Good games for c64

[motrucker]

As you can tell, the list of games for the C-64 is many, and quite varied for the types of games. www.lemon64.com is one of the better lists for games.

I don't know if anyone has mentioned one of my personal favorite games; Wizball. But that's just one very good game, out of a thousand, or more.

I find a bit odd that the C-64 is remembered more for games than anything. This machine could be programmed in quite a few computer languages, work as a word processor & DTP machine, spreadsheet, database, do your taxes and even run a GUI interface (GEOS).

The Apple was supposed to the first, best "computer" there was. But it seems that the Commodore C-64 could do it all, and then some.

And, does anyone remember Q-Link? One of the first on line services, and it was for the C-64!

I'll get off my soapbox now, but this is all quite true.

 

 

[Bill Loguidice]

I find a bit odd that the C-64 is remembered more for games than anything. This machine could be programmed in quite a few computer languages, work as a word processor & DTP machine, spreadsheet, database, do your taxes and even run a GUI interface (GEOS).

The Apple was supposed to the first, best "computer" there was. But it seems that the Commodore C-64 could do it all, and then some.

And, does anyone remember Q-Link? One of the first on line services, and it was for the C-64!

I'll get off my soapbox now, but this is all quite true.

 

 

 

It's not necessarily a slight that the Commodore 64 was remembered more for games than anything else. Other computers had far more limited graphics and sound, almost forcing the focus on their other capabilities (that the C-64 shared). Of course, it did the C-64's reputation no favor that it had a particularly wonky BASIC, and it certainly would have helped even more if it had an 80 column mode built-in.

 

All things considered, the Apple II probably was the first "best" computer, since it was the only one of the original 1977 trinity to have color graphics and sound. It was also a great programming platform. It was definitely outclassed in a lot of areas by a lot of other systems, particularly as the 80s wore on, though.

 

Q-Link was the first graphical online service with the first graphical MMOG. Definitely an amazing achievement, as was the aforementioned GEOS.

[+OLD CS1]

As you can tell, the list of games for the C-64 is many, and quite varied for the types of games. www.lemon64.com is one of the better lists for games.

I don't know if anyone has mentioned one of my personal favorite games; Wizball. But that's just one very good game, out of a thousand, or more.

I find a bit odd that the C-64 is remembered more for games than anything. This machine could be programmed in quite a few computer languages, work as a word processor & DTP machine, spreadsheet, database, do your taxes and even run a GUI interface (GEOS).

The Apple was supposed to the first, best "computer" there was. But it seems that the Commodore C-64 could do it all, and then some.

And, does anyone remember Q-Link? One of the first on line services, and it was for the C-64!

I'll get off my soapbox now, but this is all quite true.

 

 

 

I used GEOS 128 2.0 up into my first college years (1995 to 2001-ish.)

 

I was on Q-Link from 1990 until it shut down. Very sad day for the Qmmunity.

[high voltage]

As you can tell, the list of games for the C-64 is many, and quite varied for the types of games. www.lemon64.com is one of the better lists for games.

I don't know if anyone has mentioned one of my personal favorite games; Wizball. But that's just one very good game, out of a thousand, or more.

I find a bit odd that the C-64 is remembered more for games than anything. This machine could be programmed in quite a few computer languages, work as a word processor & DTP machine, spreadsheet, database, do your taxes and even run a GUI interface (GEOS).

The Apple was supposed to the first, best "computer" there was. But it seems that the Commodore C-64 could do it all, and then some.

And, does anyone remember Q-Link? One of the first on line services, and it was for the C-64!

I'll get off my soapbox now, but this is all quite true.

 

 

In the UK especially, Commodore sold the C64 was as a game computer for playing games on cassette.

 

Very little the computer was used to BBS, although I was a member of the UKs ICPUG, which was an excellent resource for all things Commodore. There were some other BBSs (with my A8 I used Microlink which was an excellent service), ZZAP!64 magazine was a great supporter of online services, but mostly BBS was way too expensive for young UK kids.

 

GEOS (still use it nowadays) was hugely supported in Germany. UK didn't use disk drives for some reason (expense), so GEOS didn't catch on.

Edited February 2, 2016 by high voltage

[carlsson]

I keep reading about how expensive the 1541 was in the UK, yet in the magazine advertisments I've studied, it doesn't seem much more expensive than it was in e.g. Germany or Sweden. I'd be willing to think it was a mental issue, that Speccy users got by fairly well with tapes, so C64 users shouldn't be more posh and use floppy disks, alternatively more UK C64 users indeed got floppy drives than what people today remember.

[Bill Loguidice]

I keep reading about how expensive the 1541 was in the UK, yet in the magazine advertisments I've studied, it doesn't seem much more expensive than it was in e.g. Germany or Sweden. I'd be willing to think it was a mental issue, that Speccy users got by fairly well with tapes, so C64 users shouldn't be more posh and use floppy disks, alternatively more UK C64 users indeed got floppy drives than what people today remember.

 

That's always been the biggest divide between UK and US C-64 users. By 1984, we were pretty much all in on disk-based software, while the UK stuck with tapes into the early 1990s. I wonder how much better software would have been if it weren't restricted to running on tape for the most part in the UK. With that said, even I've been impressed by some of the disk-centric software that found its way onto tape. For instance, I have a copy of Bard's Tale 1 on tape for the C-64, which I never would have thought possible.

[carlsson]

Perhaps it is thanks to tape that games like Ghostbusters float along nicely, instead of the constant disk access slowing down on the Apple ][ version.

[Bill Loguidice]

Perhaps it is thanks to tape that games like Ghostbusters float along nicely, instead of the constant disk access slowing down on the Apple ][ version.

 

I doubt it. Ghostbusters was made for disk first.

[+OLD CS1]

Prolific usage of tape on the Commodore 64 perplexed me greatly. Coming from the TI-99/4A, tape was just plain horrible. Yes, the whole audio-digital thing was interesting, but to me only as much as a punch card and far less useful than the A/D usage of a telephone MODEM. I knew the data office up the street from me used reel-to-reel tapes for large amounts of data, and I even got to see a bank of four of the units running the reels back-and-forth to find information. But to me that just seemed crazy -- we had floppy drives on the Apples at school, my friend's dad ran a BBS on his TI with floppies, my dad's friend ran his BBS on the Commodore 64 with floppies. It just did not seem right.

 

But there is some amazing tape technology which came out of this. Like tape fast loaders and background tape loading (cannot recall which game boasted about this.) Who woulda thunkit?

[high voltage]

Well, as I said in UK it was all about video games, the VCS games were GBP29, which was like a weeks wages, so games on C64 for less than a tenner was like heaven. And then Mastertronic and Codemasters came along and offered games on tape for 1.99, 2.99, Ghostbusters for 1.99? Great.

Spawned some great C64 gaming magazines though, and most of the time they had a full commercial games on tape as a cover mount. Bliss for a UK kid.

 

There even was Office programs on tape as in Mini Office and Mini Office II.

 

Edited February 2, 2016 by high voltage

[motrucker]

In the UK especially, Commodore sold the C64 was as a game computer for playing games on cassette.

 

Very little the computer was used to BBS, although I was a member of the UKs ICPUG, which was an excellent resource for all things Commodore. There were some other BBSs (with my A8 I used Microlink which was an excellent service), ZZAP!64 magazine was a great supporter of online services, but mostly BBS was way too expensive for young UK kids.

 

GEOS (still use it nowadays) was hugely supported in Germany. UK didn't use disk drives for some reason (expense), so GEOS didn't catch on.

 

The U.K. and the U.S. are, and were very different in their marketing. Here in the U.S., the Commodore C-64 was sold more as a computer than a game console - so all aspects of the C-64 were exploited here. I still have a half dozen working C-64s, but my C-128 sees more use, I have to admit.

Here in the greater Washington D.C. - Baltimore MD area, there are still quite a few Commodore users, who use everything from the VIC 20 up to the Amiga.

w

[Chris++]

I've never seen Interchange mentioned online. Well, except for when I've brought it up. It's such a fun game; once you figure out what you're doing, which doesn't take long, it's easy to get hooked. Am I the only one here who's gotten into it?

 

 

[carlsson]

To be honest, I had never heard of it until you brought it up, but I'm sure it is playable.

[Nateo]

Has anyone mentioned Microprose Soccer yet? Cause I just started playing that one a few weeks ago and I freaking love it.

[+wongojack]

Has anyone mentioned Microprose Soccer yet? Cause I just started playing that one a few weeks ago and I freaking love it.

 

I played the US version a ton bitd - it is a true classic and probably would be in the top 3 of my all time favorite sports games.

[carlsson]

Yes, Microprose Soccer is one of the better footy games on the 64, although for proper ball playing there may be even better alternatives. What is cool is that two Italians released updated versions for World Cup '90, '94, '02 and '06. According to my sources, it isn't entirely unlikely that there will be a new update for '18.