Every four years, as soon as the summer Olympic games get rolling, I get an irrepressible gaming itch. With the COVID-constrained Olympic Games in Tokyo now on, it’s back. So it’s time, once again, to break out the Olympic retro gaming classics.
My personal Olympics tradition started as a kid (circa 1984) when I played Epyx’s Summer Games competitively with my older brother and his friends. Since then, every four years, I pull out my family’s old Atari 800 and boot up that classic, trying once and for all to finally master pole vaulting. Man, it’s tricky.
Over the years I have played many other classic Olympics-themed sports games, of course, with stop-offs on the IBM PC, Nintendo Entertainment System, and the Sega Genesis, among others. Below, I’ve highlighted seven classic Olympics retrogaming titles that will help you scratch your Olympics gaming itch in a nostalgic way—assuming, of course, you’re anything like me whenever the quadrennial event comes around.
Editors’ Note: Editors’ Note: This story first published on Aug. 10, 2016.
