Winter Olympics (video game)

For the Tynesoft game, see Winter Olympics (1986 video game).

Winter Olympics, released in the United States as Winter Olympic Games, is the official video game of the XVII Olympic Winter Games in Lillehammer, Norway.^[1] All versions were published by U.S. Gold. It was released in North America in 1993 for the Amiga, Sega Genesis, and IBM PC compatibles. Ports to the Game Gear, Sega Genesis, Master System, and Super Nintendo Entertainment System followed. The game includes 10 winter sporting events. Players can represent countries from all over the world.

Winter Olympics
Developer(s)	Abstract Images Unexpected Development Tiertex Design Studios
Publisher(s)	U.S. Gold
Platform(s)	Amiga, Genesis, Game Boy, Super NES, Game Gear, MS-DOS, Master System
Release	Amiga NA: 1993 Genesis NA: 1993 EU: 1994 MS-DOS NA: 1993 EU: 1994 Game Boy NA: January 1994 EU: 1994 SNES NA: February 1994 EU: February 24, 1994 Game Gear NA: 1994 EU: 1994 Master System NA: 1994 EU: 1995
Genre(s)	Sports
Mode(s)	Single-player, multiplayer

Gameplay

The player can train freely and compete in both full or mini (events selected by the player) Olympics. During competition, there are both medals and points tables. While in Olympic Gold points were awarded according to the medals table, in Winter Olympics they were given according to the best results, like decathlon. Doing so, it was perfectly possible to someone win the gold medal in short track, and get few more points than other skaters (even not finalists) that got better qualifying times. This scoring method also meant that someone who won gold medals in six or seven events might fall outside the top 10 if disqualified on the remaining three.

Events

1. Downhill
2. Giant Slalom
3. Super G
4. Slalom
5. Bobsled
6. Luge
7. Freestyle moguls (console versions only)
8. Ski jumping
9. Biathlon
10. Short track

Playable nations

1.   Australia
2.   Austria
3.   Brazil
4.   Canada
5.   Finland
6.   France
7.   Germany
8.   Great Britain
9.   Italy
10.   Japan
11.   Norway
12.   Russia
13.   Spain
14.   Sweden
15.   Switzerland
16.   United States

Development

Major differences between versions stemmed from U.S. Gold's choice to use two companies developing different versions of the game separately. Additionally, Tiertex Design Studios wrote original code for each platform instead of porting. Amongst major differences, freestyle moguls are different on the 16-bit versions, and overall the Super NES version is much more unforgiving than the Genesis version, while the Master System version allows better control on alpine skiing events.

References

1. Joachim Froholt (1 February 2014). "Lillehammer fikk et skuffende OL-spill" (in Norwegian). Game. Retrieved 4 April 2017.