Games, The: Winter Challenge Download (1991 Sports Game)

Brave the chills and spills of winter sports from the comfort of your home or office with The Games: Winter Challenge. Eight events are available: Downhill Skiing, Giant Slalom, Ski Jump, Bobsled, Luge, Biathlon (a combination of skiing and target shooting), Cross Country Skiing and Speed Skating.

One-third of the screen for each event provides an overhead view of the entire course and your progress within; the viewpoint of the event itself is from a behind-the-competitor perspective.

In certain events, the faster you push the joystick button (or the enter key), the faster your athlete will go. In events such as the Giant Slalom, wind resistance is a factor and you can maintain a "tucked" position for increased velocity.

Ten competitors are required for tournament play, meaning you can invite up to nine friends to join in the fun. If less than 10 human players are entered, the computer will provide the rest. Computer-generated opponents are ranked (amateur, professional or world class) according to speed, stamina, and style.

Prior to competing in tournament competition, you may want to hone your Winter Challenge skills via Training Mode, which lets you practice the events in any order as many times as you deem necessary.

You can analyze your performance (fast or slow, forward or backward) in The Games: Winter Challenge at any time by using a special Replay option. You can also save your replays and, perhaps more importantly, your progress in tournaments.

An Olympiad game simulating common winter game competitions - the Downhill, Giant Slalom, Luge, 2-men Bobsled, Ski Jump, Cross Country, Biathlon and Speed Skating.

The game features a basic 3D engine which allows to simulate slopes with ease, which enhances the gameplay of some events such as the Downhill. Gameplay, as expected from a Winter sports game, relies on finding the faster trajectories in most events (Downhill, Giant Slalom, Luge and Bobsled), pacing the run correctly (Cross Country and Biathlon), skill and timing (Ski Jump), with button mashing reserved for just one (speed skating). The player (up to ten) can select his (or her) competitor face and nationality from one of 16 possible choices, and by selecting different difficulty settings, different computer controlled athletes take part in the competition along the player.

There is not much to be said about Accolade's Winter Challenge. In the late eighties and early nineties, Accolade was making only sports games like Cycles, Grand Prix Circuit, Summer Challenge and so on. Winter Challenge is just one in the successful series.

It's packed with various events ranging from bobsled to ski jumps, biathlon, speed skating, all kinds of slaloms and so on. You can pretty much see all the available events on the first screenshot. As is usually the case with Accolade games, Winter Challenge is very well programmed. There are no bugs, glitches or errors - everything just runs smoothly.

The accompanying sounds are not the best I've heard, but they are pretty good nonetheless. Graphics are similar to those in Summer Challenge, except perhaps with a little less detail, but that's OK, since it is a year older.

The controls are typical for this genre: Keyboard smashing is inevitable in some events, such as speed skating or biathlon. However, it's still within reasonable levels. Also, you will have to learn some pretty difficult techniques in order to compete against world-class opponents.

You can also play against your friends or play with your friends against computer opponents.

All in all, this is a flawless game that doesn't fall back on any categories. Thus a mark of 4 and a strong recommendation!

All the major winter sports on one place. Downhill, slalom, cross country... 8 of them if I remember right in this "Olympic games simulation". Play it alone or with friends and try to be the best. Very enjoyable sport game with a lot of fun. Personal recommendation. Note: You may experience trouble when You want to start the new competition. To avoid this select the SETUP option in the game and then go back to main menu. It will work properly.

You compete in what is a mini version of the Winter Olympic games, taking part in 8 different events. You have the option of training in certain events so that you can get better results or you can straight out go and enter the tournament which consists of you competing in all 8 events - which are Luge, Downhill, Cross Country, Bobsled, Speed Skating, Giant Slalom, Biathlon and Ski Jump. Gold, Silver, and Bronze medals are awarded for each event, and if you don't get a place in the top 3 times, or the top 3 scores then you simply receive nothing.

Did you ever want to compete in the Winter Olympics? Did you ever want to ski or skate for your own country? Well, this is the time, this is the place. There's nothing to tell about this game really. Just try it out, I'd say and you can tell wether you like it or not. By the way, if you're looking for something that's a bit warmer, try Summer Games.

How to run this game on modern Windows PC?

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