Bringing Past To Present
Commodorathon
One man. One machine. Over 400 games. Retrobear is on a quest to play every single Commodore 64 game in his collection, without prejudice. That is not going to be an easy task.
The only rules are as follows :
* All games in the collection must be played – no exceptions no matter how bad a game’s reputation
* A minimum of 3 games per post will be reviewed
* Where possible the games will be compared to the coin-op original
* I must keep the faith
Let Battle Commence!
Commodorathon : Games 37-42
Feb 8th
Dateline 7th February 2012
Game 42 marks the 10%-ish mark of the Commodorathon. To say it’s been an arduous trek so far is to say that elephants are made of sheet metal. Still it doesn’t help that the six games chosen at random tend to be just that – random. Cacky old arcade conversions, lame film-tie ins and the great, great grandson of Championship Manager lay in wait in this next batch……..
The first landmark of the Commodorathon
Commodorathon : Games 31-36
Jan 25th
Dateline : 25th January 2012
After spending too long in the wilderness the Commodorathon makes it triumphant return for 2012. Retrobear still has one heck of a way to go before the end but with a semi-regular visit to this vaunted project at least he can chip away at it bit by bit. So here are games 31-36 with more of the same Commodore 64 games goodness.
Feel the quality..........it's baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack
Commodorathon : Games 25-30
May 16th
Has RetroBear bitten off more than he can chew ? Can he stomach yet more dodgy arcade conversions, twee tunes and multiloads ? What lurks in that large pile of tapes that needs loading ? Wouldn’t it have been easier to use an emulator ? Would he have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for those meddling kids ? No dammit he’s a retro gamer and playing games the old fashioned way is what retro gamers do. Either that or he’s a glutton for punishment….roll on games 25-30…..
PS Videos to follow again – they take a while to encode you know…
I could do with a large pile of these....
Commodorathon : Games 19-24
May 16th
After a longer than expected hiatus but still managing to beat the Playstation Network in restarting, RetroBear goes back to mid April with the next 6 C64 games on his list. It starts badly but slowly gets better and takes in a couple of classics to ease the pain inflicted so far…..
PS Videos to follow
Load dammit !
Monday 18th April 2011
Outside the sun is shining. It’s another beautiful day but dammit I have Commodore 64 games to play. No rest for the wicked and these games will not play themselves…..
Commodorathon – Games 13-18
Apr 18th
For the next six games RetroBear takes on the role of a soldier wanting revenge, a large ape, some kind of space warrior, a large headed boy in a nappy and the Last Slapfighter. Sounds like a cheese induced nightmare but it isn’t….
How I might look when the remaining 405 games have been played.....
Saturday 16th April 2011
Six more games, six more ranges of emotion. The task is proving very tough indeed if only for the failure of games to load. There are still hundreds of games to get through so let us waste no time and crack on with the next batch of games to see what joy/despair they bring.
Commodorathon – Games 7-12
Apr 15th
Up next for RetroBear are more technical problems, an ancient arcade conversion, one of the most popular board games in the world turned into a computer game and two of the most notoriously bad C64 arcade conversions. Cover your eyes and ears as this will not be pretty…..
Oh no - not WEC Le Mans AND Enduro Racer !!!
Thursday 14th April 2011
I am not looking forward to the next batch of games considering that it contains two absolute all time C64 nightmares. At least that is what legend says, after all my opinion may differ from those who have gone before me. We shall see as Day 2 of the Commodorathon commences….
The Commodorathon – First Games Reviewed…..
Apr 13th
So the moment finally arrives. RetroBear reviews the first games in the C64 collection and encounters a dodgy coin-op conversion, two crappy film tie ins (and we all know how much he loves those) and a few technical problems….
Rumble In The Jungle
Ridding the streets of scum
Jungle Fever
Tuesday April 12th 2011
The Commodorathon begins. Armed with little more than a pint of orange squash and having surveyed the task ahead this show is officially on the road. This does mean starting with a lot of film tie ins which from previous columns you will notice are not my favourite genre. However they were first out of the drawer…..
GAME 1 : RAMBO FIRST BLOOD PART II (1986, OCEAN SOFTWARE)
You are Rambo armed to the teeth with weapons and your tasks are simple – rescue the POW’s without engaging the enemy. That is easier said than done as the enemy are quite happy to engage you. Escaping the first task in a helicopter, you then return to the camp you just visited to rescue some more POW’s before then taking on an enemy helicopter. Beyond that, well it’s difficult to say because that is as far as I got.
At the time of release it went head to head with Elite’s conversion of the arcade smash Commando. The two games are very similar except with Rambo you go up the screen, then back down it and then back up it. I’ll get to Commando at some point in the future but having played it a few months ago I do prefer it, though it is far from a good game.
Call Me Ishmael – RetroBear tackles his Moby Dick
Apr 6th
One man. One machine. Over 400 games. Retrobear is on a quest to play every single Commodore 64 game in his collection, without prejudice. That is not going to be an easy task.
The only rules are as follows :
- All games in the collection must be played – no exceptions no matter how bad a game’s reputation
- A minimum of 3 games per post will be reviewed
- Where possible the games will be compared to the coin-op original
- I must keep the faith
C64 Goodness
This week got me thinking as to what to do next with the site. Whilst posting comments on various systems and bits of gaming history is all well and good, what I feel is lacking most is actually playing the damn games and reviewing them. The problem with that is where to start ? I mean it’s not as if I have a small amount of games to be going along with that would take a short period of time to cover.