Zzap


The Games: Summer Edition
By Kixx
Commodore 64/128

 
Published in Zzap #76

The Games: Summer Edition

With the Olympics looming again - next year in Barcelona - there'll no doubt be plenty of multi-event sports games coming out. In the meantime, here's a disk re-release of one based on the last Olympics in Seoul (the cassette version has been out on budget for some time). There are eight varied events (multi-loaded from two disks): diving, gymnastics rings, asymmetric bars, hurdles, pole vault, hammer throw, archery and velodrome cycling. Sadly, the latter is the only event to allow simultaneous two-player action, otherwise it's taking turns with up to eight players chasing the medals.

As with any game of this type, Summer Games had to bear close comparison to previous classic Epyx multi-eventers, and first time around didn't exactly run away with a Gold Medal, getting only 49% in issue 44. Kati contemplated that Epyx "must really be getting desperate trying to think of more sports to simulate." Paul Glancey found some of the graphics "suffer from a bad attack of the blobs, and hardly any of the events require that much skill."

A neat Olympics opening sequence does add some panache, but most of the events are poorly implemented requiring little skill. Not a patch on the excellent Summer Games.