just happened to be the location chosen for that year’s actual Winter Olympics. What are the odds?
Yes, there is an opening ceremony; it’s a rehash of the one used in Summer Games, but that’s not a bad thing at all. Once the Olympic, erm, Winter Games flame is lit and doves released, it’s off to select your events.
Players can attempt all events, playing a combination of the seven events, just the one, or settle for practising. Generally, playing the game meant playing through all of the events. Winter Games is a heavy multi-load on the C64; in the US where a set-up with Commodore’s 1541 disk drive was ubiquitous this was irritating, but by no means, the end of the world. In the UK however, where most people used cassette, this was far more painful. Fortunately for US Gold, us Europeans didn’t know any better.
You can have up to eight players in one game; each can enter their name and select their country. In a nice touch, each player’s national anthem is played when selected; this is notably missing from the versions that were commissioned for the Spectrum and Amstrad CPC by US Gold. Personally, I always chose to compete under Epyx, mostly because it has a cool anthem and flag.
That done, it’s time to begin competing in the seven events...
Freestyle skiing at it’s finest, each player has three attempts to combine different moves to try and impress the judges who score your performance much like you see in figure skating. There are ten points available and the aim is, of course, to get as close to the maximum on at least one of your attempts. All to a syncopating rhythm, that I always imagined was blasting out from behind the crowd for the benefit of the TV cameras.
No, I’d never heard of Hot Dog Aerials before Winter Games, or after it.
This is far harder than it looks. Launching from a slope with some beautifully drawn mountains as your backdrop, it’s very, very easy to perform basic stunts and get a reasonable score in the seven and eight and half points. When you start combining stunts with flips, that’s when it becomes hard. Mix two flips and you’re into the solid nines - two flips in different directions will score you that magical maximum of ten points. However, time this wrong and you’ll end up in a heap of broken skis (and you’d expect, bones) at the bottom of the slope. Better to bank a simple combination guaranteeing you a score over nine points and then use your remaining two attempts to improve your score.
Although there is some competition for this, Biathlon is probably the strongest event all round in the game. The whole thing is incredibly pretty, split over three screens of cross-country skiing and a fourth in the shooting range. While this does involve a fair amount of joystick waggling (or destruction, if your joystick wasn’t microswitched), what is really nice is that this is not a matter of hammering away at the joystick as quickly as you possibly can.
Doesn’t your biathlete look so snazzy in his grey unitard with yellow go-faster-stripe?
To master this, you need to build a steady rhythm to get the most out of the flats and climbs. Shooting is tricky, with you having to cock and load your gun with a back and forward flick of the joystick, then fire when the automatic crosshair is in location. Miss and there is a five second time penalty for each incomplete target.
The challenge of combining these three disciplines is hard and initially can be very frustrating, but time and patience is rewarded. If you’re really good, you can finish the event in around two minutes. If you were me, then doing it in under three was an accomplishment.
Yeah, erm, not much to see here...
We’re now onto an event that is familiar to most; it’s a straight head to head sprint race against either the computer or your friends. There is more joystick waggling here and while it is a lot less subtle than the Biathlon, the key here is still rhythm to build and maintain speed. Go too fast, and the skater on the screen enters a kind of foetal position and does, well, nothing. This is a trap that is very easy to fall into and one that if you're playing against the computer, is punished as it does not make mistakes.
All said and done, this phase of the game is quite forgettable. That’s not because it’s bad, but because even in 1985 (and certainly in 1987) we’d seen this kind of thing over and over again. Sprinting in Activision’s Decathlon, sprinting in Daley Thompson’s Decathlon, sprinting in Summer Games. The looks also betrays its heritage - it could easily be the Rowing game from Summer Games II repurposed with new graphics. Coming after the visual feast of the first two events, it’s a bit of a let-down.
It all feels very transitory, almost like a mini-game to entertain you while another event loads. Even though it isn’t.
She’s beautifully animated, but that's where the excitement ends.
You have a minute to perform a programme of seven figure skating moves and score points. This plays out to a nice rendition of Tchaikovsky’s Waltz of the Flowers from the Nutcracker suite, with a skater making her way down an infinite rink. The animation of the skater is superb, much in the naturalistic vein of the player in Impossible Mission.
I must confess, I never understood the attraction of this event. It was for me the second most boring event in the game. The jumps and direction changes look great when executed correctly, but for me it seems hard to get anything over a three out of six. But as much as I disliked it, others loved it and I can see that for some, it’s a challenge, rather than something to endure.
Life comes down to a few moments...
Although I really like the Biathlon event, this was my absolute favourite. It looks stunning from the get-go, with a beautifully drawn side-on view of the ramp. The aim here is to control the jumper as skillfully as possible so that they can jump as far and as stylishly as possible. Timing is key to this event. You need to successfully launch your competitor off the ramp (if you fail, it ends with a comedic flump from the bottom of the ramp), then once in the air, the action changes to a view of the beautifully drawn landing zone and it becomes a matter of keeping your athlete at an optimal angle at all times. The game will try as it might to knock you off-course by having the jumper cross their skis, lean too far back or too far forward. The quicker you correct these problems, the more style points you score and also, the further you fly. If you don’t, then your skier ends up in a heap on the floor.
...and this is one of them.
Sounds a bit dull doesn’t it? But no. The whole thing has real atmosphere to it; the opening music is cinematic, inspiring even, with a thudding baseline that is just that little bit foreboding. Yes, it does bring out the nerves, the more invested in the game you become. I love the skill and reaction time required to make this game work and a good jump rewards you with a roar from the crowd. Turn in a really good performance with a roar and a fan-fare. What more could you want?
And from the sublime to the ridiculous. Another two minutes of skating induced tedium. A repeat of the Figure Skating game, albeit with funkier music and two minutes to do your programme of moves three times. Much like the saying about insanity, doing the same thing provides the same results; your skater jumps and pirouettes (or falls over) in the same way and an inevitable score of around three out of six is awarded.
This really is the low point of the game; unlike Speed Skating whose criticism is that it’s just a rehash of similar style events from other games, Free Skating manages to take all the frustration of Figure Skating and draw them out with the extra time. Beautifully presented, but painful to play.
The final event is a real white-knuckle ride. You control your bobsled down a run, trying to keep your speed up while ensuring you don’t crash. This is far easier said than done. You have no control over the braking of the sled and just need to make sure that you steer hard enough in the right direction to stop the sled from venturing too high up the sides of the course and wipe out.
Despite the action really only taking place in the upper left hand corner of the screen, at no point does this compromise the experience. That says a lot about the playability of the event...
The forces acting on the bobsled are modelled quite well here, especially considering the computing power available and there is a really good sense of speed from both the graphics and sound.
Learning the course so you can anticipate the turns is vital to getting a good time. With just three attempts to run the course, knowing it inside out guarantees the best results. You see Bobsled drivers before a run with their eyes closed, visualising the turns they have to complete? Yes, that’ll be you.
If you’re playing on tape, you’re at a massive disadvantage here, as it’s the final event on the tape and locating it is a chore to play as a single event or practice. Although the same for all events, being the it is felt most acutely here.
Still, it was an event that I really looked forward to playing and a fair few times was a winner-takes-all high stakes affair as a gold medial here might just seal overall victory at Winter Games.
In between each event you get a brief medal ceremony and if playing through the current overall standings. Unlike the events, this is a little bland and no doubt so you don’t have to load a bespoke medal ceremony after each sport. However, where something more substantial is missed most is at the end of the competition. It would have been great to have something more special and a closing ceremony (as was the case in Summer Games II), but here you have to make do with a ranking of players, a brief fanfare and the winner’s national anthem.
But in the scheme of things, this is a small gripe; when the games are presented so stylishly with beautifully fluid animation and a great musical score, you really can’t complain much. Epyx were one of the first companies that thought this kind of thing through - the graphics artists and sound designers worked alongside the software developers to produce a polished product rather than have them all work in isolation. Bear in mind also, that when developed in 1985, the do-it-all bedroom coder was still very much a thing. This approach was special.
For me and my friends, the game provided hours of entertainment; while perfectly possible to enjoy on your own, it really came into its own with many players. Given the different skills needed to compete in each game, there are players who could be terrible at one event, yet win the next. Interest doesn’t automatically wane, even with the skating events thrown in.
The game also sparked something else. Come February of 1988, much like the kids who run outside to play football after the FA Cup Final, I’d watch the antics of the athletes in Calgary at the Olympics on the TV, then hurriedly dig out Winter Games to give it another go. Even today I view the Winter Olympics with fondness, the 1988 event firmly imprinted on my psyche.
I may not have ever given ski jumping a go in real life but for a brief moment in the late 1980s, as the sun struggled over the horizon in the depths of a British Winter, Epyx’s game allowed me to soar like an eagle. Just like Eddie.
Eddie. Eddie ‘The Eagle’ Edwards. The British ski-jumper with the thick glasses. Yes, ski-jumper. The one they made that film about. What do you mean you’ve never heard of him?
Epyx really pushed the boat out, even if they didn’t have an official licence. The whole package feels so consistent - from the player selection screen right the way through to the final medal table.
Though there were sports games out there, they were mostly focussed on summer sports. Winter sports, even today, are less well serviced.
Hard to fault. The backgrounds are stunning, the player sprites fluid and well drawn. When it comes to criticism, we’re starting to come down to the way players prefer something to look, rather than thinking it looks bad. I know that I don’t much care for the way the speed skaters look, but that’s not to say they don’t look good to begin with.
Immerses you so far you don’t even care if you have to sit through the figure and free skating events.
Great music, superb sound effects. It doesn’t have the work of the mighty Rob Hubbard, but to be honest, it doesn’t need it.
This got played and played and played and played. Even now, it’s a go-to game on the Commodore 64.
Worth every single penny of the entrance fee.
Really hard to come to any other conclusion, even when taking into consideration it’s small faults. Epyx defined this kind of game in the 1980s, earning them their reputation and position as a well-loved developer. Had things worked out differently for the company, they might be on a similar scale to EA today, but hopefully without the loot boxes. I can’t help but wonder what would have happened; would have loved to have seen this series evolve over the years; Epyx Winter Games 2022 on the PlayStation 5 could have been epic (pun not intended).
Screenshots borrowed from Gamebase64 - playing this again for the review, I regressed to the junior me, became engrossed and forgot to take some screenshots. So kudos to them, and for spotting that the ZZap 64 review back in 1985 used screenshots from the Atari version.
