Atari Jaguar

[gamegenie]

Wait. Are you defending Nintendo's bone head move to go to cart only N64 system!? <_<;

it was a bone head move, but they pulled it off at the end. I didn't realize this then but all it took was for them to increase the memory cart size.

Look at Resident Evil 2, the best version on a cartridge.

[j_factor]

Increasing the cart size was prohibitively expensive. RE2 on N64 cost, what, $70? And at the time it broke the record for largest N64 cartridge, which wouldn't have been feasible to do any earlier. A year later it was released for Dreamcast at $20, with progressive scan/VGA support, the Extreme Battle mode, and smoother graphics.

[kool kitty89]

I think the only other 64 MB (512 Mbit) N64 cart was Conker's Bad Fur Day.

It begs the question though, would it have been better if Nintendo had used their 64 MB DD media (or similar disk media) or just as boneheaded as using carts? (though more expensive than CDs, they'd still be a lot cheaper than carts and with data transfer rates over 3x that of 2x CD drives -with Zip drives capable of ~1 MB/s)

[jesus.arnold]

There were lots of American games for C64. Epyx was American -- you know, Apshai, Jumpman, Summer/Winter/World/California Games, Pitstop, etc. There's also American RPGs such as the Ultima series (Ultima IV was particularly big), Wizardry, The Bard's Tale, and Might & Magic. You mention ports of Japanese arcade games, but what about ports of American arcade games? Actually, you listed two American arcade games below -- Paperboy and Gauntlet. There's also 720, Toobin', Rampart, Cyberball, Klax, Rampage, and so on. Plus, due to the C64's quick adoption in the US back in '82, a lot of old arcade games got ported to it as well -- like Defender, Gorf, Mr. Do, Q*Bert, Centipede, Pole Position, etc. As well, Activision ported many of their 2600-era games to the C64, including Pitfall, Pitfall 2, Beamrider, H.E.R.O., and so on, and continued supporting it with games like Rock n' Bolt and Little Computer People. Plus there were LucasArts and Sierra contributing their many adventure games (and a few action games), and EA publishing a few classics such as MULE and The Seven Cities of Gold. And let's not forget Broderbund -- Karateka was bigger than IK here, plus Lode Runner, Raid on Bungeling Bay, etc. Also Sid Meier's Pirates! was originally on C64, and I believe that was the most popular version.

That's a very cool list, there's definately a few popular C64 games there that I'd forgotten about, I remember that Winter/California Games were definately popular here as was 720, and you're right about Paperboy and Gauntlet too I was getting carried away and didn't check up on them 1st, they were American arcade games ported by Europeans.

That's pretty much all of them now as none of the other games you listed were massively popular here, many of them had a small following yes but not enough to be thought of as must owns, the C64 didn't take off here until a few years after it was released and by that time nobody was still interested in the really old arcade classics (many would've been coming from the Atari 2600 anyway and would've wanted something more impressive)

One thing that needs to be mentioned here is the Lucasarts games, those games were always well thought of but I'm pretty sure they were only released on disk here (and a tape version would've probably been unfeasible anyway) which pretty much crushed any chance of them achieving popularity at the time as disc drives were always unpopular in the UK, people instead going mostly for the much cheaper tapes, or if they had the money cartridges were the next most popular format.

Most of those were released in America. C64 was just as popular here, except it didn't last as long, so the late releases like Mayhem in Monsterland didn't come out here. But you better believe all the popular arcade ports came out here, and most (though not all) of the popular European games made their way to our shores.

Ok, I've been interested in which games were released where for quite a while and this conversation has made me take the plunge and go into some research.

It's starting to look as though virtually nothing worth buying was released in the US

I can find no instances of games from these companies being exported, if someone knows of some of their games released in the US I'd be interested to know

Rainbow Arts - produced a whole bunch of the most popular and impressive C64 games, developers they were affiliated with included Factor 5 who made the Turrican games, the most popular action games on the system, as well as X-Out, and the puzzle game Spherical

Thalamus - produced some of the most well loved platformers and shooters on the system such as the Creatures games, Delta, Hawkeye, and Armalyte

Codemasters - who were one of the top 3 most popular C64 gaming companies here and were famous for their cheap and cheerfull games as well as making some of the best platformers on the machine. don't seem to have ever released even 1 game in the US.

If these developers never released games in the US then that has pretty much removed 3 of my 4 favourite C64 companies and most of the games people actually talked about.

All I can see being exported is a bunch of arcade ports by Elite () some of the pretty cool System 3 games and a very limited selection of arcade ports from Ocean.

Of course many of these were probably available from crackers but without a proper release it would've cut into their popularity and the possibility of becoming well known, publicised or easily available.

[j_factor]

One thing that needs to be mentioned here is the Lucasarts games, those games were always well thought of but I'm pretty sure they were only released on disk here (and a tape version would've probably been unfeasible anyway) which pretty much crushed any chance of them achieving popularity at the time as disc drives were always unpopular in the UK, people instead going mostly for the much cheaper tapes, or if they had the money cartridges were the next most popular format.

Ah yes, this is one big difference between the US and the UK. Floppy disks were by far the dominant format for C64 games here. Tape drives were around too, but not nearly as popular.

Ok, I've been interested in which games were released where for quite a while and this conversation has made me take the plunge and go into some research.

It's starting to look as though virtually nothing worth buying was released in the US

I can find no instances of games from these companies being exported, if someone knows of some of their games released in the US I'd be interested to know

Rainbow Arts - produced a whole bunch of the most popular and impressive C64 games, developers they were affiliated with included Factor 5 who made the Turrican games, the most popular action games on the system, as well as X-Out, and the puzzle game Spherical

Thalamus - produced some of the most well loved platformers and shooters on the system such as the Creatures games, Delta, Hawkeye, and Armalyte

Codemasters - who were one of the top 3 most popular C64 gaming companies here and were famous for their cheap and cheerfull games as well as making some of the best platformers on the machine. don't seem to have ever released even 1 game in the US.

If these developers never released games in the US then that has pretty much removed 3 of my 4 favourite C64 companies and most of the games people actually talked about.

Rainbow Arts - I know R-Type came out here, that may be it for C64, but weren't most of their C64 games also on Amiga? We got the Amiga versions at least. Like, Turrican II came out on Amiga here (as well as DOS and CDTV), but it was probably deemed "too late" for C64. Although technically the C64 and its software were in stores until 1992, and games were released as late as that, for the most part anything past '88 or '89 is sparse.

Thalamus - Nope, I don't think anything they did came out here.

Codemasters - They were active in the US, but again their later stuff (post-1990) didn't come out for the C64 here, and again, weren't most of their games available on Amiga? What you guys might think of as mainly a C64 game with an Amiga port also available, could be solely an Amiga game here.

Of course many of these were probably available from crackers but without a proper release it would've cut into their popularity and the possibility of becoming well known, publicised or easily available.

Actually C64 piracy was huge in the US. Lots of BBSes were devoted entirely to C64 software, and people would swap disks all the time, some even forming mailing groups. Flea markets were loaded with pirated copies of games (even tape games) at very low prices. Often games that were hard to find or unavailable in stores could be acquired through these means. Great Giana Sisters for example wasn't released here, but people heard news stories about a game that was so similar to Super Mario Bros. that Nintendo sued, and so of course they wanted to play it (as Mario was huge here), so it made the rounds. And there were also mail order companies that would sell UK games to Americans, if anyone really wanted that.

[jesus.arnold]

Rainbow Arts - I know R-Type came out here, that may be it for C64, but weren't most of their C64 games also on Amiga? We got the Amiga versions at least. Like, Turrican II came out on Amiga here (as well as DOS and CDTV), but it was probably deemed "too late" for C64. Although technically the C64 and its software were in stores until 1992, and games were released as late as that, for the most part anything past '88 or '89 is sparse.

From the sound of things for the major part you guys got most of the already well known arcade ports but not so much the original software, where Turrican is concerned that game made it's name and became popular originally on C64 (think of it like comparing playing Mario 3 on the NES to the version on Mario Allstars on SNES) for many people the C64 version is still the definitive one.

Codemasters - They were active in the US, but again their later stuff (post-1990) didn't come out for the C64 here, and again, weren't most of their games available on Amiga? What you guys might think of as mainly a C64 game with an Amiga port also available, could be solely an Amiga game here.

I know Codemasters made some shoddy NES games that they brought out in the US like the Quattro's but I don't think I've seen any C64 games yet, they were another company who's games were more associated with the 8-bits (both Spectrum and C64) than Amiga, In fact apart from the Dizzy games they didn't really make Amiga versions of their 8-bit hits anyway tbh.

Actually C64 piracy was huge in the US. Lots of BBSes were devoted entirely to C64 software, and people would swap disks all the time, some even forming mailing groups. Flea markets were loaded with pirated copies of games (even tape games) at very low prices. Often games that were hard to find or unavailable in stores could be acquired through these means. Great Giana Sisters for example wasn't released here, but people heard news stories about a game that was so similar to Super Mario Bros. that Nintendo sued, and so of course they wanted to play it (as Mario was huge here), so it made the rounds. And there were also mail order companies that would sell UK games to Americans, if anyone really wanted that.

I can understand how something like Giana Sisters could become known and relatively popular even thoug it only had a pirate release but I don't see that other less notorius games could get the coverage, they'd have to rely on someone taking a chance on them (did the pirated games even have covers with screenshots?) and then spreading popularity by word of mouth, and on a system with so many available games that seems to be no mean feat

[nonner242]

Fav C64 games:

Beach-Head II
Last Ninja
Aliens
Uridium
Transformers:Energon something?
Wasteland....AKA Pre Fallout...and still one of the best
Forgotten Worlds
Delta...better than you think.

I never had a problem finding c64 or Amiga software in Ohio till afew years after Waldensoftware closed up and the stupid gamestop type stores took over...

[kool kitty89]

I know Codemasters made some shoddy NES games that they brought out in the US like the Quattro's but I don't think I've seen any C64 games yet, they were another company who's games were more associated with the 8-bits (both Spectrum and C64) than Amiga, In fact apart from the Dizzy games they didn't really make Amiga versions of their 8-bit hits anyway tbh.

I wouldn't call them shoddy most were pretty good, and at least 2 of the games in Quattro were great. (Dizzy, Super Robbin Hood)

Of unlicensed budget NES games released (Tengen doesn't fit the budget category, and Color Dreams etc. were just crap), the Camerica releases are probably the best, and better than many licensed releases.

There were some 14 games released by Camerica on the NES http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camerica more if you count the quattro games seperately. And a good prtion of those were above average games.
Most of the games had great music too, very C64-ish.

[j_factor]

I know Codemasters made some shoddy NES games that they brought out in the US like the Quattro's but I don't think I've seen any C64 games yet, they were another company who's games were more associated with the 8-bits (both Spectrum and C64) than Amiga, In fact apart from the Dizzy games they didn't really make Amiga versions of their 8-bit hits anyway tbh.

When I think of Codemasters I mainly think of the Dizzy games, most of which were on Amiga, but I guess you're right that their other stuff wasn't. Codemasters did release some C64 games here, and even ported a couple of them to Atari 8-bit. They were never terribly popular here, but they were around.

I can understand how something like Giana Sisters could become known and relatively popular even thoug it only had a pirate release but I don't see that other less notorius games could get the coverage, they'd have to rely on someone taking a chance on them (did the pirated games even have covers with screenshots?) and then spreading popularity by word of mouth, and on a system with so many available games that seems to be no mean feat

That was a best example really. Other stuff did not become so famous, but it was out there for anyone who looked. Like I said there was mail order and lots of pirating. My uncle said that he and his friends had a "game of the month" club where they would all pitch in to buy a game and then make copies for everyone, and sometimes, they would buy games from the UK. I guess it's a bit like importing Japanese games for later consoles.

[gamevet]

American Kids wanted to play NES games, European kids wanted to play computer games, ]b]kids only want to play what adverts tell them to play[/b] (and UK Amiga adverts were better) or what they've already had experience with, in the US kids would play a NES around someone's house and then want one, in the UK NES' weren't that popular so kids would more likely come into contact with computers or the Master System first making them want those instead.

Advertising only goes so far. Atari bombarded the airwaves with commercials for the Atari 5200, 7800 and the XL computer. Nobody cared, Atari was uncool by then.

Ok i'm going to go through this with a possible conversation

Kid - I want a games console

Parent - your not having one it's a waste of money and is just an expensive toy

Next week

Kid - I want an Amiga/C64/Spectrum, I'm interested in programming and I need one for School homework

Parent - hmmm, he obviously wants to play games but maybe he'll learn about computers at the same time and it might be useful to have one about the house

We went through that faze in the early 80s. Your scenario wouldn't play out like that in N. America during 1987. You'd more than likely hear mom and dad saying: Why can't you use your dad's PC to learn programming son? Scenario 2 would be: We'll find a used C64 in the paper and you can start with that. Once you've shown that you have an interest in programming, we'll see about getting you an Amiga.

That was just a possible conversation, of course most kids wouldn't have even bothered asking for a console in the 1st place due to the fact that

1. they weren't that popular anyway until later on (say around 89'-90')

2. the likelyhood of getting one would've been low, and

3. all the kids would know if they got the same computer as their friends they would be able to pirate and swap games for free

Yes but there was two more years for people to forget about Nintendo here, for people living here Nintendo just disappeared out of the market when realistically they were putting all their effort into the American console market at that time.

How did this conversation turn into what kids in Europe would do? The point of this conversation was: why kids didn't have an interest in an Amiga and why console gaming was more appealing.

I'll ask my brother later if he ever came into contact with one in his youth, I've never seen one before and I grew up in a seaside resort with masses of arcades.

I'd hope that your revisionist history would come from more than just your brother's opinion.

2. Ports of Japanese arcade games like Commando, Green Beret, Rainbow Islands, Ghosts N' Goblins, Gradius, R-Type, Bubble Bobble, Midnight Resistance, Arkanoid, Paperboy, Gryzor, Gauntlet, Wonder Boy, Rastan

Paperboy and Gauntlet are American arcade games.

I'm pretty sure that many of these games were never even actually exported to America for sale.

Most of those titles were published here. I have official copies of Gauntlet and Bubble Bobble.

That's pretty much all of them now as none of the other games you listed were massively popular here, many of them had a small following yes but not enough to be thought of as must owns, the C64 didn't take off here until a few years after it was released and by that time nobody was still interested in the really old arcade classics (many would've been coming from the Atari 2600 anyway and would've wanted something more impressive)

We weren't getting early arcade ports of 2600 games. The ports were from the real arcade games. Atarisoft released about a dozen arcade ports of popular Atari titles, along with Donkey Kong, and several Williams' classics. Sure, we had updated ports of classic Atari 2600 games like Pitfall, Pitfall 2, Mountain King and River Raid, but that was just icing on the cake.

You're really missing out on a bunch of American C64 classics like Archon, Battle Chess, Skyfox, Miner 2049'er, Jumpman, Mail Order Monsters, Racing Destruction Set, Adventure Construction set, Arcade Construction Set, Pinball Construction Set, Phantasie, Dragon Wars, Raid Over Moscow, Hacker, H.E.R.O., Heart of Africa, Star Flight, Karateka, Bruce Lee, Conan, World Leaderboard Golf, Skate or Die, Hard Hat Mack, Deja Vu, Questron, Leisure Suit Larry, Load Runner, Spelunker, Psi-5 Trading Company (one of my favorites), Hardball, Test Drive, Super Sprint, Bop N' Wrestle, Trail Blazer, Larry Bird Vs. Dr. J and Pitstop.

[jesus.arnold]

How did this conversation turn into what kids in Europe would do? The point of this conversation was: why kids didn't have an interest in an Amiga and why console gaming was more appealing.

I was using it as a comparison to show why kids in Europe found the Amiga more appealing, kids wanted free games, they bought what their friends already owned and what they had come into contact with and the NES was "uncool" I'm saying that there wasn't really any solid reason why kids in the US didn't want Amiga's, or why kids in the UK didn't want NES' they just want whats popular with the people around them.

The NES was a great console and I think it did deserve to outsell the other machines of that era but not to the extent that it did in the US I think that the NES' overwhelming success in the US is more down to Nintendo's marketing and the ineptitude of their competition in the area than any other factor, whereas you seem to firmly believe that the NES crushing the competition and nothing else having a chance to flourish was a natural thing, you don't see some kids as wanting a NES whilst others want an Amiga and others wanting a Master System as a possibility (and you can see from other countries that kids did want those sorts of things).

At the end of the day the Amiga was good but not quite as good as the NES for platformers and shooters, better than the NES for puzzle games/strategy games/flight sims/adventure games/western RPG's, easy to pirate games for and had much better graphics so it should have been able to cut into the NES' market share. You can't just say "kids weren't interested in computers" because they quite obviously were all across the world. I remember when I was young loads of people would sit down with paper doing pixel art saying they were going to make their own video games and get rich (most people never got that far though ) so the computers did somewhat catch children's imaginations in that respect too.

I'd hope that your revisionist history would come from more than just your brother's opinion.

1st hand experience from someone can be useful, and asking my brother what arcade machines he saw and heard about wouldn't be his "opinion", I usually look for as much info from different places as I can, I already know that I have never seen a NES arcade machine, and that I have never heard of one mentioned outside of US centric internet forums, I can't find evidence on the Net of how readily available they were here so I asked my brother for his personal experience, all he said was that he had never heard of them and that the only Nintendo things that were popular at that time were game and watches with Donkey Kong being popular many years previously.

Most of those titles were published here.

From what I've seen this is most certainly not the truth, most of my favourite C64 games don't actually seem to be available in the US

We weren't getting early arcade ports of 2600 games. The ports were from the real arcade games. Atarisoft released about a dozen arcade ports of popular Atari titles, along with Donkey Kong, and several Williams' classics. Sure, we had updated ports of classic Atari 2600 games like Pitfall, Pitfall 2, Mountain King and River Raid, but that was just icing on the cake.

What I meant to say was that in the UK the 2600 was pretty big, everybody bought all the Defenders, Space invaders, Donkey Kong's, Centipede's, Pole Position's and Pacman's (original was terrible on 2600 but Ms was pretty good) that they wanted, those games were old hat when the C64 started to achieve popularity here at around 85' - 86' (when 1st released the C64 got the trouncing of it's life from the Spectrum and only picked up when they put the emphasis on tapes and the hardware prices dropped)

You're really missing out on a bunch of American C64 classics like Archon, Battle Chess, Skyfox, Miner 2049'er, Jumpman, Mail Order Monsters, Racing Destruction Set, Adventure Construction set, Arcade Construction Set, Pinball Construction Set, Phantasie, Dragon Wars, Raid Over Moscow, Hacker, H.E.R.O., Heart of Africa, Star Flight, Karateka, Bruce Lee, Conan, World Leaderboard Golf, Skate or Die, Hard Hat Mack, Deja Vu, Questron, Leisure Suit Larry, Load Runner, Spelunker, Psi-5 Trading Company (one of my favorites), Hardball, Test Drive, Super Sprint, Bop N' Wrestle, Trail Blazer, Larry Bird Vs. Dr. J and Pitstop.

I've played many, of those games before, Miner 2049er, Jumpman, Load Runner and Star Flight (I own the Mega Drive version) are all good games but I can see from the list that you are of the other side of C64 fandom to me, I've noticed that C64 fans seem to fall into two categories,

the 1st is people who like a mixture of really old, basic games, and RPG's like the ones you've just mentioned (and some UK equivilents would be Chuckie Egg, Manic Miner which is a Miner 2049er inspired game and the Monty Mole games), you could call them the golden age of C64 games I guess.

The 2nd are people who associate the C64 with fast scrolling action games, platformers, puzzlers, sports games and shooters which is where I personally stand, I never use my C64 to play those games as they never really interested me even in my childhood. Really you can just watch my 100 C64 games video on Youtube to see where I stand for better or worse where the system is concerned http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrTKBr78FAE

[gamegenie]

Did you guys know there were two versions of Cybermorph for the Jaguar.
2Mbit and 1Mbit size cart.

I only know this cause I was touring the atari-age forums and came across this rarity link that had this info.

Even though I already owned the 1Mbit version, I just had to ebay the 2Mbit one to my collection.

The only difference between between the two games is that in the 2Mbit version it has a short morph of the title logo from your 3D flying ship. During the game Skylar the green head woman says a few more things, like "great shot", "stay away from the ground", and "one more pod left", and the controls are ass backwards. Instead of C being reverse, A being forward, and B to fire. The older 2Mbit version is C reverse, B forward, and A fire.

[gamevet]

I was using it as a comparison to show why kids in Europe found the Amiga more appealing, kids wanted free games, they bought what their friends already owned and what they had come into contact with and the NES was "uncool" I'm saying that there wasn't really any solid reason why kids in the US didn't want Amiga's, or why kids in the UK didn't want NES' they just want whats popular with the people around them.

There were plenty of solid reasons why they didn't want the Amiga. The $600 price tag for an Amiga 500 was too much for someone that wanted to play games on a more casual level. One of my friends would play my C64 and Amiga after work, and he enjoyed the games quite a bit. He still shelled out the cash for the NES, since it was inexpensive and it had a large library of games he found enjoyable.

The NES was a great console and I think it did deserve to outsell the other machines of that era but not to the extent that it did in the US I think that the NES' overwhelming success in the US is more down to Nintendo's marketing and the ineptitude of their competition in the area than any other factor, whereas you seem to firmly believe that the NES crushing the competition and nothing else having a chance to flourish was a natural thing, you don't see some kids as wanting a NES whilst others want an Amiga and others wanting a Master System as a possibility (and you can see from other countries that kids did want those sorts of things).

I see the underwhelming sales of the NES in Europe having more to do with poor distribution. Europe and South America were the only areas that the Master System had any success. And Europe was the only place that the Amiga saw moderate success.

The NES was the only system (at that time) to have titles that sold in the millions. In the computer gaming world, if you sold 50,000 titles it was considered a success. Sure, the Atari 2600 had a couple of titles that managed to eclipse the million mark, but Atari ended up losing their ass because they overproduced those titles.

At the end of the day the Amiga was good but not quite as good as the NES for platformers and shooters, better than the NES for puzzle games/strategy games/flight sims/adventure games/western RPG's, easy to pirate games for and had much better graphics so it should have been able to cut into the NES' market share. You can't just say "kids weren't interested in computers" because they quite obviously were all across the world. I remember when I was young loads of people would sit down with paper doing pixel art saying they were going to make their own video games and get rich (most people never got that far though ) so the computers did somewhat catch children's imaginations in that respect too.

I don't agree with puzzle games being superior on the Amiga. There may have been a few obscure puzzle game titles that were great, but most gamers didn't see or play them.

Most of the Western RPGs were available on PC hardware, so that advantage was pretty much layed to the wayside. Flight sims were decent on the Amiga, but you'd often find the PC versions were somewhat superior. Still, people that bought the NES weren't really interested in those types of games.

From what I've seen this is most certainly not the truth, most of my favourite C64 games don't actually seem to be available in the US

You're really missing out on a bunch of great titles. Archon is often considered one of the best C64 games ever made.

What I meant to say was that in the UK the 2600 was pretty big, everybody bought all the Defenders, Space invaders, Donkey Kong's, Centipede's, Pole Position's and Pacman's (original was terrible on 2600 but Ms was pretty good) that they wanted, those games were old hat when the C64 started to achieve popularity here at around 85' - 86' (when 1st released the C64 got the trouncing of it's life from the Spectrum and only picked up when they put the emphasis on tapes and the hardware prices dropped)

Defender, Donkey Kong, Centipede, Pac-Man and Pole Position were horrible ports. The C64 versions of those games were the best of that time, and even the NES port of Donkey Kong sucked in comparison to Atari Soft's version on the C64. The 2600 had excellent arcade ports of Omega Race, Missile Command, Burger-Time, Space Invaders, Ms. Pac-Man, Jungle Hunt, Kangaroo, Night Driver, Breakout, Warlords, Indy 500 and Amidar, but the rest was just horrible. The Atarisoft versions (C64) were amazing for the time, and the fact that I could play semi-accurate versions of arcade games on the system made it worth the investment. Even the ever-popular arcade games on the Colecovision, paled in comparison to what the C64 was able to do with those games.

I've played many, of those games before, Miner 2049er, Jumpman, Load Runner and Star Flight (I own the Mega Drive version) are all good games but I can see from the list that you are of the other side of C64 fandom to me, I've noticed that C64 fans seem to fall into two categories,

the 1st is people who like a mixture of really old, basic games, and RPG's like the ones you've just mentioned (and some UK equivilents would be Chuckie Egg, Manic Miner which is a Miner 2049er inspired game and the Monty Mole games), you could call them the golden age of C64 games I guess.

No, not at all. I have over 1,000 C64 titles, with a ton being produced in Europe. The titles I've listed came from my experience with the computer, dating all the way back to games produced in 1989. I even have a clone copy of the arcade game Super Punchout!!!

The 2nd are people who associate the C64 with fast scrolling action games, platformers, puzzlers, sports games and shooters which is where I personally stand, I never use my C64 to play those games as they never really interested me even in my childhood. Really you can just watch my 100 C64 games video on Youtube to see where I stand for better or worse where the system is concerned http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrTKBr78FAE

There are a few gems in there, but I can't give the nod to inferior versions of Bionic Commando,TMNT, Life Force, Lemmings or Shadow of the Beast. I highly recommend you try out the C64 versions of Rambo and Gun Smoke, you won't be disappointed. And how do you not have M.U.L.E on that list!?

I'd also like to note that you do have a football (Soccer) game in that video. You also have a quite large amount of shooters in that video, yet you claim that those weren't the kind of games you enjoyed.

[jesus.arnold]

Only now after all this time did I get the idea to check the UK monthly sales charts in my old magazine

I must say.....I'm actually shocked, Gamevet you would be stunned and appalled by the UK sales chart

After checking through around 2 years of multi-format top 20 sales charts from the early 90s I have only seen 4 instances of console games appearing at all, the Master System version of Golden Axe and the Master System version of Shinobi, Sonic the Hedgehog (Mega Drive version) which I might add the magazine says how amazing it is that a console game has managed to debut at 11 and yes, I saw one NES game, Mario?......nope the only NES game I saw break the UK top 20 was Turtles, it managed to reach something like 14 whilst the other versions of the game were all in the top 5 (and the C64 version of that game was pretty bad)

Every month the sales chart is usually split 3 ways between the Amiga, the C64 and....the ZX Spectrum! still going strong even in the 90s

The following pages after the top 20 usually deal with the machines singularly, with the Amiga, Atari ST, Spectrum, Commodore and Amstrad all having a nice amount of space with their own top 20s, then come the consoles the Mega Drive and NES with their own little top 5's taking up 1/4 of the page.

Whilst reading through the letters page it becomes fast apparent that nobody is interested in cutesy cartoon platformers at all, the only time they seem acceptable to people is if they're tongue in cheek and don't take themselves seriously such as James Pond II and Chuck Rock, some of the games that seem to be massive are Gods and Speedball 2.

To be honest even I didn't expect it to be like this, from what I've seen and read (from a good 30 odd magazines) Teenagers and older in the UK during the 80 and early 90s had literally zero interest in consoles of any kind except the Mega Drive which seems to be seen as a bit of a luxury (I'm fairly sure that if I had magazines from 93-94 then you'd see the MD growing in popularity as the prices drop and my generation become teenagers), pre-teens from the late 80s early 90s (such as myself) seem very interested in consoles (mainly Master System) but I guess none of us had the money to buy the games

I see the underwhelming sales of the NES in Europe having more to do with poor distribution. Europe and South America were the only areas that the Master System had any success. And Europe was the only place that the Amiga saw moderate success.

I agree that poor distribution and advertising of the NES was probably one factor why it wasn't as big but to be honest after looking at the games people are talking about and what was selling well there doesn't seem to be a lot of interest in platform games anyway, especially not linear platform games, the only platformers that are popular are those with massive explorable levels like The New Zealand Story/Robocod or those with a high emphasis on puzzles and using items, I think that another more important factor is that NES games were too expensive for the console to take off

I don't agree with puzzle games being superior on the Amiga. There may have been a few obscure puzzle game titles that were great, but most gamers didn't see or play them.

Well, in my personal experience most of the NES puzzle games that were worth playing were on the Amiga anyway, and the Amiga had masses of it's own puzzle software.

You're really missing out on a bunch of great titles. Archon is often considered one of the best C64 games ever made.

Archon is a good game, I've played the NES version of it quite a few times.

Defender, Donkey Kong, Centipede, Pac-Man and Pole Position were horrible ports. The C64 versions of those games were the best of that time

It doesn't matter how good they were, by 85 - 86' when the C64 started to take off here they were well past their sell by date so nobody wanted them and the Spectrum had like 20 versions of Donkey Kong on it and 20 versions of Defender on it and 20 versions of Burger Time on it etc already, people don't buy expensive state of the art machines primarily to play old arcade ports

No, not at all. I have over 1,000 C64 titles, with a ton being produced in Europe. The titles I've listed came from my experience with the computer, dating all the way back to games produced in 1989. I even have a clone copy of the arcade game Super Punchout!!!

You may of played many later games but you still associate the C64 with those Golden Age style games, If someone asked me what games on the C64 I liked I wouldn't have even considered mentioning any of those games, I actually had a rule when I was a kid never to buy games made before 86' as everytime I had when the game was loaded I would look at dissapointment at the screen and say something like "this looks as bad as an Atari 2600 game" turn it off and throw it into a box, only later did I begin to appreciate those games for their gameplay, which means I have no nostalgia for them at all and when I think of the C64 I think of the types of games in my video

There are a few gems in there, but I can't give the nod to inferior versions of Bionic Commando

You can't really compare the C64 version to the NES one as it's an accurate arcade port whilst the NES version is more like a sequel.

TMNT

Yeah that was way better on NES tbh

Life Force

LOL, not at all, the NES hardware just can't handle that game, as simple as that, the graphics had to be so downscaled that it completely loses any epicness it once had and looks a bit shoddy, worst of all they mucked about with the power-up system to make it like Gradius which screwed up the difficulty curve, it's saving grace is definately the 2 player mode but I'd still rather play the C64 version even though it's only one player and has a level or two missing as while it lasts it looks and plays fantastic.

I'd also like to note that you do have a football (Soccer) game in that video. You also have a quite large amount of shooters in that video, yet you claim that those weren't the kind of games you enjoyed.

No I never said this, just because I was complaining that the NES only caters to platformer/shooter/RPG fans doesn't mean I myself am not a fan of those genres I was talking from the point of view that the video games market is made up of people with different wants.

[gamevet]

Only now after all this time did I get the idea to check the UK monthly sales charts in my old magazine

I must say.....I'm actually shocked, Gamevet you would be stunned and appalled by the UK sales chart

I am appalled. I can understand Brazil being behind in the times, since they are pretty much a second world country, but there's no excuse for Europe being so behind as well. 8-Bit computer gaming was dead in 1990, yet Europe still embraced it.

I agree that poor distribution and advertising of the NES was probably one factor why it wasn't as big but to be honest after looking at the games people are talking about and what was selling well there doesn't seem to be a lot of interest in platform games anyway, especially not linear platform games, the only platformers that are popular are those with massive explorable levels like The New Zealand Story/Robocod or those with a high emphasis on puzzles and using items, I think that another more important factor is that NES games were too expensive for the console to take off

Robocod is a horrible game; It came out on the Genesis and nobody cared. James Pond anyone?

To say that Super Mario Brothers wasn't filled with puzzles and exploration, is really overlooking its significance to the platforming genre.

Well, in my personal experience most of the NES puzzle games that were worth playing were on the Amiga anyway, and the Amiga had masses of it's own puzzle software.

Did you honestly buy an Amiga to play simplified puzzle games? 90% of those puzzle games could be played on old 8-bit computers and consoles. I bought an Amiga to experience stunning graphics and sound, not dated stuff.

It doesn't matter how good they were, by 85 - 86' when the C64 started to take off here they were well past their sell by date so nobody wanted them and the Spectrum had like 20 versions of Donkey Kong on it and 20 versions of Defender on it and 20 versions of Burger Time on it etc already, people don't buy expensive state of the art machines primarily to play old arcade ports

I didn't have a C64 until late 1985 and most of my friends were able to afford one by then as well. We didn't have our parents buying the C64, because they would bring home lame TRS-80 and IBM PC Jr. clones. We had to scratch and save up our cash to buy the real gaming computer or that time.

Donkey Kong came out in 1981, it was hardly an old game. I'd played the 2600, Intellevision and Colecovision versions of the game and I was still excited about the C64 version(1984), because it was the only version that got it right. Most of the arcade greats of the 80's came out between 1982-1985, when the arcade scene was at its highest point in history. Calling any of those games dated is really overlooking the most important piece of videogame history. These were timeless classics and they still are today.

If older arcade games weren't that popular, we'd never of had the Midway, Taito, Capcom, Namco, Tecmo and Atari compilations offered on the PS2, Gamecube, Xbox and PC would we?

You may of played many later games but you still associate the C64 with those Golden Age style games.

Not exactly. Mr. Do's Castle is a great conversion of the arcade game ( I didn't play it until @1988) and it is one of my favorite arcade games on the system. PSi-5 Trading outpost came out @1988 and it was also one of my favorites.

You'll find that there was just as much crap after 1986 as there was during 1984. The system had such a verying level of competence with the programmers that made the games, that no matter what year the game came out, it could look like crap or be the best thing to ever be on the system. I'd say the best years of the C64 came between 1984 and 1989, when most of the major publishers were supporting the system. EA made a killing importing European titles to N. America and N. American titles to Europe.

You can't really compare the C64 version to the NES one as it's an accurate arcade port whilst the NES version is more like a sequel.

I wasn't comparing it to the NES version. I happen to own the Amiga version of Bionic Commando and it's spot on with the arcade game.

LOL, not at all, the NES hardware just can't handle that game, as simple as that, the graphics had to be so downscaled that it completely loses any epicness it once had and looks a bit shoddy, worst of all they mucked about with the power-up system to make it like Gradius which screwed up the difficulty curve, it's saving grace is definately the 2 player mode but I'd still rather play the C64 version even though it's only one player and has a level or two missing as while it lasts it looks and plays fantastic.

I'd say it was the other way around. I happen to have both versions of Lifeforce and the C64 version struggles to keep up with the amount of sprites required of the game. I'd guess C64 version is missing a couple of levels, because it's more than likely they were too much for the programmers to squeeze out out of the older hardware.