Is it worth starting a C64 collection?

Takumaji

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Actually having the stick on the right is not that bad. I'm a micro veteran and always used standard sticks like the Competition Pro with my right hand so using the Multi-Function is not a prob when I'm playing lotsa Speccy or Commie games. However, quickly switching between, say, playing Neo and then a few rounds of Zynaps on C64 with the stick on the right can be a bit tricky. Well, keeps those old neural pathways in training, eh.

Other than that, I also have three Quickshot I sticks, originally made by Spectravideo in 1982. They hold nicely in your hand but look a bit flimsy, that's why I'm quite surprised that two of them still work very well. One has a problem with the left foil contact, not sure whether it's fixable. I tried to fix my Quickshot II that also had two broken foil contacts but couldn't find fitting parts. The Quickshot sticks were very popular among home computer users, many millions of them got sold from the 80s to the 90s.
 

Takumaji

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Okay, let's get into the games a little more, shall we.

Alleykat

Developer/Distributor: Graftgold
Year: 1986
Genre: Racing
Coder(s): Andrew Braybrook (main code), Matt Stubbington (title screen)
Music/FX: Steve Turner


Alleykat is a top-down-view racer. You are the proud owner of an Alleykat flyer who enters the league to win the big trophy. The races are spread over 8 straight tracks hanging in the orbit of various planets and moons of the solar system. Winning a race earns you money that you need to pay the entry fee for higher-class races, and the bigger the race, the bigger the price. There are six types of races, slalom, dodgem, demolition, survival, speed trial and endurance, each requiring different skills. Your ship is equipped with a laser to fight baddies (and get extra score) and can fly at varying altitudes and speeds. Colliding with elements of the track or enemy craft reduces your energy which you can replenish by flying over E symbols scattered across the track. Some tracks give you more space to move than others, sometimes you first have to clear your way with the laser.

There are various ways to play and complete the game. Getting the ultimate trophy is the common goal but you can choose how to get there by selecting race events that suit you best. For example, if you are good at demolition races but not slaloms, you can skip a slalom event and go for the next available demolition race if you have enough money.

To be absolutely blunt, Alleykat may not be everyone's pint of beer due to its high learning curve. The first few races have a bearable difficulty but it gets ramped up quite drastically in later ones. It's important to know your craft inside out and how to master certain race types. Remember that earning money is essential to advance, if there aren't any more races left in a season that you can afford, the game will end. Shooting baddies and destroying parts of the track will give you lots of points but no money.

Alleykat was not a love on first sight game for me. I bought it after I had read a rave review in Zzap!64 but couldn't get nowhere at first, I was barely able to complete half of the first season before I ran out of money. However, after a few days of practise and slight frustration, my skills had improved a lot. The key is that you don't necessarily have to play the game as some sort of racing shmup, most of the time it's better to dodge the baddies instead of trying to blast them. The normal baddies (called gravo craft) aren't all that clever, it's the dreaded KaterKiller you have to look out for, a multi-segmented worm-like beastie that is difficult to get rid of. Once you have more experience with the game, trying to go for a KaterKiller kill can be big fun and keeps you on your toes.

The game probably isn't one of Andrew Braybrook's best achievements, I remember that many people rated it as rather inferior to his former releases Uridium and Paradroid. The thing is, most of the critique is based on the high learning curve but once you have taken the first hurdles and become more experienced, the game opens up and shows you its addictive qualities. Zooming through difficult terrain while keeping the bad guys at bay is fun and every further advancement in the Alleykat league feels very rewarding. If you like racers with lots of action and don't mind a good challenge, give this one a try.


Bruce Lee

Developer/Distributor: Datasoft
Year: 1984
Genre: Platformer/Beat'em up
Coder(s): Ron J. Fortier (main code), Kelly Day (graphics, title screen)
Music/FX: John A. Fitzpatrick


One of the many C64 classics that just never gets old. You are Bruce on a mission to find the secret of immortality hidden deep in the wizard's fortress. Every screen presents you with a number of lanterns to collect which usually opens up a path to the next screen or activates some other element, as well as lots of nasty traps and difficult jumping bits to negotiate. To make things worse, two bad guys called The Ninja and Yamo, a green Sumo-style baddie, try to make your life even more miserable. They can be quite easily disposed of using kicks and punches but quickly respawn and attack you again. Thankfully, they aren't the brightest bulbs in the box and stoically run into traps or even start fighting against each other which is hilarious to watch.

Graphics are good for an early C64 game and the title music is very catchy. It got stuck in my head for weeks when I first played the game and still gets me everytime I go back to it. The combination of platformer action and fighting was new back then and my buddies and I found it very exciting, even though the fighting aspect becomes less important in later levels where the real challenge lies in dealing with the somewhat mean level design and lots of stuff that can kill you like fireblasts, deadly arrows, bottomless pits, spikes, etc.

I played the game loads when it came out and still do. Gameplay is spot on and controls are very responsive. Difficulty is just right apart from some really nasty traps but that's a matter of learning the levels and the best and/or quickest way of completing them. Some of them are pretty straight-forward affairs, others need a bit of thinking ahead and of course good reflexes. It's one of those just-one-more-try games that will make you come back to it to see just a lil' more of the levels, and one day, you will be able to beat the evil wizard and find out the answer to life, the universe and everything...
 

JoeAwesome

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Alleykat's concept reminds me a little of Kingdom Grand Prix for the arcade. Nice write ups, Tak!
 

cat

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My favourite of the ocean tape loaders, sweet memories.


I loved bruce lee by the way tak, fab game, i've never played alleycat though that's one that missed my radar.
 
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Jarofmayo

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VVVVV got ported to the c64 a few months ago. Fun platforming game with a great soundtrack.
 

Takumaji

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Bop'n Rumble (also released as Street Hassle and Bad Street Brawler)

Developer/Distributor: Beam Software/Melbourne House
Year: 1987
Genre: Beat'em Up
Coder(s): Andrew Davie (game design, main code), David Pentecost (main code), Russel Comte (graphics)
Music/FX: Neil Brennan


You are Underwear Man, ripped and angry, on your way back home from the gym through Melbourne's streets and it's just not your day. The people of the city have turned against you for some reason (maybe they're just envious of your fab physique!) and are flocking in to beat you to a pulp. Huge dogs, handbag-swinging grannies, blind guys with walking sticks, cops, beer-bellied roughs, Karate fighters, gorillas, crazy bikers and other more or less well-respected citizens jump at you like there's no tomorrow.

Luckily, Underwear Man has more tricks up his sleeve than just straight punches and kicks. There's the infamous air crumble attack, head butts, throws, screwdrivers, roundhouse kicks, double-handed hits, charges, knee kicks and many others. Some opponents can be easily beaten with a few straight punches, others are best disposed of with special attacks or even combos so it's essential to experiment a little to see what works best against which baddie.

There are 9 levels of increasing difficulty. The basic moves and specials unique to each level are easy to pull off and land, even some combos from normal punches or kicks into specials are possible which helps to quickly get rid of stronger opponents. You start with five lives and a blue energy bar. As soon as an opponent shows up, an enemy energy bar appears and the fight commences. There are special baddies in each level that are more dangerous than your average grannie or gorilla and sometimes they also come in pairs. Underwear Man is very strong but sadly not the quickest fighter around so a bit of planning ahead is needed. Kids should not be attacked at all cost, and keep a lookout for small guys in trenchcoats who give you winged hearts that replenish your energy. In later levels they sometimes leave bombs behind that kill you on contact, you first have to disarm them using a certain stick + button combo.

Bop'n Rumble is an excellent BmU game with a ton of moves and stuffed full of zany ideas. Crumbling an opponent to a ball above your head and throwing him all across the screen, giving blind passers-by headbutts or throwing grannies to the ground is hilarious and will give you a good chuckle. The engine feels quite polished for a C64 BmU which normally are pretty basic affairs with only a handful of moves. Not so in Bop'n Rumble, the sheer amount of offensive and defensive moves makes the game unique among Commie BmUs and still is impressive to this day.

Controls are nicely laid out on the stick and very responsive, scrolling is smooth and graphics are detailed, colourful and very tongue-in-cheek, you will definitely come back for more, and be it just to see the next wave of crazy baddies pulling off silly attacks. However, don't let the playful look of the game fool you, it's challenging and needs considerable persistence to see the end. I've never been able to go past level 6 without cheating but that doesn't stop me from loving it.
 

Takumaji

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Thrust

Developer/Distributor: Firebird
Year: 1986
Genre: Arcade - Miscellaneous
Coder(s): Jeremy Smith (main code), Bob Stevenson (title screen)
Music/FX: Rob Hubbard


In a distant future from now, the First Empire lies in its death throes. Millenia after millenia of leading a life based on technology has led to the population of vast parts of the universe, then decadence hit and people slowly forgot how to get on without the help of computers and robots. The energy and technology resources have run out long ago and one inhabitated world after another falls apart.

To solve the deadly problem, a fleet of specially designed space ships has been put together under your leadership. The plan: Fly to the lost carbon worlds of the Gargos system and retrieve the valuable power pods buried deep beneath the surface of a number of instable planets that once were terraformed and excavated by the First Empire. These power pods not only contain an almost infinite amount of energy but also further technology that will help mankind to survive. The only thing which still keeps the carbon planets together is an energy grid composed of a power plant and sentry laser guns that protect the mines. Your task is to penetrate the mines of one planet after another, get as many power pods as possible and destroy the energy grid by blasting the power plants on each surface.

Your ship is equipped with a laser, a force field/tractor beam system and a set of highly efficient jet engines. Your helmet is connected to its neural interface and displays the environment around your ship with 2D vector graphics. As the instable Gargos planets still have considerable gravitation, you constantly have to fight against it by using your thrust engines. Fuel pods are scattered across the mines which can be picked up by hovering over them and using the tractor beam for a certain amount of time. Same goes for the energy pods that can be found on the floor of the mine. Once your beam has connected to a pod, your have to lift it from its pedestal, fly back up to exit the mine and leave the planet's atmosphere to safely bring the valuable pod home. Oh yes, and also make sure to destroy the power plants on the surface of the planets to blow it up and score some extra points in the process. A countdown will start running if you have delivered enough damage to a plant, if it runs out as long as you are still in escape mode from the planet, you will be blown to pieces.

Sounds simple, eh? Well, it may be in stage 1 but things get decidedly more difficult from then on. Controls are keyboard-only, and in case you wonder why that is, it's because the developers did a lot of play-testing and found that mastering the game is almost impossible when played with a combination of joystick and keyboard, standard Atari-compatible joysticks only have one firebutton function (i.e. all buttons of a stick are connected to the same output line), after all. The controls are A (rotate counter-clockwise), S (rotate clockwise), Return (fire), Shift (thrust) and Space (activate tractor beam).

Thrust plays a lot like the arcade game Gravitar which it is based on. The gravitational pull, inertia and momentum have been brilliantly implemented, steering the ship around with the precise controls takes a bit of time to get right but is doable, once you've gotten used to the keyboard layout it's smooth sailing. Negotiating the narrow shafts and tunnels of the mines can be tricky, though, specially if you have a power pod hanging on your tail which adds weight to your ship, swings around a lot and makes it more difficult to control. Fighting off lasers shooting at you, avoid touching the walls of the mine while carrying a power pod and keeping and eye on your fuel supply will put your multitasking capabilities to test!

The game is an all-time C64 classic and held in high regard by its many fans that still keep on playing it today. It's a timeless piece of software with simple but effective graphics, an excellent Rob Hubbard title track and almost perfect gameplay. Although it's not a walk in the park, lots of practise will soon improve your skills and you will get to see the later levels, some of which are fiendishly difficult with reverse gravity, invisible mine walls, etc., yet you never feel cheated or cheaped out.

Technically, the C64 version is a port of the BBC Micro/Electron original distributed by Superior Software and released as a full-price title for £7.95 but the developers worked on it at the same time they also wrote the Beep one, many rate the C64 version as the best of them all. It got also ported to Amstrad CPC, Atari 8bit and ST, C16 and ZX Spectrum. The C64 version was released at a budget price (£2.99, iirc).

I can't count the many hours I've put into Thrust, it's truly a minute (well, make that two...) to learn, a lifetime to master game, even more so if you are a fan of Asteroids or Gravitar. Thrustin' makes you feel good :D
 

wyo

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Thrust is awesome. Had it for my BBC Model B.
 

Viewpoint

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Looks awesome, never had one. I mostly used Competition Pro sticks, the last one from the old days broke a few weeks ago, tho. Now I'm using a Multi-Function 2002 I also bought in the 80s but never really used a lot, the technical design of the base of the stick is not very clever, sometimes it hangs on down and generally feels stiff and notchy. Has micro switches, good firebuttons and some extra functions like paddles and auto fire, this is how it looks like:

joystick_elite_2002_01.jpg


Another prob as you can see is the wrong setup of the stick, always takes me a bit of getting used to playing with the stick on the right and the buttons on the left.

What idiot thought it would be ok to put the stick on the wrong side?
 

cat

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Thrust is great but get's very dificult after the first few stages, for me at least.
I suck at these kind of inertia/gravity style games, i remember playing sub terrania on the MD and wanted to like the game but i just could not get to grips with the constant thrusting and manouvering to counteract the gravity pulling you down and your shot's as well.
 

Takumaji

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Test Drive

Developer/Distributor: Distinctive Software/Accolade
Year: 1987
Genre: Racing
Dev Team: Don Mattrick, Mike Benna, Bruce Dawson, Brad Gour, Kevin Pickell, Amory Wong, Rick Friesen


In Test Drive, you take part in an illegal street race in fast sports cars up to the top of The Rock, a hazardous winding road along a cliff and the mountain. You have to deal with sunday drivers, cops that are keen on giving you a speeding ticket, potholes and lots of mean turns. Over-rev'ing, crashing into a car, hitting the mountain face or falling down the cliff will cost you a life and valuable time. Getting a speeding ticket won't kill you but is time-consuming. Luckily, you have a radar detector that warns you of speed traps and police cars. The road is divided into five sections, each represented by a gas station that you have to reach in order to complete a section, get a refill and a rating of your performance so far.

There are five cars at your disposal, the fastest street cars of the day: Lotus Esprit, Lamborghini Countach, Porsche 911, Ferrari Testarossa and Chevrolet Corvette. Each car has its own characteristics, the goal is to become proficient with all of them to reach the top of the highscore chart and become a legendary Test Driver. The cars have manual gear, controlled by pushing the stick forward (up) or backward (down) + pressing the firebutton.

The action gets displayed in a first-person perspective from inside your chosen car. There's a speedometer, revmeter and a gear display that shortly pops up when gear gets changed. On the steering wheel, you will see a white dot that moves left or right depending on your input, the wheel itself does not move. All cars have individual dashboards and gear systems, you can also choose between sequential or H-gear. In sequential mode, forward + button will change up, backward + button will change down. In H-gear mode, you have to keep the button pressed and use the stick to switch into the desired gear according to the gear display, just like you would in real life.

At the end of a section, you will see GAS signs on the right side of the road. There are two signs and the gas station lies in the middle between them. To complete a section you have to bring your car to a halt between the GAS signs, if you overshoot the second sign you will lose a life. Complete all five sections and you've reached the grand goal and will receive your final rating and score, and maybe you'll also be in for a nice extra surprise...

So here it is, the controversial racing title of '87 and beyond. It appeared at my fave games store with much fanfare and as a fan of the genre I bought it straight away without reading any reviews first. The first thing I noticed were the excellent graphics of the cars in the select screen, the speech and nice music, then I started playing the actual game and was absorbed by it from the get-go. Although it does not look very speedy, the feeling of speed you get from the jumpy scrolling caused by a low framerate is sufficient to make you feel like you're sitting in one of those legendary sports cars, at least it does for me and many of my friends who also fell in love with the game. We used to hold TD competitions with ten or more people at my place, there was lots of cheering and yelling and we really had tons and tons of fun for months. Then I came across a copy of Zzap!64 magazine with a review of the game in it and couldn't believe my eyes, I expected a full two-page review and a Sizzler rating but it only got a small two-column one in the also-ran department, a measly 46% and was rated as short-lived, slow, rather dull and confusing!

In other words, TD is a love or hate game, you either dig it or you never will. The first-person perspective was uncommon for racing games back then, specially on 8bit home computers where most racers had top-down or chase-view perspective. Of course not all negative points raised by reviewers and gamers alike were unfounded, the game definitely has its problems, like the slow framerate mentioned above and sometimes unfair traffic placement. Earlier versions also had a bug that lets a police car pop up out of the blue directly in front of your car which leads to an unavoidable crash. The tape version of the game takes an awful 15 minutes to load and even the disk version has lots of loading even between each section. Thankfully, there are cracked versions available with a builtin speedloader which makes loading the game bearable, of course it also can be played on emu where loading is a non-issue. Still, the developers managed to cram a complete first-person perspective racer with lots of cars and a relatively long 5-level A-B track on a single floppy disks or tape and into the 64k of RAM of the Commie, that's about the space an average icon on your phone takes up today... pretty amazing if you think about it.

As you may have guessed by now, I'm in the TD love camp and play it once in a while to see whether I can still reach the top of the mountain in time. The game was something special for us back in the 80s, its big bold presentation, good graphics and (for us) immersive gameplay made it an instant hit among likeminded people but tastes are tastes and a lot of time has passed since then. Playing it today may feel awkward to C64 n00bs (or 8bit n00bs for that matter) but maybe it clicks with you just like it did back in '87 when the boys and I wrecked our sticks and wrists in order to become King Of The Rock for a day.
 

Takumaji

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Space Taxi

Developer/Distributor: Muse Software
Year: 1984
Genre: Arcade - Platformer (single screen)
Coder(s): John F. Kutcher
Music/FX: Silas S. Warner


You are a 23rd-century driver of a jet cab and fly your passengers through the various crazy districts of the city. Each screen is comprised of numbered platforms where passengers appear who you have to carefully pick up by landing next to them and bring to their desired destination which can be either another pad or the next level/district. The quicker you are, the more money you make that you need for buying gas, paying fines for accidentally landing on a passenger (shit happens, eh) or failing to reach a destination in time.

Your cab is equipped with jet engines on the front, bottom and rear which can be controlled with the stick. To go downwards you just let go of the stick and let gravitation do the rest. To land on a platform, you have to carefully hover over it, press the button to extend the landing gear and slowly descent until your cab touches down. When the landing gear is extended, you can only use the bottom engine to go up and down while the front and rear ones are locked. A green, yellow or red light display in the lower part of the screen will give you visual feedback of your efforts, green means a flawless landing, yellow or flashing yellow points to a slightly rough to you-barely-made-it one and red means unsuccessful landing.

There are three levels of difficulty to select, Morning Shift - Beginner (levels 1 - 8), Day Shift - Intermediate (levels 9 - 16) and Night Shift - Expert (level 17 - 24). A level or screen represents the corresponding hour of the day (1-24) and things get increasingly difficult as the day goes on and slowly turns into night.

Passengers calls come in via cb radio and also get displayed in a message box in the middle of the lower screen area. The familiar call "Hey, Taxi!" will soon get ingrained into your mind as you struggle to despatch your passengers as fast as humanly possible to pay for those silly gas bills... that stuff gets more expensive every damn day, eh.

There are additional hazards in many levels like asteroids, table tennis balls (they're after you! It happens!!), black holes that try to pull you in, platforms separated by automatic doors, cannons shooting fireballs (must be a particularly nasty district), caves with very hard to reach pads, deadly snowflakes (no special ones, just deadly), fuel-robbing baseballs (a special nastiness of the 23rd century, just you wait!) and much, much more that stands in your way of making a decent dough. Saving fuel is essential so you have to master the controls of your flying cab to make the most of your supply. Needless to say that contact with any of the level installations or edges of platforms will result in your certain death, as will running out of fuel.

What can I say, Space Taxi is one of the best, most famous and successful early C64 games. Graphics look a bit blocky but ooze creativity and a good sense of humour. The cab is a small but nicely drawn sprite with convincing exhaust fumes and precise movement. Controls are self-explanatory and allow pixel-perfect manoeuvering. Swiftly flying from pad to pad and performing a smooth landing feels rewarding and will make you come back to the game time and time again, at least it does in my case, the fun is only limited by your skills and no jerky scrolling or other technicalities stand between you and your success or failure in the game. However, some of the obstacles scattered across the screens can be very tricky to circumvent, specially in tight situations when fuel is low and time is running out.

A major attraction of the game is the digitized speech. Passengers call you to a pad with a snappy "Hey, Taxi!", then request getting flown to a certain destination with "Pad 9, please!" or "Pad 3, please!", etc., or "Up, please!" to go to the next level. If you fly them to a wrong pad, they'll repeat the original request (just without the "please"), hitting them with the landing gear or squashing them on landing makes them yell "Hey!!" and they also are polite enough to throw a "Thanks!" your way after you've successfully transported them to the right pad. Even though the samples are very lo-fi and scratchy, they were a big thing back in the day when digitzed sounds weren't as common as they are today, certainly not in an 8bit home computer game from 1984.

Space Taxi was one of the earliest games that I've played when I got my C64 in 1984 and I loved it from day one. It's easy to get into, big fun to play and the difficulty level rises quite slowly, even though some of the Night Shift levels will make you tear your hair out. As it is essential to go from pad to pad as quickly as possible, getting the inertia and gravity controls down is important if you want to see the later levels. Fuel management brings in a slight strategic element as not every level contains a gas station. If you want to go for a high score, determining the right time to refuel can make or break it. One of my friends was an expert at the game and we always tried hard to beat his scores but weren't successful at first, then he let us in to the secret of fuel management which helped to improve our scores a lot.

The game has a cult following and it's easy to see why, an almost Matthew-Smith-esque (of Jet Set Willy fame) humorous approach, great gameplay, jolly tunes, digitized speech and nice little visual tidbits here and there made it an instant success and it has retained its playability to this day. Highly recommended.

Incidentally, developer Muse Software (Muse is an acronym for Micro Users Software Exchange) founded by Silas S. Warner in 1978 was behind the game Castle Wolfenstein that came out in 1981 for the Apple II computer, one of the earliest stealth games that also got ported to C64, MS-DOS and various Atari 8bit computers. When Muse Software went bust in 1987, id Software obtained the rights to the Castle Wolfenstein name and game style and finally released the well-known Wolfenstein 3D in 1992.
 

Thierry Henry

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Great stuff with the reviews, Tak.


This thread made me think about the possibility of wireless pads on the C64. Any options out there?

From my end regarding what I own, the one that kinda makes sense (given that Genesis controllers are physically compatible on the system) is the Remote Arcade Pad.

That IR Receiver needs line-of-sight with the controller but it's still a decent wireless option if it works on the C64.

I can't test it at the moment to confirm that it does work as the power supply for my C64 is buggered.

So that Sega IR Receiver fits quite snugly on the controller ports, but mostly blocks the power switch. And you'd need the system to be positioned sideways on for line of sight.


1erOoM2.jpg





To get around those issues would be to just use the IR Receiver together with an extension cord.


Ee9roae.jpg




Now I'm reading that, to be on the safe side with connecting Genesis/MD controllers on the C64, you need something like the 64JPX adapter.
This is because Genesis pads are wired differently and there is the possibility of damaging your system.
That adapter would ensure that all is electronically compatible.



OPl5vH0.jpg
 

Takumaji

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Should basically work with Genny wireless controllers but be careful with old breadbox-style Commies, some revisions don't like it when several buttons are being pressed at the same time, this can lead to a shortcut and damage the computer. I know because I had that problem on my old Rev. A breadbox (manufactured in 1983), used a Genny controller on it and it fried the VIC chips (graphics chip). AFAIK the problem doesn't occur on later revisions so it can't hurt to check which one you have.

EDIT: Haha, didn't read your post properly, silly me :D
 

zaneiken

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I recently bought a C64 DTV to test the waters before committing to the real deal.

oCGsuqO.jpg
 

GregN

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Tak I'd like to see a review of Paradroid. I remember as a kid I had a pirate copy of it (which was the case with most of my games since I was a broke kid).
 

Takumaji

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Tak I'd like to see a review of Paradroid. I remember as a kid I had a pirate copy of it (which was the case with most of my games since I was a broke kid).

It's already on my list :)
 

pva

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I recently bought a C64 DTV to test the waters before committing to the real deal.

The DTV is an excellent device for dipping your toe in, since it can be extensively hard and soft-modded. The stick is flimsy rubbish, though; I've managed to break a few DTVs while playing Summer and Winter Games, where some events require you to waggle the stick from side to side like you were having a major fit.
 
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cat

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It's already on my list :)

Any love for cauldron tak ???.
I played that game a lot back in the day and seriously struggled with it, great platformer/shooter, but way to difficult for my puny gaming skills.
I never got round to playing the follow up.

 
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GregN

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I remember a cart game by activision I think named Toy Bizarre. That was a good one, but it was kinda creepy/spooky to me as a kid.
 

Takumaji

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Any love for cauldron tak ???.
I played that game a lot back in the day and seriously struggled with it, great platformer/shooter, but way to difficult for my puny gaming skills.
I never got round to playing the follow up.


Oh man, I kinda liked the mechanics and flying around with the witch but yeah, it was very difficult and unforgiving. Great graphics, tho. Wasn't one of my faves tbh.
 

cat

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Oh man, I kinda liked the mechanics and flying around with the witch but yeah, it was very difficult and unforgiving. Great graphics, tho. Wasn't one of my faves tbh.

The person playing this in the youtube link i posted is one hell of a gamer, i could not get 10 min's into the game, it looked great but was a prime example of frustration.
It's a seriously difficult game.
 

Cornerb0y

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C64 owner here since 1986. My original was lost in a move, but recently got back into it again since I now live in an area where I can actually get things for it. I highly recommend getting a replacement PSU for it, since the original models have a tendency to send under or over voltage to it (obviously over votlage will kill it). I recommend ordering a replacement from Ray Carlsen (http://personalpages.tds.net/~rcarlsen/). I could go on about games for days as well. PM me if you have any questions!
 
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