Winter Games

Moby ID: 1215
DOS Specs
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Description official descriptions

Another in the series of Epyx Olympic sports games. Compete in many different sporting events: Ski Jump, Hot Dog, Biathlon, Bobsled, Free Skating, Figure Skating, and more.

Spellings

  • ウインターゲームズ - Japanese spelling

Groups +

Screenshots

Promos

Credits (Atari ST version)

4 People

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 71% (based on 33 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.6 out of 5 (based on 127 ratings with 0 reviews)

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Discussion

Subject By Date
How to play it? Nowhere Girl (8680) Aug 6, 2012
Any way to get the game today? Sam d Dec 23, 2008

Trivia

Memory

The Atari 2600 version of Winter Games, released in the later years of Atari's dominance in the Home Video Game market, was one of a handful of games that used 16K of memory! The Atari 2600 had been designed to only run cartridges of 2K and 4K in size. Games that were written to exceed that 4K memory limitation required the "bank swapping" technique in order to access 8K, 12K, and even 16K game cartridges.

Memory was still expensive in the 1980's, yet the public wanted more and more advanced games, especially since it had been several years now since the release of the many popular 8-bit home computer systems that had been flooding the market and reducing in cost. And with the Nintendo Entertainment System having just been released, the Atari 2600 was beginning to look very dated. In order to satisfy the public’s craving for games requiring increasing amounts of memory, creating a bigger game for the Atari 2600 was the only way to do it.

In order to handle the expansiveness of their games, Epyx released all three of their Olympic-based games with multiple ROM chips equaling the necessary 16K. Using bank-swapping, the various ROM chips could be accessed and swapped as needed. And all of it was embedded within a standard-sized Atari 2600 Cartridge!

Speed

As of 2000, the game (as all of the Epyx olympic game series) is completely speed throttled even for the fastest computers.

Awards

  • Commodore Force
    • December 1993 (Issue 13) – #87 “Readers' Top 100”
  • Computer Gamer
    • February 1986 (issue #17) - Included in the list Spectrum Collection (the best Spectrum ZX games since 1985 by editorial staff choice)
  • Happy Computer
    • Issue 02/1986 - #5 Best Game in 1985 (Readers' Vote)
    • Issue 04/1987 - #8 Best Game in 1986 (Readers' Vote)

Information also contributed by SirOrlando

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Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 1215
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by jeff leyda.

Commodore 64 added by Quapil. Amiga added by POMAH. Antstream added by firefang9212. Atari 7800 added by RKL. Amstrad CPC, MSX, Atari ST, ZX Spectrum added by Martin Smith. Wii added by gamewarrior. PC-88, Apple II added by Terok Nor. NES, Atari 2600 added by Servo. Macintosh added by Scaryfun. DOS added by Kayburt. Apple IIgs added by Garcia.

Additional contributors: Sciere, Foxhack, Patrick Bregger, Jo ST, FatherJack.

Game added March 28, 2000. Last modified March 1, 2024.