Publisher: Atari

Developer: Stephen Landrum (lead), Randy Glover, Jon Leupp, Brian McGhie, Stephen Murdry, Scott Nelson and Erin Murphy (graphic artist).

Original PC Platform: Apple and C-64?

Ported Platforms: Just about every platform on earth (from 84  - 86)

Collecting Fact: Summer Games is loosely based on a game by Starpath called "Sweat!" for the Atari 2600 Supercharger.  However, when Starpath and Epyx merged, Summer Games was published instead.  Of course, for the PC, the first game of this type is Microsoft's Olympic Decathlon in 1981.

Summary:  Summer Games from Epyx was released for the Apple and Commodore 64 in 1984 to brisk sales and instant acclaim. It captured the building Olympic fever mounting in LA as well as offering deceptively deep gameplay for such an early entry into sports gaming. You could create an athalete from a multitude of countries all with their own rousing national anthems. You could participate in the pole vault, diving, 4 x 400-meter relay, 100-meter dash, gymnastics, freestyle relay, 100-meter freestyle and skeet shooting. It even offered the running and lighting of the torch and the Olympic theme! You could play with up to eight friends in round-robin competition, and two players could compete with each other simultaneously on screen.  The world records for each event was tracked and on display for all your friends to envy.  Summer Games lives on today in the memories of anyone lucky enough to play it. Sadly, 2000 saw the release of ADT's Sydney 2000 which featured almost identical gameplay yet somehow failed to capture the magic of the original Summer Games.

-- Andrew Bub

Publisher: Micro League Sports Association

Developer:  

Original PC Platform:  

Ported Platforms:  

Collecting Fact:  

Summary: In 1984, my Chicago Cubs were up 2-0 in the National League playoffs.  However, San Diego managed to win the next three games and went on to the World Series. After watching my Cubs miss the series that year, I wondered what it would be like to manage the team, and if my decisions could have made the difference.

Generally speaking, you won't get the opportunity to manage a MLB team.  However, you could do the next best thing with MicroLeague Baseball, which was developed by the MicroLeague Sports Assoc. MicroLeague Baseball is a simulation of the game of baseball from a managerial standpoint. You pick the lineups, made substitutions, and call the plays. The game features 25 real baseball teams from the past. This allows you to play "what-if" games between the 1927 Yankees & the 1975 Red Sox if you so desire.

The game is rather simple from a graphical standpoint, and its strength is in the statistics. All of the important stats for every player are at your disposal. You can play against a friend, or against the computer. The computer opponent, generally, is pretty good. However, it occasionally has some issues with player substitutions. For example, if a pitcher comes up to bat during an extra inning game, the computer opponent has a tendency to let him bat instead of calling up a pinch-hitter. The game also follows the stats a little too closely. If a player like Babe Ruth or Reggie Jackson comes to bat in the later innings with their team losing the game, they will generally hit a home run no matter who is pitching against them. 

MicroLeague also released a series of "season disks" that have stats for every team & player for a particular year. MicroLeague also released a "General Manager" disk that allows you to create your own players, or trade players from one team to another.  MicroLeague baseball is one of my personal favorite games on my Atari 800.  I bought the "General Manager" disk, and I bought all of the "season" disks. Oh, by the way, my Cubs won the 1984 World Series when I recreated the playoffs through MicroLeague Baseball.

-- Mike Stulir