Epyx World of Games - Amstrad GX4000

Review comments

The first sports simulation to appear on the GX4000 is a four-event affair featuring BMX riding, surfing, cliff diving and downhill slalom.
Up to four people can play at once, in a sort of micro-Olympic quartathlon. Each player attempts an event, and the highest scorer wins the gold, the second highest the silver and so on. At the end of the competition the person with the most medals is the winner!
If you're on your own, there's a practice option so that you can play an event over and over again until you're completely unbeatable, and there are also record tables where all your greatest attempts are displayed for you to gloat over.

Staff comments

This is a disappointment from the start. The loading screen is dull and lifeless, and I'm afraid the rest of the game follows suit. The BMX is monotonous, the skiing is too easy, the surfing is poorly animated and the cliff diving - well, the diving is quite fun and certainly different (I love smashing my head all over the rocks!). The main problem is the lack of events: only four in a console game is taking the Mick a little, I feel. Perhaps the game would be improved by a proper medal-giving ceremony, but I doubt if this would really help. An average game that I can't honestly recommend.

On the positive side, this features some great sprites and excellent, ultra-smooth scrolling backdrops which really show what the GX4000 can really do. However, on the negative side, there are only four events and they're not really challenging. It only takes a session or two before you get near perfect scores, and therefore any sense of real achievement is minimised. If Epyx World of Games had a few more events, I would heartily recommend it. But as it stands there's simply not enough to keep you entertained for very long.