World Games

Summer of 1986, and country flags flicker across the CGA monitor as you pick your nation. I went for Czechoslovakia back then, hoping there'd be at least some difference. There wasn't, but that didn't matter.

World Games by Epyx — distributed in DOS under K-Byte's banner — is a collection of sports minigames inspired by Olympic tradition, except deliberately more exotic in character. No sprinting or high jump. Instead, you get sumo wrestling, log chopping, rodeo, surfing, or alpine skiing. The game offered athletics from the corners of the world that other sports titles of the era ignored, and that was its main draw.

Controls worked through joystick — the game politely asks you at startup — or keyboard. Each discipline has its own logic: in some you hammer buttons like your life depends on it, in others it's all about timing and feel for rhythm. The minigame quality is uneven. Some are surprisingly fun even thirty years later, others have aged like old rubber. Rodeo I never quite got back then, and the manual didn't help either. Sumo, though, was always a blast because it was instantly readable.

The game lets you compete in a single event, a selection, or all at once, or just practice — solid structure by the standards of the day. A choice of seventeen countries plus Epyx's special flag (yes, the developers gave themselves their own country, which is exactly the kind of cheeky move I love Epyx for) added a light humorous touch to the whole thing. The DOS version's graphics weren't up to the C64 original, Sound Blaster didn't exist in 1986, so audio was handled by PC Speaker — that's an experience nobody looks back on with nostalgia.

Today World Games suits anyone who loves short gaming sessions and wants to remember what sports variety looked like before FIFA and NBA swallowed the entire market. It's not Epyx's finest title — Summer Games or California Games have more polished mechanics — but as a historical artifact and a source of five minutes of fun with one specific discipline, World Games still has something to say. Fire it up in your browser through DOSBox Online and it'll run in half a minute. That's exactly the investment it deserves.