One of my earliest video gaming memories is destroying my young body playing Summer Games, released in 1984 for pretty much every home computer available at the time.
I remember being four years old playing it on my grandparent's brand new Commodore 64 and, being a stupid kid who couldn't read properly yet, glossing over what little text the game put in front of me. For example: the first thing it asks you to do is pick which country you're playing as. I, being a kid, would scan this screen going "uh huh, France, Britain, Canada, Mexico and...Egypt".
I could read, but I've always had a tendency to speed-read/gloss over things. If I'd taken time to spell that out I'm sure I would have noticed that it read "Epyx". But within the context of an international sporting event video game's menu screen, alongside a bunch of actual countries and their actual flags, my brain read the outline of the word, thought it was "Egypt", then went about its business. For years.
There is of course no such country as Epyx; that's the name of the studio responsible for the game, as well as a succession of other 1980's classics like Barbarian and California Games. In hindsight, it's pretty funny Epyx put themselves into the game to such an extent. But I didn't know that at the time, and so almost as often as I'd choose a real country I'd choose Epyx, because damn, their flag looked amazing.
Also amazing: the Epyx national anthem. Because why make a fake country for the Olympics if you aren’t also going to give it a banger of an anthem:
I didn't have access to this game at home, only at my grandparents’ house, and they lived four hours away, so I'd only end up playing this game once or twice a year. Enough to stay familiar with it (and get really good at it), but obviously not enough to correct my glaring geopolitical fuckup.
Imagine my surprise when, while coincidentally visiting their house during the opening ceremony for the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, I saw "Egypt" parade past the crowds with a flag that did not feature a kneeling statue, nor a nightclub-inspired colour scheme. Perplexed, I ran to the C64, fired up the game and...ah. Ah shit.
This was pretty embarrassing for a kid who was now eight years old, and should have known the difference between a video game developer and a civilization that stretches back thousands of years. That shame didn't last, though; next time I actually played the game I proudly selected Epyx, and every time the Olympics rolls around in the real world I still think of them fondly.
Even in 2024, 40 years after I first played the game, I thought of Epyx as I watched the opening ceremony for the Paris Olympics. Imagined representatives of their team huddled in the rain atop a ferry making its way down the Seine. Dreamt of hearing their stirring anthem blaring loudly from the aquatic centre's loudspeakers after winning relay gold. Pictured the headlines in the Epyx Tribune back home, a nation proud of its athletes, who may not have won as many gold medals as the traditional powerhouses, but whose flag and anthem were at least the coolest.
