*Warning* C64 Lack of Love on this board!

[Turrican]

Come on guys, we got Rob doing his awesome NES course into shooter crappiness, and everyone was like "can I do PCE?", "I should do MSX"...

In the meantime we got Gameboy threads, Spider Fighter-loving threads...

Europeans! Where is you pride? We need more Commodore

and please, not the nth Amiga-loving thread. We all know already about Apidya and stuff. We want Braybrook, Fasoulas, Trenz, and all the C64 shooting glory from the most revered masterpiece to the poorest, humble arcade port. With many hidden gems in between, possibly.

Damn, I'd do this myself, too bad I wasn't there in the C64 days.

[Sly Cherry Chunks]

So, did anyone ever beat Killing Machine? I got to the last boss once.

[PROMETHEUS]

I played Flying Shark on a Commodore, that really was my very first shmup I think. I was like 5 or 6 years old when I played that... But I could beat stage 1, and I beat stage 2 once -.-

I have no idea what's the difference between a C64 and an AMIGA, I only know my computer was an AMIGA and it was written Commodore on it...

[louisg]

C64 Defender rocks, and so does Uridium.

Prometheus, a C64 is an 8-bit Commodore machine that had 64k of memory.

[Fighter17]

Teach me C64 emulator and Amiga emulation as well. Too freaking hard to get it to work!

[Icarus]

C64 was awesome, but I'd rather play on an Amiga.
Uridium 2. Yum.

[shinsage]

*Warning* C64 Lack of Love on this board!

thank god.

[Thunder Force]

For me C-64 shmupping was synonymous with its successful conversion of Toaplan's Slap Fight, one of the few C-64's arcade ports at the time that didn't disappoint me.

http://www.mobygames.com/game/c64/slap- ... rId,62503/

[BrianC]

For me C-64 shmupping was synonymous with its successful conversion of Toaplan's Slap Fight, one of the few C-64's arcade ports at the time that didn't disappoint me.

http://www.mobygames.com/game/c64/slap- ... rId,62503/

Oddly enough, that conversion also made it to the US, under the US title of ALCON. Unlike other games, it seems to be the same conversion as the EU version.

[louisg]

Teach me C64 emulator and Amiga emulation as well. Too freaking hard to get it to work!

C64 emulation shouldn't be too bad if you are using an emulator that has autoload. If it doesn't, you load a disk by typing this:
LOAD "*", 8, 1
The 8 is the disk drive device, and the 1 means load and run. Sometimes you still have to type RUN. If you type LOAD by itself, that means load off the tape, but I've never done tapes with an emulator that didn't have autoloading. I don't think a BIOS image is required for the majority of C64 emulators. Most C64 games expect the joystick to be in port 2. If that fails, try port 1.

For Amiga emulation, things get trickier. You'll want to set up UAE to be like an Amiga 500, since that's what the vast majority of games were for. It doesn't hurt to put 1 meg of ram in your virtual machine, either. It was a 7.25mhz 68000 processor computer, and came with Kickstart 1.3 (which not the newer one, though the newer ones might be required for later games ~1994).

Hope this helps!

[captain ahar]

Damn, I'd do this myself, too bad I wasn't there in the C64 days.

yeah, me too. i love the gaming computers. too bad most were before my time or obscure to say the least.

i'd love to have some real equipment on the X68k, C64, MSX (Space Manbow rocks), Amiga, ZX Spectrum, etc. aside from mame, these are the emus that are run the most on my comp. my favorite for shmups, usually being c64, the power of x68k is very tempting.

catalypse, katakis, IO, blood money are some of my favorites. there are some others i really like, but i can't remember the names off the top of my head. ooh, phobia is cool too.

and question: is there anyway to set up VICE, so i can move button 2 from "space" to my usb controller. katakis is killing me.

--------------------
to be fair though turrican, Spider Fighter kicks ass.

[HardcoreOtaku]

sorry Turrican mate, I've got no love or pride for the western home computers.
As the "angry nintendo nerd" might say the Commodore and Spectrum sucked arse!

(not having a dig at you though Turrican just my opinion)

[CIT]

Damn, I'd do this myself, too bad I wasn't there in the C64 days.

Maybe if you'd been there, you wouldn't be complaining about the "lack of love".

Personally, I think the main merit of the C64 is the awesome SID soundchip! Games like Ghosts 'N Goblins or R-Type got some really great arranged soundtracks!

The games/ports themselves generally suck though.

Back in the day I never had a C64, so I was envious of all my friends who did. I spent a lot of time at their houses, waiting 10 minutes for tapes to spool and boot the games.

Soon thereafter I was the first in my group of friends who got an NES, and the tables had turned. From then on everybody came to my house to play.

[antime]

The 8 is the disk drive device, and the 1 means load and run.

To be anal about it, ",1" means load to the memory address stored in the file instead of to start of BASIC RAM. Automatically starting was just one trick that could be done that way.

Anyway, Mega-Apocalypse eh? And Warhawk, the first game with destructible scenery I played? Too bad the end-of-level enemy flood could be beat simply by positioning yourself at the edge of the screen.

[MJR]

I can't say I agree with some of the people on this board; some of the C64 shooters are classics in the genre.

Katakis (or denaris) for C64 is maddly addictive darius/rtype hybrid; I can still get kicks out of it, more than many other shmups.

Uridium beats uridium2 hands down both in graphics and playability. It is clear, precise, smooth and playable. Love those sound effects too.

Sanxion and Delta are rock solid, well presented shoot'em ups and really worth a try

Armalyte is just a great gradius clone with great bosses and weapon system

Hades Nebula is a brilliant starforce clone with lots of extra weapons and catchy soundtrack. After naff start, it really gets going once you get into space.

Dropzone is considered a classic, and it is certainly well done though not my favourite.

Parallax is wonderful shooting/exploring hybrid with tons of atmosphere you won't find anywhere these days, mostly thanks to the music

Wizball is wonderful, original and bizarre shooter which I still enjoy

Get recracked versions from remember (http://www.bitte8bit.de/newremember/htdocs/credits.php)
and you can save your highscores!

And there's also the fabulous shoot'em up construction kit. You could pull out quite a bit of stuff with it, as a proof you can try out my little seuck game, which I did back at '89, hosted by seuck vault: http://members.lycos.co.uk/merman64/mer ... gators.zip

Someone who says c64 is not worthy platform for shooters obviously never played enough with them back in the eighties.
Also there were some good conversions, such as salamander and saint dragon, though primarily good shoot em ups for c64 were the original ones.

So, for those who never tried the C64; don't listen to the naysayers but try these titles I wrote up here instead. They are pretty easy to find. If you still don't get it; well, your loss

[antime]

Can't forget Insects in Space, a Defender/Dropzone-type game by Sensible Software. Insanely fast and has an interesting power-up system.

[MJR]

I was thinking about it; but I never played it much. But it's done by sensible software as well, and seems to be very well done.
i remember the main sprite being a flying valkyrie with huge tits

[DEL]

Ah yes, Dropzone. That was the one I played the most on the C64.

My timeline was:- Grandstand console - I still have it, Dragon 32, C64 (which I eventually blew up with a modded reset button ), Amiga, SNES (the UK mostly skipped the NES, so the NES is a US phenomenon). PC Engine Duo, PC Engine handheld GT which is excellent. Super Wild Card. Neo Geo AES, then CD, PS1, Clear Saturn, PS2 then Supergun. The N64 was in there somewhere too.

My memories of the C64 are hazy, I was mostly playing the real-deal in arcades and newsagents which were basically mini arcades back in those days. So the C64 paled in comparison.

[moonblood]

http://www.lemon64.com/games/details.php?ID=95

maybe not a proper shmup I guess, but I fondly remember the ultra fast scrolling alley kat and its wonderful crash animations

(lemon64 and lemonamiga=superb, btw)

[Ceph]

When I was a kid I really loved C64, and I still have two C64s, the first model and a C64 II (the one wth modernized exterior), though I haven't had the urge to play it in years (not even via emulation).

There are some fantastic C64 exclusives, but as far as arcade ports are concerned C64 is completely obosolete- you can find much better ports on other systems (yeah, I know, G'n'G and Commando have awsome music on C64).

The thing about C64 is that its graphics are really hard on the eyes from today's point of view; not as bad as Spectrum, but close. Having a color palette of only 16 pre-defined colors of which not even all can be displayed at once doesn't help; neither does the limitation of only 8 simultaneous sprites.

Famicom, which came only 11 months later is a huge leap ahead in terms of colors/resolution/speed, and when I feel the urge to do some old-school gaming nowadays I usually turn to Nintendo's trusty 8-bit system. I prefer C64 to remain a fond memory.

[Shatterhand]

So I think it's time for some 8 BITS COMPUTER FLAME-WARS!

YEEESS!!

MINE IS BETTER THAN YOURS!

So.. yeah, C64 games? Those games whose resolution are smaller than an Atari 2600? How many colours does those things have on screen? 3? Oh my god, those arcade ports really suck....
Space Manbow and Aleste 2 shits on the head of every C64 shmup. EACH ONE.

I mean... OMG, LOOK AT THOSE HOT GRAPHICS:
http://www.lemon64.com/games/screenshot ... kat_05.gif

c64 vs MSX
c64 vs MSX
c64 vs MSX
c64 vs MSX
c64 vs MSX
c64 vs MSX
c64 vs MSX
c64 vs MSX
c64 vs MSX


OH MY GOD... what a PATHETIC MACHINE is the C64 ... I mean.. why would anyone want games that look so bad, play like shit, and arcade ports that seems to be made like 30 years before the original arcade games? You need to be really stupid to want a C64 instead of an MSX



[flame war off]

Now seriosuly, the C64 had some wonderful games... but while the horizontal shmups had very smooth scroll, I always found weird how they always seem to scroll TOO fast. It seems like the machine can't do smooth SLOW scroll, heh

But great games there. Braybook was a genius, and Sensible Software had a great time with the machine too...

[captain ahar]

thanks shatterhand. that was funny.

[MJR]

Wasn't MSX the machine that had this god-awful ASCII scroll?
Other than that; I heard gradius games on MSX are awesome.

I love shitty dated graphics; especially monochrome games and wireframe.
Spectrum titles and llamasoft games look even better

Anything old that is made after c64 looks too decent to give me any nostalgic excitement.
Plus, on amiga, many programmes suddenly turned into idiots, and forgot that for decent playablility you need the game running on 50/60 frames per sec

[HardcoreOtaku]

why would anyone want games that look so bad, play like shit, and arcade ports that seems to be made like 30 years before the original arcade games?

[dave4shmups]

There used to be a site up with C64 longplays, and while I was very impressed with the quality of the Thunder Blade port, as a Thunder Blade nerd, I was pretty shocked by the dullness of the colors on the C64, compared to other 8-bit hardware at the time. Of course, the fun factor with games matters the most, but I'd still get a Spectrum before I'd get a C64. I've seen Flying Shark and Uridium on the C64, and, IMO, they don't hold a candle to the Spectrum ports.

[Shatterhand]

Wasn't MSX the machine that had this god-awful ASCII scroll?
Other than that; I heard gradius games on MSX are awesome.

SHUT UP SHUT UP!!! Look at the damn screenshots, then just go crying back to your SHITTY SIXTY FOUR KBYTES machine.



I also only experienced the C64 through emulation. Back in the 80s, you couldn't import computer from other countries here, you could only buy national computers. The MSX was produced here, as the Spectrum and the Apple II, but the C64 was not... so most people here, even ones who are into computing for a long time don't even know what a commodore 64 is. I even make some kids drool a couple of times, mentioning the C64 and they believing it was a 64 BITS machine. (this happened too many times, you wouldn't believe). Funnily, I once had a teacher who claimed to own a Vic-20, which was a BIG surprise, and I "ONCE" saw a Commodore 64 here, with a guy who used to fix Amiga computeres here in Rio de Janeiro (AFAIK, it was the ONLY guy in the whole city, heh).

And there were 2 influent guys in the MSX scene here (they made lots of apps and a couple of games for the system, and they used to write articles for magazines) who at some point took contact with the Amiga... and they somehow managed to bring some attention to the machine here, the most popular MSX magazine got an Amiga seciton (And then it was separated and became a magazine), and many people imported Amigas (at that point it was already legal to do so), and at some point the machine was produced here, and we even got ORIGINAL releases of Amiga games here (Something that had NEVER happened with the MSX).

So when the MSX was dying in the early 90s, many people moved to Amiga here, while most moved to PCs. I was one who went with the Amiga.


And when I mention the MSX to most old computer people here, EVERONE knows it, most of them actually owned one. When I mention the Amiga, most of them usually go like "HELL! YOU HAD ONE??!?!?! My friend's neighbours' cousin's boyfriend had one, it was the most amazing thing I ever saw!", which always gives me a smile.


And.. erm... I was just saying how the C64 is nearly completely unknown here, while the Amiga had some popularity (being the most popular Commodore machine around here, no doubts), but the MSX was by far the most popular computer ever here (Of course, not counting PCs)

[Icarus]

Everyone's wearing...
NOSTALGIA GOGGLES.
Instant Nostalgia. Just add geek.

[HardcoreOtaku]

saw this thought it was quite funny



sorry C64 lovers i'm only playing around, my 11 year old nephew was looking at me like a freak with when I was playing my supergun he said it looked like a broken computer

[HardcoreOtaku]

personaly I've no nostalgia for the C64 and Spectrum because back then (in the 80s) I remember thinking they were crap!
but why?? because when I saw the Arcades and saw what was possible, the difference was just far too great and the 10 minute tape loading times used to really fuck me off!

my love for gaming began on discovering the PC engine and when home gaming began closing the gap between it and the Arcades.

[Shatterhand]

Everyone's wearing...
NOSTALGIA GOGGLES.
Instant Nostalgia. Just add geek.

-word . I am the most nostalgic person ever, and I am only 24 years old.

Cool pic