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#7988 - 08/23/03 07:15 PM The Commodore 64 appreciation thread.
Equalizer Offline
Member

Registered: 02/12/01
Posts: 525
Loc: Scotland
Nigel,
I'm not on a mission to suck up to the admin guy here, but I've recently read that you used to be involved with the Commodore 64.

As an ex C64 addict I'm very curious to know a little bit more about this. What specific games were you in on? What went wrong with Commodore anyway (it used to be a massive company but now it seems to have vanished)? What's your general opinion of the C64 now a days?

For what it's worth, I miss the C64. Although the graphics (obviously) can't touch what's out there today, I think the C64 had better and much more imaginative games. Now-a-days, all we seem to have is shoot em ups, football games and flight simulators.

Anyway, please forgive the nostalga trip but it's just something that I've been meaning to bring up. It would certainly be a real fluke if it turned out that you were in on some of the games that I was hooked on!

-Eq

PS- I recently uploaded a review for a C64 game on my website (along with a downloadable clone of the game). If anyone's interested the address is http://www.bruceleecentral.com/bruceleegame.htm

[This message has been edited by Equalizer (edited 08-23-2003).]
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#7989 - 08/23/03 11:48 PM Re: The Commodore 64 appreciation thread.
Nigel Offline
Admin

Registered: 06/01/98
Posts: 6482
Loc: Ventura CA USA
I have very fond memories of working on the C64 and you are right. Many games then have better and more varied gameplay than most modern games. I guess because of the limited memory and CPU power programmers had to provide more imaginative gameplay.

I worked for a company called Melbourne House in Melbourne Australia. I worked on

Bop 'N Wrestle (Rock 'N Wrestle in the UK)
Exploding Fist II - The Legend Continues
Bedlam - a vertically scrolling space shootem
Sgt Slaughter's Mat Wars

After that the C64 was pretty much done and I then converted Cinemareware's Rocket Ranger to the NES. I then moved to Ventura County to work for Cinemaware who then went away into the void as did the Commodore Amiga on which they had so much time invested. Funny thing is I still work with many of those from Cinemaware still today. We all work for a company called Mass Media. Over the past few years I have been developing Namco Museum game collections on the N64, GBA, PS2, XBox and Gamecube featuring the original Namco arcade games from Pacman, DigDug and MsPacman through to the more advanced Arrangment versions that came out. Sort of fun putting those games on modern consoles and they were all running the original code that Namco provided us so they are the real thing.


In the early 90s I did a bunch of baseball games including Bo Jackson Baseball, Cal Ripken Jr, Sports Illustrated Football & Baseball. Though that pretty much gave me my fill of sports games.

Now I am am working on a PS2 version of Sierra's new upcoming game Metal Arms - Glitch In The System
You control a small robot called Glitch who has to take the world back from evil robots that have taken over. It is a 3rd person shooter pretty much but has a different look and flavor from others that are out there. You can take over enemy robots and vehilces which can be useful. The biggest challenge is taking code being developed by another company for the XBox and make it work reasonably quickly and look pretty close on the slower PS2. We need to be finished very soon now.

I still own a Commodore 128 which is a C64 with some added stuff. That was great time to be playing games though.

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#7990 - 08/24/03 12:20 AM Re: The Commodore 64 appreciation thread.
Nigel Offline
Admin

Registered: 06/01/98
Posts: 6482
Loc: Ventura CA USA
I just read your Bruce Lee for the C64 review. It brought back lots of memories. I remember that game having played it many times. I remember it was cool playing the bad green guy when your buddy was playing Bruce Lee. It made for a great 2 player game.

There were so many good games around then. It's a pity Commodore died. They made the mistake of trying to market the Commodore Amiga as a business machine. They should have just packaged the Amiga 500 into a game console which was much better than the Nintendo NES that ended up taking over from the C64. They should have realised after the success of the C64 that the home market was where their success was not small business. They learnt the hard way I guess.

I think you can find all the games for the C64 I worked on C64 enthusiast websites. Melbourne House ended up releasing all their old C64 games into the public domain. I now have downloaded copies on my PC of all the games I worked on.

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#7991 - 08/24/03 03:39 AM Re: The Commodore 64 appreciation thread.
tekminus Offline
Member

Registered: 04/20/00
Posts: 1287
My only musical encounter with the C64 was playing around with Funky Drummer. The C64 still has the best fighting game, The Way of the Exploding Fist. I remember Bruce Lee too. That lightblue room, where you had to jump over moving floor obstacles was the worst part. I beat the game in the end.

-tek

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#7992 - 08/24/03 10:33 AM Re: The Commodore 64 appreciation thread.
rattley Offline
Member

Registered: 11/14/99
Posts: 832
Loc: Punta Gorda Florida USA
Hello.......I remember Commodore's VIC20 the 64's predecessor, and before that the Sinclair home kit computer...........I'd love to stay and chat more, but it's my turn to play Pong!

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#7993 - 08/24/03 11:19 AM Re: The Commodore 64 appreciation thread.
POWERNOISE Offline
Junior Member

Registered: 06/10/03
Posts: 10

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#7994 - 08/24/03 03:15 PM Re: The Commodore 64 appreciation thread.
TheSonicEnergyAuthority Offline
Member

Registered: 07/14/00
Posts: 307
Loc: Peterborough,Cambridgeshire,UK
I owe much to the C64. It was basically my first synth, drum machine, equencer, and sampler.

I still have it, and it still works..
I too moved on to Amiga's, and they got me MIDI sequencing.

Having to make do with a PC now.



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The Sonic Energy Authority - a sound investment
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#7995 - 08/24/03 03:32 PM Re: The Commodore 64 appreciation thread.
Chris Attison Offline
Member

Registered: 12/08/98
Posts: 819
Loc: Long Island, NY.
I think all of us had a C64 at one time. It defintely got me interested in computers even though I wasnt using it for music at the time. If you guys remember, the C64 and 128 had a phone line for gopher internet service. Those were the days.

[This message has been edited by Chris Attison (edited 08-24-2003).]
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#7996 - 08/25/03 02:05 AM Re: The Commodore 64 appreciation thread.
Nigel Offline
Admin

Registered: 06/01/98
Posts: 6482
Loc: Ventura CA USA
I used a C64 with an 8 track MIDI sequencer called Digital Studio which was very cool but limited editing. I and a friend also wrote a pretty nice graphical DX7/TX7 synth editor on the C64 as well. It was my first MIDI computer. It was a pattern based sequencer which helped work around the limited note memory. But it had realtime recording and quantize capabilities.

I had a buddy who made his own MIDI cards for the Vic20 and C64 and had a bunch of them MIDIed together running various custom MIDI processing programs and his home made digital drum machine. That was when I realized how cool MIDI really was.

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#7997 - 08/25/03 02:11 AM Re: The Commodore 64 appreciation thread.
Nigel Offline
Admin

Registered: 06/01/98
Posts: 6482
Loc: Ventura CA USA
Quote:
Originally posted by tekminus:
The C64 still has the best fighting game, The Way of the Exploding Fist.-tek


Way Of The Exploding Fist was done in 1984 just before I started working with Melbourne House but I worked on the sequel Exploding Fist II which was the same fighting engine as the original but in a scrolling world. A volcano that you had to fight your way to the top.

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