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/ Genres / Action / The Games: Winter Challenge

The Games: Winter Challenge

DOS - 1991
Also available on: Genesis

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!

Review By HOTUD

Comments and reviews

Catchamouse 31 Mar. 2026

Here is the fix for strange behaviour of the game - https://mrwint.github.io/winter/patcher/index.html. Explanation is here - https://mrwint.github.io/winter/writeup/writeup.html. For example, third round in speed skating forcing player to wall or ski jump, where you can't jump over specific distance.

0
Vladimir 14 Mar. 2026

Thanк you! its worked!

0
Mike 19 Nov. 2020

Childhood memories.

4
Luuk S 08 Jun. 2019

why isn't the summer version on the site?

0
Santa Claus 08 Jan. 2017

Finishing the third lap in Speed Skating is not too hard if you know the technique, but you have to be careful. It helps if you slow down and steer heavily to the left (not too heavily, or you'll crash on that side...)

I think that way back in the old days, when I was happy to bash Enter and had the technique perfected, I could do the third lap without ever really stopping Enter-bashing; IIRC, my best times were around 38 seconds. But if you're getting close to the wall, the safe thing is to slow down extra (not hit Enter as often) and steer left. It's repeatedly smacking Enter that makes you hit the wall.

2
Bobby 19 Sep. 2016

It IS cracked.
Just enter setup in game first.
Train will not crash.

1
Troels 21 Aug. 2016

"Train" will crash the game.
Competition seems to work fine though.

-1
!!! 07 Mar. 2016

Haha, I remember the bobsleds coming off the track, too!
What a wonderful website.

1
OldschoolGamer 28 Jan. 2015

I remember this game being on the disc of my grandfather and we played it a lot together and I was laughing so much, when the bobsled suddenly has been thrown out from the racetrack because I was pushing it too high in the curves.

But what I did never understood is how to finish Speed Skating. No joke, but no matter from where I download this game my guy always gets slower in the 3rd round and then slides right into the wall and there is nothing I can do. I never was able to finish Speed Skating in my whole life! Is this a bug? What can I do?

4
FLAVIO 23 Nov. 2011

Il più bel gioco insieme a Summer di tutti i tempi. Giochi meravigliosi così non se ne vedono più nè ci saranno mai

2

No comment nor review for this game at the moment.

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Downloads

DOS version
Game file
United Kingdom English
614 KB
Genesis version
Game file
United Kingdom English
1 MB

Extras

Manual Manual 1
Extra file
DOS 46 MB English English

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