Winter Games (NES)

Winter Games Box Art

Winter Games

System: NES

Release Date: September 1987

Developer: Atelier Double

Publisher: Acclaim Entertainment

Genre: Sports

We’re on to Winter Games. I will preface this with a hearty Woof! This game does not work well on the NES. You start by picking your nationality and naming your character. Then you can choose to play all events, one event, or practice. I don’t think there’s much of a point to anything but playing all the events, because they’re all bad. You’d be better off turning the game off.

The best part of the game is the opening ceremony.

You start with Hot Dog Aerials, which is the ski jump. You have a few attempts at landing a combination of flips and tricks by pressing the d-pad in different directions. I was able to land it once, through great amounts of luck. Then you make your way to speed skating. You’re supposed to alternate pressing left and right, but I wasn’t able to do it quick enough to be competitive. Maybe my controller’s fault, maybe bad programming. I couldn’t tell.

Doing a Camel Spin in the Figure Skating.

Up next is figure skating. You’re supposed to skate forward or backward, then press the d-pad and the A Button to do a trick. I could land the double spins every once in awhile, but I couldn’t get anything else to work. The last event was the bobsled, which basically consists of holding left or right as you go around the turns. This was my best event. This game sucks.

Graphics: 0.5

Terrible. Just awful and bad.

Sound: 1.0

The music is okay when it exists. I can tell what it’s trying to be.

Gameplay: 0.0

The gameplay is basically broken. The instruction manual is of very little help on how to actually do land things.

Difficulty: 0.0

The game is broken.

Fun Factor: 0.0

Nope, no fun. Not even as a curio.

Overall Grade: 0.3

Winter games earns an E. It’s the worst game I’ve played up until this point. Terrible. I would have been PISSED if my parents had bought me this game as a child.

Winter Games Video Review on YouTube