What are some awesome C64 games?

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louisg
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Re: What are some awesome C64 games?

Post by louisg »

Sumez wrote:I could never get into most popular C64 or Amiga games especially because they all seem to have flaws that cause them to not age well.
Personally I grew up with Nintendo's 8 bit, and it seems to me that even someone who's never played a NES game before should be able to go back to a game like the Mega Man or Mario games and realize that they are excellent games. I have a real hard time finding a single C64 game that is as flawless as my favorite Nintendo games.
I agree for the most part when it comes to action games. You know euroshmups? Well, shmups weren't the only problem :)

But, at the same time that the C64 doesn't have a lot of good Japanese-style platformers or arcade games, you won't find a lot of the same kinds of deep strategy or adventure games on NES that you find on the C64. For example, I was pretty disappointed in the NES version of M.U.L.E., which was a pioneering 4-player strategy game, and its version of Archon was pretty hokey too. I also attribute the fact that most gamers grew up with consoles and not computers to the way people are so amazed now by old gimmicks like open-world designs and games which ask players to make moral decisions (Ultima did both 20 years ago on C64/Apple/etc), or games with more serious adult-aimed themes (lots of adventure games: see Infocom).

Anyway, point being: the systems definitely have different strengths and weaknesses. If you're looking for NES games on the C64 or C64 games on the NES, you will be disappointed.

I'd also argue against a lot of fondly remembered NES games being all that good, though the Mario games (sans SMB US 2) are obviously amazingly well-designed. For instance, I just popped on Ninja Gaiden the other day, and it does not hold up in my opinion. But, this is another argument.

EDIT: BTW, has anyone played this?:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_1mMhJP6Xo
I'm wondering if it is good or if it has the same oversized hitbox as Katakis.
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Re: What are some awesome C64 games?

Post by Drum »

Sumez wrote:I could never get into most popular C64 or Amiga games especially because they all seem to have flaws that cause them to not age well.
Personally I grew up with Nintendo's 8 bit, and it seems to me that even someone who's never played a NES game before should be able to go back to a game like the Mega Man or Mario games and realize that they are excellent games. I have a real hard time finding a single C64 game that is as flawless as my favorite Nintendo games.
Yeah, if you are looking for flawless experiences, that's not what the C64 offers, but there are still a bunch of interesting games that hold up well if only because they're so unique and haven't really been built upon - games like Paradroid, The Sentinel, Ancipital, Necromancer, Below the Root, Elite etc. The NES was generally more genre-bound and the games tended to be less ambitious, but they've aged better for it (which is not to say there weren't a lot of creative NES games too). Also, a lot of the best C64 games were literally made by one guy working in his basement so they often have a cool, personal feel. I think if you take the C64 on its own terms, as opposed to trying to stack it up against the things you like about the NES, you can appreciate it still (and by that I don't mean 'lower your standards and ignore the shitty things').
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Re: What are some awesome C64 games?

Post by Sumez »

Oh, I'm not stacking it up against the NES.

I agree there was probably a lot of ambitions on the C64 you didn't see on the Japanese consoles, and obviously that also caused the games to not age as well.
But see, I'm actually "stacking" the games against everything I have available. Arcade games, X360 games, PC games, etc. Since I have all of these in my home, those are what the games have to compete with.
And while the NES does only have a handful good games, the ones it has are usually timeless classics that are as fun to play today as they were then, even if you didn't grow up with them. With C64, to me it seems like a lot of it is really "you should have been there to get it".
I'm not saying the NES is "better" than the C64 of course. Apart from a few 8-bit hits and a couple of good arcade games of the time, I don't think the game industry managed to truly start mass producing great games until the 16-bit era anyway. But I'm always on the lookout for a forgotten gem of the past.

I've always had a hard time enjoying stuff that doesn't have "timeless" qualities, and this also goes for new games that I feel will be horribly aged whenever new games are made to replace them in a few years.
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Re: What are some awesome C64 games?

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louisg wrote:EDIT: BTW, has anyone played this?:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_1mMhJP6Xo
I'm wondering if it is good or if it has the same oversized hitbox as Katakis.
I can't remember about the hitbox offhand (it never bothered me in Katakis, actually), but Enforcer definitely has none of the great level design Katakis has. Nice presentation, though, and the boss cameos are somewhat funny.
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Re: What are some awesome C64 games?

Post by louisg »

Sumez wrote:Oh, I'm not stacking it up against the NES.

I agree there was probably a lot of ambitions on the C64 you didn't see on the Japanese consoles, and obviously that also caused the games to not age as well.
But see, I'm actually "stacking" the games against everything I have available. Arcade games, X360 games, PC games, etc. Since I have all of these in my home, those are what the games have to compete with.
And while the NES does only have a handful good games, the ones it has are usually timeless classics that are as fun to play today as they were then, even if you didn't grow up with them. With C64, to me it seems like a lot of it is really "you should have been there to get it".
I'm not saying the NES is "better" than the C64 of course. Apart from a few 8-bit hits and a couple of good arcade games of the time, I don't think the game industry managed to truly start mass producing great games until the 16-bit era anyway. But I'm always on the lookout for a forgotten gem of the past.

I've always had a hard time enjoying stuff that doesn't have "timeless" qualities, and this also goes for new games that I feel will be horribly aged whenever new games are made to replace them in a few years.
I'd argue that most of the games I listed do have those timeless qualities you're looking for, and you should check them out! I know that a lot of C64 fans will recommend games which are trying very hard to be like console games, but I always felt those fell flat (like Hawkeye or Creatures). Don't listen to them :)
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Re: What are some awesome C64 games?

Post by ShmupSamurai »

Anyone here remember Samurai Warrior: the battles of Usagi Yojimbo or Forbidden Forest? :mrgreen:

Those were pretty awesome considering the system limitations...
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Re: What are some awesome C64 games?

Post by dcharlie »

Anyone here remember Samurai Warrior: the battles of Usagi Yojimbo or Forbidden Forest?
yup - played both - Forbidden Forest was somewhat painful but Beyond Forbidden Forest was a lot more balanced and flowing.
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Re: What are some awesome C64 games?

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I'm curious if anyone here discovered any new C64 games they like because of this thread.. Drum in particular
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Re: What are some awesome C64 games?

Post by MadScientist »

Laser Squad and Lords of Chaos - both great turn based strategy games from the Gollops prior to their best known work, X-COM.
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Re: What are some awesome C64 games?

Post by dcharlie »

Laser Squad
in particular was excellent - still play on the PSP via ST emu.

other games that spring to mind :

Mutants, Myth, Alter Ego, Skate or Die, Mercenary, Hacker, Wizball, Armalyte, Staff of Karnath, Entombed, Suicide Express, IO, Delta, Sanxion, Parallax, I Ball, Racing Destruction Set, Wasteland, Project Firestart, IK+, Defender of the crown, last ninja, Microprose Soccer (fun to see where Sensi started on this), Epix "Games" Series - Calafornia Games especially, Eidolon, Mayhem in Monsterland, Slimeys Mine, Citadel, Morpheus, Uridium, Dragons Lair 2 (surprisingly fun stab at it, DL1 was shiiiiite), Cauldron 1, Cauldron 2 (frustration!), Monty on the Run, Auf Wiedersehen Monty, Warhawk, Hyper Sports, Bionic Commando (Euro version) etc etc...

too many great games on the C64, still my favourite period of gaming. Unspoiled by internet squabbling and , well, the distraction of the internet itself. Nice to recently get back into the habit of gaming/creative hobbies prior to work going batshit nuts the last two weeks
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Re: What are some awesome C64 games?

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louisg wrote:I'm curious if anyone here discovered any new C64 games they like because of this thread.. Drum in particular
I am working up the nerve to convert some NIB files into something the emulator can read. There are a bunch of promising games that I didn't know or was familiar with but haven't played.
I also discovered Heatseeker, which looks bananas.
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Re: What are some awesome C64 games?

Post by louisg »

You know what game was pretty interesting was The Great American Cross-Country Road Race. It plays almost identically to Enduro, except: you shift gears, have to avoid speed traps and rush hour traffic, and have to plan your route across the US. It's not a *great* game, but it's worth trying if you haven't yet.

It's good to see someone else likes Citadel. That game is excellent! It's too bad there's no NTSC-friendly version (I'm in NTSC-land, so most C64 action games are either fucked up or run too fast). I also saw Space Taxi mentioned a couple pages back-- that's a good one too. And Racing Destruction Set-- I spent way too much time with that! But, I'd have trouble recommending it to a newcomer.

You know what game I liked a lot was Sword of Fargoal. It's a very charming Rogue-ish game. Honestly, there's just way too much good stuff on this system IMO (especially if you count non-exclusives that were also on Apple //)
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Re: What are some awesome C64 games?

Post by dcharlie »

And Racing Destruction Set-- I spent way too much time with that! But, I'd have trouble recommending it to a newcomer.
i didn't have a disk drive - i had the multi tape version which was painful and used to freezeframe save my custom levels so they at least loaded in 60 tape clicks or so. :)

But what a game - had so much fun with a couple of friends testing out our tracks and pitting bikes against cars .... on the moon! :)
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Re: What are some awesome C64 games?

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dcharlie wrote:
And Racing Destruction Set-- I spent way too much time with that! But, I'd have trouble recommending it to a newcomer.
i didn't have a disk drive - i had the multi tape version which was painful and used to freezeframe save my custom levels so they at least loaded in 60 tape clicks or so. :)

But what a game - had so much fun with a couple of friends testing out our tracks and pitting bikes against cars .... on the moon! :)
There's a tape loader Racing Destruction Set?! I need to find this. I've been playing games off tape because they're easy to get onto a real system. Back in the day, I had it on disk-- tapes flopped in the US, so to play anything on the C64, you needed a drive (which iirc cost as much as the freaking computer in the first place and would get whacked out of alignment all the time). Hmm I wonder if some of the other EA games I listed have a tape version. One I haven't been able to find is M.U.L.E.-- the tapes I've seen all error out when it starts loading the main game. There must have been a proper "single load" version somewhere I'm guessing.

The game I found so far that's most painful on tape is Skate or Die. You're expected to play through all the events and write down the counter stops.
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