The Games: Summer Edition - Rerelease
Copyright/Publisher: Kixx/Epyx, Programmers: Ed Chu, Peter Engelbrite, Kevin Furry, Carl Mey,
Scott Nelson, Kevin Norman & Chuck Sommerville, Graphic Artists: Suzie Greene,
Sheryl Knowles, Art Koch, Muffy McCosh, Matthew Sarconi, Steve Snyder &
Paul Vernon, Music & Sound Effects: Chris Ebert, Chris Grigg & Bob Vieira,
Rerelease Year: 1991, Genre: Multi Events, Number Of Players: 1 to 8

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 rerelease 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 (multiloaded 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.


INTRO SCREEN

OVERALL 45%