A collection of Epyx sports titles that I am very familiar with, having played them all in my childhood (to various degrees of success), and then re-buying them again in my thirties – they currently (sadly) reside in storage until we get a bigger place! - this collection is a pretty meaty one, with over 50 sports events spread across 8 titles:
• Summer Games (1984) - The original competition
• Summer Games II (1985) - Return and go for gold
• Winter Games (1985) - Canada's slopes provide the greatest challenge
• World Games (1986) - Take on the globe
• Championship Wrestling (1986) - It's clobbering time
• California Games (1987) - The raddest, most totally tubular events ever
• The Games – Winter Edition (1988) - Take to the slopes once more
• The Games – Summer Edition (1988) - The ultimate athletic tournament
each have modern, quality of life features, such as:
• Display filters (including retro CRT filters) and scaling options (including aspect-ratio-corrected and full screen options)
• Recreated game boxes - rotate to view from any angle
• Fully integrated game instruction manuals
• Save games - save and restore your games at any point
• Right- and left-handed control presets
For those that remember these games, they can be...finicky. You’ll definitely be referring to the rules for each event in order to ensure that you don’t make a mockery of yourself in front of the other players with you (the game supports up to eight).
The original presentation and gameplay is perfectly emulated here, and makes use of a virtual keyboard for name entry. I was also impressed by the fact that the game plays a snippet of the national anthem for whichever country is selected, which is a cool touch.
Being emulated C64 games, each event relies on eight directions and a single button – you may think this easy but believe me when I say that you’ll be rifling through the instructions for each event, after all, these are micro-computer ports and take no prisoners!
The audio and visuals are spot-on and very nostalgic, but the real heart of the matter here is whether you have any love for these games from the days of old. Of all the retro-leaning titles I’ve covered, and all the vintage system collections, EPYX Sports Collection is possibly one of the most niche, as these are all very dated, and the mileage that you get out of them very much relies on your personal history with them.
SUMMARY
The level of challenge and sheer specificity in the controlling of each event means that this is unlikely to win any new fans over, but as a collection of titles from the C64 heyday, it could be a treasure trove of gold (medals) to some.
Fairly priced and with a nice amount of content, this is a pleasant (and challenging!) blast from the past.
6.5/10
💧MELTING💧
PURCHASE LINK:
The Epyx Games – Sports Collection | Nintendo Switch download software | Games | Nintendo UK
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