These days, people think it was the Nintento Wii that
brought families together to play computer games... Wrong!
Back in the 80’s there was a sudden boom of Olympic sporting
games. Epyx were famous for the Winter
and Summer Games series (amongst many others), Activision brought out Decathlon,
and Ocean had a series of Daley Thompson themed Olympic titles. Each of these games would allow a number of
players to compete against one another in several events. Many
are infamous for causing joysticks to break due to the vigorous waggling of the
joystick necessary to play the events!
Of course, at the time these games came out, I only had a
Commodore Plus 4, and none of those great games came out on that system (ok, besides
the joystick-unfriendly Daley Thompsons Star Events). I remember a friend of the family bringing
his Commodore 128 round to our house one evening, and showing us Summer Games,
and I was wishing something similar would come out on our beloved Plus 4.
It took a while, but in 1986 it finally happened. Udo Gertz, programmer for some great
Commodore Plus 4 games such as Tom Thumb and Ghost Town finally released Winter
Events, published by Anco (remember them?)
The game featured six events, consisting of Biathlon,
Slalom, Ski Jump, Speed Skating, Bobsled and Down Hill Skiing, all featuring
some of the best graphics ever seen on the system. Indeed, some rivalled that of Epyx’s very own
Winter Games.
The opening ceremony
The game starts with a very impressive opening ceremony,
showing an athlete lighting the Olympic torch.
Although very impressive, I have never understood why the theme tune to
the TV show Dallas is played during this!
Menu
Once the introduction is finished, you are then taken to the
Menu screen. From here you can select
the number of players (1-4), choose whether you want to compete in all the
events, or just a few. You can also
practice an event, and load/save your world records to tape or disk. Once you have selected the game mode, you
then have to enter your name and select the country you wish to play for. Once all of that is done, it’s time to play
the events.
Biathlon
The first event was the Biathlon, and it was probably one of
my favourites. It’s a simple event that
had you moving the joystick left and right to ski (and up and down to ski down
hills). You had to complete six laps of
the course (each lap being only 3 screens long!), and occasionally take part at
shooting targets with your rifle. Quite
odd that your character was green though!
Slalom
Next is the Slalom.
While most games of this type viewed the course from an aerial view, this
one had the camera directly behind the skier (just like a car simulator), and
had you swerving between the flags at crazy speeds! Quite difficult at first, but once you’ve
learnt the course it is easy to complete in a fast time without having any
faults.
Ski Jump
On to the next event – The Ski Jump. Pretty simple this time. Press fire to begin down the slope, and just
as you’re about to reach the end, press the fire button again to jump. You then needed to use the joystick to
position the ski jumper so that he aerodynamically flew through the air, and
then land straight, otherwise your jumper would crash on landing.
Speed Skating
Speed Skating is the next event, and it also was my least
favourite. Simply move the joystick left
and right in time to the skater’s legs. Fortunately this wasn’t your typical joystick
waggler, so there was no need to frantically move the joystick (and risk
breaking it!) This was also the only
event in Winter Events which allowed you to play two players at the same time,
assuming you had two joysticks.
Bobsled
Onwards to the Bobsled event. This is another of my favourites. The screen was split in to two sections. A map of the course was shown on the right,
and your progress was indicated by a red line.
The left side of the screen was a cutaway view of the track, with the
camera directly behind the bobsled. As
you would approach each bend, you had to compensate using the joystick so that
you didn’t flip over. Great fun!
Downhill
Finally, the last event was the Downhill. This was very similar to the Slalom event,
except you did not need to swerve between the flags. It’s all pretty much downhill, travelling as
fast as you could without colliding with any trees. As with the Slalom, once you had memorised
the course, it was very easy to complete in a fast time.
The final results
And that’s it. Once
all the events were completed, a final screen would be displayed showing your
character(s) on the podium, and the final results.
Now as most of you know, I hate sport with a passion. However, I and my family would play this for
hours and it was great because it was once of the few occasions that would
bring us all together. We spent
countless hours playing this, and it was fortunate that Udo Gertz released a
sequel not long later – Summer Events.
A wonderful game, that still plays well today. I really miss those days when all four of us would sit around the living room TV playing this.
The cover
Instructions
The tape.
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