Previous Next

The latest in Epyx's now slightly tired athletic sims to appear on the Amiga is linked to the long forgotten Seoul Olympics, which is a shame because it's an improvement on their recent releases.

The Games: Summer Edition allows you to compete in eight events: archery, cycling, the parallel bars, the rings, the pole vault, diving, the hammer and the 400m hurdles.

You may practise any event before bidding for gold against the computer or friends. Each player chooses which country to represent and then proceeds to the game. Several of the events are standard waggle-type games but some require careful practice with the joystick before progress can be made.

Graphics are extremely varied due to the different events and are always to an exceptionally high standard. Animation is beautifully smooth, and there's plenty of it too. There are some nice graphic touches too, as in the archery event, when a mole appears cursing in Korean if you bury an arrow in the ground. Sound is also good, and although spot effects are occasionally a little lacking the myriad of excellent tunes more than makes up for this.

Epyx have introduced new twists to some events that set The Games: Summer Edition out from the rest. For example, in the hurdles and cycling the track moves relative to your athlete (rather than the other way round) by use of some excellent 3D routines.

Sensible control systems make it easy to get into the game straight away but cleverly designed events mean that much practice will be required.

The little touches of humour and style are present, as in all Epyx games, and they really do help to keep the player hooked until you can boast absolute perfection.

One gripe is that the program is on two disks and it doesn't recognise the second disk drive which means that a reasonable amount of disk swapping is required, nevertheless The Games: Summer Edition is a useful multi-format sports simulation software and I don't hesitate to recommend it.