Year:  1986

Developer:  Epyx

Number of Players:  1-2

I have never been a big fan of winter sports.  However, with the 2022 Winter Olympics going on, I decided to dig through my game library and pick one to play.  I found Winter Games in the pile and decided to give it a try.  Apparently there were multiple versions of this game released on different platforms.  This version, while functional, is far from great.

The NES version of the game has four events to choose from.  Bobsled has you racing down a track while trying not to flip over.  Speed skating has you racing around the track against an opponent.  Figure Skating gives you a time limit to perform as many moves as possible.  Finally, Hot Dog Aerial is basically ski jumping and doing tricks in the air before you land.  While not a bad list of events, other versions of this game had more and double the events to choose from.

The controls for each event vary and for the most part we easy to figure out.  Figure skating was a little harder to do but with an online guide I got the hang of it.  Besides doing each event individually, you can do a tournament mode where you pick a country and do all the events in a row.  The tournament mode can be done with two players.  That is the extent of content for this game.

A with most early NES games, I can and will forgive the graphics.  They get the job done, but they are nothing spectacular.  The menus are also basic in their design.  The same can be said the the audio in this game.  I did like the opening scene for the game where the athlete lights the Olympic flame. 

I have mixed feelings about this game.  On one hand, it is a winter sports game that allows you to play four different events.  You can do this solo or against another player.  On the other hand, their are other versions of this game that just have more content to it.  Not a terrible game to add to your NES collection, but there are better options out there for winter sports games.