Commodore 64 and so many games!

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I’ve recently purchased a Commodore 64C with a cassette drive and joystick, but I didn’t get any games with it so I basically couldn’t test it.

I had also never played a C64 before in my life so I had no clue of which games to start looking for, however I got some advice on games to get from the nice people over at Retrocollect.com and then I started Ebay-ing…


The Commodore 64C I got was in quite good condition considering it’s age, but it had a bit of discoloration, but I don’t mind that, it just adds to the retro-feel to it ;D It’s also a Swedish version so it has the Swedish keyboard.


The Cassette Drive (I think it’s called Datassette) was in really nice condition! Compared to the console it had hardly any signs of wear, not even discoloration! Both came with original manuals, in great condition as well, but unfortunately no box..


The Joystick was pretty ^_^ It’s called TAC 2, I’m not sure whether this is something that originally came with the console or not.


So here’s the first bunch of games that arrived, some which I had been advised to get and other that just seemed interesting because of the titles and artwork and I was buying a bunch from the same seller anyway. The games are Star Wars The Empire Strikes Back, Star Wars Return of the Jedi, Subsunk, Castle Master, Ghostbusters II, Bionic Commando, Commando, Hunchback, Monkey Magic, Se-kaa of Assiah, Booga-Boo (The Flea), Ring of Power, Impossamole, Little Computer People, Batman the Caped Crusader, Heroes of the Lance, Dizzy Panic, Buggy Boy, Blasteroids, Barbarian II, Bouncing Heads, 4 Most Cute and 6 Shooter (containing among others Wizball, which someone recommended).

For those of you who don’t know much about C64, the games come on actual cassette tapes. I didn’t know they could program games on those, I thought they were only for music back in the day! It’s baffling to me ^^ There is also games on floppy disks for the C64, but I don’t think I can play those without getting some kind of disk drive to connect to it first..

I haven’t been able to try them all out yet, mostly because of the outrageous loading times! It took me 10 minutes of this:

Then I got to the starting screen and the Ghostbusters soundtrack started playing, and it said “PRESS ANY KEY”, after listening to the song for a bit I pressed a button and was greeted with another 10 friggin’ minutes of a flickering loading screens!

After that finished I got to the story of the game. A still image of some person with what I guess was a ghost attacking, and a text that started scrolling telling the story with the ghostbusters soundtrack playing. At this time I had just been waiting too long so I just wanted to start actual gameplay so I pressed start again… and once again.. 10 minutes of:

So after a total of 30 minutes I finally got some actual gameplay. Stage one was so hard I couldn’t beat it.. >_< And every time I failed a screen popped up with a text that read: “You are a worthless slimeball! … but you have 2 more chances, press fire to try again”

That is NOT very encouraging!!! >.<

A game that I really enjoyed though was Commando, mainly because of the extremely groovy and catchy music! :D I recorded it and posted it here for your enjoyment:

I also tried some Star Wars the Empire Strikes back.

It was a space shooter, and the music was a nice impression of the original soundtrack. What I found odd though was that they had those AT-AT walkers from the Snow area of the movie, but they were flying around in space o_O

And here’s Bionic Commando:


This was really cool! And just like in the other Bionic Commando games you can only move upwards by using your grappling-hook-thingy. I made it a couple of stages but then I quit to try other games.

I’ve only been able to try out about 8 games so far, and today I got another bunch of 6 more games, and I’m still waiting for 10 more to arrive:

The games were Bubble Bobble, Dizzy, Camelot Warriors, DJ Puff, Rainbow Islands and Rick Dangerous.

I will try to make time to try them all out! ^_^

26 thoughts on “Commodore 64 and so many games!”

  1. I always wanted a C64 but never had the chance to grab one, so it’s great to experience it through a new user! As much as I dislike the idea, I’ll probably try a few via the emulator route, as I have no room here for another system and games.

    As you’re finding out, there are a ton of games out there that are worth playing, so it’ll be a cool time for you discovering stuff.

    Cassettes are just another data storage/delivery medium, so while it is weird to think of games on them, the C64 wasn’t the only system to use them. The MSX had a tape drive (I had a couple of cassette MSX games for years that I got in a bulk lot of games never got around to playing) and there were other computers that used cassettes.

    Of course, you saw the main problem with them for yourself. They take FOREVER to load! For the floppy disk games, yup, you’ll need a disk drive to run those, but again, I hear there are a bunch of great games to unearth.

    Reply

    • What exactly is the MSX? There are so many systems from that time that I don’t really know the difference of.. o_O I want a ZX Spectrum though cause it’s so pretty ^_^
      Haha yup, they sure take forever to load! Meanwhile I took the opportunity to clean some Famicom cartridges that had just arrived, I cleaned 20 games thoroughly while waiting for one game to load LOL
      I think I will have to get one of those disk drives.. Do the disk games load faster? I guess they would..
      /mE

      Reply

      • Ah, the MSX… one of the best PC/console combos ever and responsible for a lot of gaming history and great memories in some parts of the world. As a bit of an inside joke, I call it the “original X-Box” and you’ll see why once you click on those…

        Links (two of too many):
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSX
        http://www.msx.org/

        I’m almost afraid to post those, as I know you’ll want one now and a ton of games for it, so I feel like a pusher!

        Oh, floppy disk-based games are generally faster loading, but not always. That and when you have four, five and six disk games, the swapping gets to be pesky. But it’s all good if the games are worth the effort, I say!

      • OMG Konami! Hudson Soft! Aargh! Japan!!!! damn it.. now I want one.. and since I love the Xbox 360, I assume that Microsofts involvement in the MSX will make it even more of a must-have!!
        /mE

      • Heh, well… Microsoft probably doesn’t even consider the MS-X a part of their history at all, as it never made it inside the US as an officially released product. I do wonder what would have happened if we got the system and some of those games here. The NES would have had some killer competition, as (save for Mario, Zelda and a bunch of RPGs and other titles) the “X” had better games in my opinion…

        That said, it’s really hard to pick a console, as there are SO many different models to choose from made by different companies. Do a bunch of reading up and asking questions, as it can get confusing with all the variations that were released over time.

        I know the games aren’t inexpensive at all, especially the “big” titles like Castlevania, Metal Gear and a bunch of others (especially complete versions). But you can probably track down some interesting “lesser” games for decent prices while you’re building a library up…

      • Yes it is confusing.. I’ve only stuck to Nintendo and Sega and the occasional Atari for the last decade or so, and recently I also got an interest in the the older things as well. It’s getting a bit crowded in my retro room though, and I don’t want to ever get rid of anything haha..
        Does the MS-X have cartridges though? It looks like it when I Ebay-ed the MS-X Castlevania game.. o_O
        I’ve been thinking about getting a PC Engine as well..
        /mE

      • Some early MSX games come on cassettes, but there are a ton of carts and even some 3.5″ floppy disk games (and I think cart/disk combo titles) depending on the version of the hardware you’re interested in. I think you’d be an MSX 2 or above gal, as those units can play MSX carts (Castlevania, Metal Gear, Metal Gear 2, etc.) and some of the floppy games.

        The PC-Engine is pretty awesome too, LOTS of great space shooters, platformers, some fun RPGs (well, I know you prefer more action-oriented games) and so forth and so on. That console has a few variant as well, but nowhere near as many as the MSX.

  3. You need Suicide Express, Raid on Bungeling Bay, Manic Miner (if you haven’t already played that elsewhere. Raid Over Moscow and Sanxion. Those would be my top recommendations :)
    Have fun!

    Reply

    • Thanks! I’ll keep a look-out for them on Ebay, most of them I couldn’t find on there right now.. :/
      I really want Suicide Express after I read about it on your blog! ^_^ And Sanxion and Raid over Moscow looked really cool too! (I youtubed ’em) ;D
      I have Raid on Bungeling Bay on Famicom, it’s probably not that different, and Manic Miner was just released on XBL Indie marketplace :D (less loading times haha) ^_^
      /mE

      Reply

  4. Hi there,

    Cool that you’ve gotten hold of a C64. It’s a great computer and I love the fact that software (and hardware) is still developed for it. I’m sure you’ll have a lot of fun with it.

    That TAC-2 joystick is my personal favourite. It’s excellent for a wide variety of games. I recently got hold of one myself, after a long time of searching, but it is not working properly. I aim to fix it though.

    I see people writing about the MSX. I can assure you that it is a cool computer. I’ve got a SVI Spectravideo myself. Favourite games are Salamander (schmup) and Knightmare. Two fantastic games.

    Reply

  5. hey there its ratix98 from youtube! so i will copy paste what i said on here as well. including the link to the pic! so….
    if the video from the C64 has seperate chroma and luma cables you can directly connect it to the yellow input by using a Y splitter for the AV cables just combine the Luma and Chroma together with the Y splitter. so look for something like this. http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s155/ratix98/0703121350.jpg

    Reply

  6. hey there its ratix98 from youtube! so i will copy paste what i said on there as well. including the link to the pic! so….
    if the video from the C64 has seperate chroma and luma cables you can directly connect it to the yellow input by using a Y splitter for the AV cables just combine the Luma and Chroma together with the Y splitter. so look for something like this. http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s155/ratix98/0703121350.jpg

    Reply

    • woah! Thanks for the advice! Though I’m not sure what a chroma and luma cable is? Also, my C64 is only connected through an antenna cable into the TV. There is another input on the back of the C64 where it says VIDEO but I would need another cable that fits in there and I don’t have that cable. I also don’t know what the output on that cable would look like..
      I have those splitters though, I use them for my Famicom and NTSC NES ^_^
      /mE

      Reply

    • Thanks! I’m happy for my C64 as well ^_^ haha
      Thanks for the advice! I’m not sure I feel completely comfortable in opening everything up though, I’m not very “techy” and I would probably end up breaking stuff instead haha.. RetroBrite sounds like some awesome stuff though! Where can I get it??? :D
      /mE

      Reply

    • Coolt! har faktiskt inte hunnit testa det ännu, C64 är en av de fÃ¥ konsolerna där jag inte alltid testar alla spelen när de anländer, mest för att det tar över 30 minuter bara att ladda ett spel!! haha ^__^ Rick Dangerous har prioritet nummer 1 nu dock! Tack för tipset! :)

      Reply

  10. Besides the cassettes the C64 also had a built-in reader for cartridges. Many games were published using that media and loading times were so much lower.

    Reply

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