Retro Winter Sports 1986 is a Commodore 64 throwback [Game of the Week]

Do you remember the extremely old, clunky, and barely playable retro olympic games from the mid 1980s?

While I’m not old enough to have played titles like this when they were initially released, I spent much of my youth playing video games on a rapidly aging hardware, with Winter Games for the Commodore 64 being one of my favourite titles, particularly its multiplayer mode.

If you’re a fan of that era of gaming and looking for a throwback to the past, Retro Winter Sports 1986 is exactly the title for you. The game is interesting because it’s actually difficult to quantify if it’s a good game or not. It nails the retro theme perfectly, including pixelated visuals and an awkward control scheme, but it certainly isn’t a good title in the traditional sense. Retro Winter Sports feels like it was truly made in 1986, though that’s the point of the entire game.

What it is, however, is a masterfully crafted throwback that features six sports, including downhill skiing, speed skating, bobsledding and curling, just to name a few. In an interesting twist, the game also features 8-player hotseat multiplayer, allowing you to switch out locally with your friends.

While Winter Sports 1986 is far from what you’d typically consider a great game, it’s a nostalgic blast from the past that I’ve had a great time with, particularly when it comes to the downhill skiing game, though I haven’t been able to master the speed skating mini game yet.

Oh, and you can also play as the Soviet Union, so there’s that.

Retro Winter Sports 1986 is available in the iOS App Store for $1.99 and the Google Play Store for $2.39.

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