Despite being more than a decade old, The Games: Winter Challenge remains today one of the best winter sport games ever made.

In the same spirit as the popular Epyx sports series, Winter Challenge includes a wide variety of sports, all of which you can practice before the tournament starts: two types of bobsled, downhill skiing, slalom, cross-country skiing, biathlon, speed skating, and ski jump. Choose your event, train for your best effort, then compete against friends or computer opponents.

In addition to a very user-friendly interface, Winter Challenge deserves high marks for excellent graphics, which combines vector, bitmap, and hand-drawn styles to create excellent illusion of 3D action. Joystick support is also excellent, and there are many great sound effects, such as the swooshing while you ski, that add a lot of atmosphere to the game. Last but not least, the animations are very realistic?you will observe the ski tucking, poling, and skating steps quite easily. The ski jump and bobsled are my favorite events, but all of them are fun. An elapsed time clock lets you track your performance in both practice and tournament modes. Overall, a solid game that is definitely a must-have for anyone who likes winter sports. Too bad the game was released a bit too early to take advantage of an official Olympics license ? it was one year before the Albertville 1992 Games took place. Two thumbs up!