Do you remember the old days of those Olympics-style games on old PCs and consoles? The ones with a bunch of games with arcane controls and objectives that if you mastered, you were truly the master of gaming? Or did you ever play Justin Smith’s Realistic Summer Sports Simulator ($1.99) and want a game that was based around winter sports and perhaps a bit more faithful to the source material, perhaps more of a subtle parody than anything? Well, Retro Winter Sports 1986 is the game for you.
Having played some of Retro Winter Sports 1986, it’s interesting because it’s hard to quantify whether it’s good or not. It’s good in that it nails the theme perfectly. And the game certainly requires a lot of practice to do well at, with tough controls to deal with in the game’s six events. Is the game itself “good" in the sense of what we’d consider a good, modern game to be? Eh, probably not. But it sure does nail what those old sports compilation games felt like. And it features the two best winter sports events: curling and the biathlon (where you ski a bunch, then shoot some stuff, then ski some more), so it’s pretty cool.
Retro Winter Sports 1986 will hit the App Store on December 8th, featuring six sports in total, 8-player hotseat multiplayer, and the ability to play as the Soviet Union, comrades!
