Summer Games

Summer Games
Game No.	84
Voting	8.70 points, 82 votes
Developer	Stephen H. Landrum
Company	Epyx
Publisher	Rushware (Germany), Epyx (USA), U.S. Gold (Europe)
Musician	Randy Glover
HVSC-File	Games/S-Z/Summer_Games.sid
Release	1984
Platform	Amstrad CPC, Apple II, Atari 800/2600/7800/XE/XL, C64, Mobile phone
Genre	Sports
Gamemode	Single player up to 8 players (in turns) 2 players (simultaneous)
Operation
Media
Language
Information	Follower: Summer Games II

Description

Introduction

Experience the challenge of the greatest sport competitions of the world: the "Olympic Games", whose origin lies in the ancient world and probably in the 2nd century B.C.. With the ceremonial opening ceremony the time starts for which you have worked and trained so long to compete with the best athletes in the world.

You will compete in the following events: Pole Vault, Platform Diving, 4x400m Relay, 100m Dash, Gymnastics, Freestyle Relay, 100m Freestyle and Skeet Shooting.

Background

Summer Games was the first multi event sports game by Epyx. Building on this title, Epyx began with the games series. Summer Games was based on the concept Sweat by Scott Nelson. It was the first game by Epyx on which a graphics designer worked (which crucially determined the way Epyx later developed their games), and one of the best games of this company at all.

Design

That a graphic artist took part in the development of the game, is straight away apparent. The movements of the sprites (athletes) are extremely subtle and smooth, a true pleasure to watch. Also the background graphics and the scrolling are super for this time (1984) - and this in a sports game. Furthermore, there are the different option screens which are kept simple but well-arranged. The "cherry on top" though, is the fact that you can choose the country for which you want to compete and that you can hear the hymn of this country (even if it is not always the right one). Also controlling the athletes is intuitively and realized fast.

You just have to look at the animation of the intro (right) . . .

Hints

Pole Vault

At Pole Vault you need to swing yourself upwards and cross the bar. Before the jump starts you need to confirm the height and define the grip type. After confirming that with the fire button the athlete starts to walk and the player will define when the pole is lowered, the athlete will swing up and when he lets go of the pole. IF the timing was precise the pole stays standing upright and the bar stays in its hold. With enough practice this discipline can be managed well, as the background graphics offer good leads for the timing.

Controls:

• Joystick downwards: pole lowers
• Joystick upwwards: athlete swings upwards
• Fire button: let go of the pole

Tips:

• the pole should be lowered when the red flag comes
• swing up at half height
• when pole is vertical, then let go

Platform Diving

The jump from the 10m tower unfortunately only contains somersaults with different speeds, so it is the most important thing to reach a clean plunge into the water (without splash). Four jumps need to be done:

1. Forward jump with fowards turn (Forward Dive)
2. Backward jump with backward turn (Backward Dive)
3. Forward jump with backward turn (Reverse Dive)
4. Backward jump with forward turn (Forward Dive)

Controls:

• Fire button for jumping
• Right for strongly crouched, fastest turn
• Down for the dived, second fastest turn
• Left for the slightly dived, second fastest turn
• Up for the stretched turn to plunge in

Tips:

• As beginner: after the jump (fire) go into the crouched turn (right) and then as short as possible before the water comes stretch out (up).

• As expert you can raise the difficulty multiplikator by shortly doing the other two turns:
• During the forward dive after jumping (fire) do an extremely short dive (down), turn fast for a long time (right) and shortly before the water comes dive slightly (left) and by stretching (up) as late es possible plunge in smoothly.
• During the backward dive it seems the best to first turn fast and then fluently go through the other turns shortly before plunging into the water.

(so you can reach each over 200 points with a multiplicator of 3.9 - 4.3)

4x400m Relay

At 4x400m Relay you tactically control the power resources of each runner and the handover of the stick. You start and speed up by pressing to the right, keep the speed through a neutral position and you save the powers by pressing to the left. Handing over the stick is done by fire button, when both runners are close to each other.

Controls:

• Joystick right: speed up
• Joystick left: rest
• Fire button: hand over the stick

Tips:

• Speed up until the energy bar gets grey, then rest for a short time until the bar is white again, then speed up....
• According to the manual the runner 1 recovers slower than runner 4 and runner 2 loses energy faster than runner 3.

100m Dash

The dash is the most straining discipline: the one who shakes fastest right/left is also the first on the finish line...

Controls

• Joystick right: start
• Joystick left/right fast: run

Gymnastics

At Gymnastics at the horse you need to show elegance and timing. The simple flip gets you 6 points, but for this you need to hit the board (fire) and land properly (down). For higher difficult grade you are awarded up to 10 points: for this you make an additional half twist after the jump (right), strongly push yourself off the horse (fire) and make three somersaults (up). If the athlete is not balanced after the landing, you can correct it with right or left before she falls.

Controls:

• Fire button: hold for starting position, let go for starting, press again for jumping.
• Joystick left or right: twist in front of the horse
• Fire button: push off the horse
• Joystick up: crouch for a fast turn
• Joystick neutral: dive for a middle turn
• Joystick down: stretch for a small turn and landing
• Joystick right: correct backward position after landing
• Joystick Links: correct forward position after landing

Tips:

• Preferably push off the horse, when the athlete is standing vertically to the floor on the horse, to reach optimal height.

Freestyle Relay

In Freestyle Relay it is again about endurance and timing. You have to initiate the jump at an early stage to leave the starting block at the right moment. During swimming while immerging of the arms the pressure needs to be raised by pressing fire and also the turn needs to be done by the player. Shortly before the swimmer reaches the stop after one hundred meters, the next swimmer will start its jump.

Controls:

• Joystick right: jump
• Fire button: intensify the arm movements
• Joystick left: turn

Tips:

• Jump already before the "GO", to leave the starting block exactly at the signal.
• Make the turn within the red "end mark".
• Start the jump of the next swimmer before reaching the stop.

100m Freestyle

In 100m Freestyle everything goes exactly as in the relay, except with only one swimmer... The right timing for the jump and the correct turn can be checked well here.

Controls:

• Joystick right: jump
• Fire button: intensify the arm movements
• Joystick left: turn

Tips:

• Jump already before the "GO", to leave the starting block exactly at the signal.
• Make the turn within the red "end mark".

Skeet Shooting

Reflexes and precision are necessary for skeet shooting. 25 skeets need to be hit from 8 positions. The skeets are catapulted from two towers and fly from the left and from the right and sometimes from both directions at once. Speed and gravitation are the enemies of the shooter. You only have one shot per skeet...

Controls:

• Joystick directions: move sight
• Fire button: shoot

Tips:

• aim a bit above and in front of the skeet.

Easter Egg

If you press the following keys before the title screen appears,

• F3 
• DEL 
• CRSR down 

you will see the "Bummer Games II" title screen.

Solution

• Tips for each of the disciplines can be found under the description of each discipline.

Cheats

• The course at "Skeet Shooting" is always the same. The skeetsare shot with the following scheme:

left, left+right, left, right, left+right,

left, right, left+right, left, right,

left, right, left+right, left, right,

left+right, left+right, right, left

• Further cheats are unknown

Voting

Voting of the C64-Wiki users (10=the best vote):
8.70 points at 82 votes (rank 14). You need to be logged in to cast a vote.
C64Games	9	26th June 2006 - "Top" 36781 downs
Lemon64	8,24	8th October 2006 - 85 votes
Kultboy.com	8,63	11th May 2007 - 8 votes
Gamebase64	10	"Classic!"

Reviews

FXXS: "All disciplines are controllable after a short time of training, the graphics is not consistent, but for each discipline it is in any case functional. Only during the dash it is a pity that the camera only keeps the one in the middle of the screen that is the fastest, so the worst runner is not visible any more. My personal favourites are Pole Vault, Gymnastics, Swimming and Skeet Shooting; Platform Diving could have been a bit more complex and the dash is just shaking. 10 points, because it is combinable with Summer Games II and it gets a small "beginner bonus"."

Mombasajoe: "At that time, the same as today, Summer Games could not quite convince me. The controls for all disciplines are okay, but what use is this, when a part of the disciplines is just boring? Each one running and swimming discipline would have been enough. Skeet Shooting seems like a stopgap. Moreover there is a throwing discipline missing. Pole Vault and 4x400m Relay act as graphically poorly conceived. That the age of the game cannot be an argument, shows Udo Gertz's "Summer Events" for the C16 (!), where with an overall graphical superiority especially Pole Vault and Swimming darkly eclipse the events of Summer Games."

Spaceball: "For me it is the terrific prelude to terrific games series, especially in the combination with Summer Games II. Of course here also counts, that the game is not very much fun, when played alone. Especially in a chummy group these games can fully convince. I cannot agree with my previous speaker, as Summer Events came full 3 years later. Summer Games is surely graphically not the best filed game of its time, but the graphics is in no case bad. Decathlon came about the same time on the market and graphically it cannot or only hardly convince me, while Summer Games can do that still today."

Shakermaker303: "Well, everything is quite nice, and for the year of publication 1984 top graphics, nice intro, good menu, nice sports,etc...but somehow I like "Decathlon" a bit better concerning the handling and that is why I only give 9 out of 10 points. However, a cult game for the C64."

Miscellaneous

Combination of Summer Games and Summer Games II

• When using the combination of Summer Games and Summer Games II disciplines "Freestyle Relay" and "100m Freestyle" must N O T be used, as otherwise the game will crash to 99,9% percent or will show bugs in "Gymnastics" (and crash afterwards).
• This bug with the discipline Gymnastics (combination of SG2 + SG1 and all events chosen) happens with all crachs and also with the g64-images!!
• The only versions that - as far as I can see - have not this bug are (HTW):

ORIGINALDISK (g84-Images) by "GOLD SILVER BRONZE" on c64games.de

CMD-Version "Summer_Games_2_incl_SG1_Disz_(TAC+HtW_v1.1).d81" on c64games.de

Cover

Highscore

• 1. FXXS – 4 disciplines (20.05.2007)
• 2. Werner – 3 disciplines (19.09.2007)
• 2. Frank – 3 disciplines (16.05.2007)
• 4. Metin – 2 disciplines (16.05.2007)
• 4. Robotron2084 – 2 disciplines (21.9.2007)
• 5. Bauch – 1 discipline (16.05.2007)

° 3 disciplines with a shared first place...

Event	Rank 1	Score	Rank 2	Score	Rank 3	Score
Pole Vault°	Frank	5.90	FXXS	5.90	Werner	5.90
Platform Diving	FXXS	810.30	Frank	803.90	Robotron2084	746,60
4x400m Relay	Metin	2:09.6	LastNinja	2:25.1	Werner	2:29.6
100m Dash	Metin	9.19	Cash	9.51	Werner	9.58
Gymnastics°	FXXS	20.0	Werner	20.0	Robotron2084	20
Freestyle Relay	Frank	1:36.0	FXXS	1:39.5	Werner	1:43.0
100m Freestyle	Frank	0:23.8	Cash	0:24.1	Werner
Skeet Shooting°	Werner	25	Bauch	25	FXXS	25

• 

  Kai Pirinja

• 

  Robotron2084

• 

  Werner (Japan)

• 

  FXXS (old)

• 

  Werner

• 

  Cash 100m Freestayle 0:24.1

• 

  Cash 100m Sprint 9.51

• 

  Last Ninja 4x400m Staffel 2:25.1

Links

Games Wikipedia: Summer Games

• C64Games.de - Game No. 169
• Lemon64 - Game No. 2529
• Gamebase64.com - Game No. 7545
• Test Report No. 787 on Kultboy.com

Videos

• Video at YouTube

The "Epyx-Games" Series

Summer Games · Summer Games II · Winter Games · World Games · California Games
The Games - Winter Edition · The Games - Summer Edition