Previous Next

Can Winter Games on the Spectrum be as good as the C64 version? And what's this - another contender in the computer Winter Olympics called Winter Sports? C&VG's reviewers waxed their skis, watched a couple of Ski Sundays on BBC2, and prepared to go on the piste for a battle royale between these two snowbound sports simulations!

First, let's take a look at the events you get in both packages.

Winter Games gives you Figure Skating, Free Skating, Speed Skating, Hot Dog, acrobatic stunt ski-ing, Ski-Jumping, Biathlon and Bobsled.

Winter Sports gives you three sorts of ski-ing, Slalom, Giant Slalom and Downhill, plus Ice Hockey, Speed Skating, Ski-Jumping, Bobsled and the Biathlon.

First we have to say that the figure and free skating events in Winter Games are pretty pathetic on the Spectrum version reviewed. The skating figure is simplistic and the backgrounds boring. The good news is that you don't have to bother with these two events unless you want to compete in everything for an overall score.

The quality of the games improve by leaps and bounds once you've got over the skating. The ski-jump, hot dog, biathlon, bobsled and speed skating events have similar graphics to the C64.

My favourite event is the Biathlon - a combination of cross country ski-ing and rifle-shooting. The idea is to complete a cross country course in the quickest time - at the same time hitting as many targets as possible along the way. The Winter Games version has a "pulse" feature which measures how tired your skier is getting.

You must wait until you pulse rate has dropped to around 80 before attempting to shoot at targets. Otherwise, the crosshair sight governed by your pulse rate will be jumping up and down across the target at an impossible speed! You can make sure your pulse isn't racing by ensuring your ski-ing action between rifle shooting sections is as smooth and controlled as possible.

Next best event is the Bobsled - extremely difficult to do right and featuring some excellent graphics. You see a plan view of the course with a marker showing your position on - or off - it.

Hot Dog ski-ing is, to say the least, different and challenging. Speed skating is a bit like those bike racing events in other sports simulations. You've got to get the rhythm right to be any good. Ski-jumping is fun too.

If the figure and free skating are a disappointment in Winter Games then the Ice Hockey feature in Winter Sports is equally unattractive. The teams are matchstick men and the game itself is too simplistic to be challenging. Much too easy to score goals against a computer opponent.

Up to four players can compete in Winter Games, two in Winter Sports. Both games give you high score tables, but only Winter Games has the useful practice mode for events.

So which package gets the gold? For our money the Winter Games conversion just has the edge on presentation and playability - despite the naff skating bits.

Winter Sports comes a close second, however, because it features straight ski-ing games.

How can you have winter sports without downhill ski-ing? Excuse me while I go back to waxing my skis...