Old European Computer gaming

Ok, I consider myself a pretty well rounded gamer. I like stuff on pretty much all types of platforms, nearly all major genres, and all regions. But the one thing I seem to know the least about is the stuff on those old budget computers that were all the rage in Europe before they figured out about real computers. I'm talking Commodore 64, Amiga, Spectrum, and the like.

So I need to rectify this. Now, I've played the basics, at least. The Factor 5, Bitmap Bros, and Reflections stuff, the old Rare games, as well as most of the good stuff that's been ported around like Out of this World, Flashback... the really popular stuff, and a small cross-section of the lesser-known stuff. But I'd like to get into some of the lesser known/underrated games for these systems.

So yeah, any recommendations, discussions, or fond memories welcome.

I was weird. While most people had PCs, my family had a C64 and later an Amiga - hence my interest in this subject.

I've already spazzed out about Extase in the "Required Gaming" thread.

Moonstone is another favourite. It isn't actually European, but the primary platform was the Amiga. It was done by a couple Canadians. It's sort of a hybrid of beat-em-up, RPG, and boardgame. Sort of a modernized version of Quest For The Rings on Odyssey 2, only with the board component digitized. The idea is to collect four keys to gain entrance to the Valley of the Gods. The gameplay involves wandering around and entering areas, killing the enemies present, finding magical items, the requisite keys, and money. It's a fairly fun hack-and-slash reminiscent of some of the old Capcom brawlers, but much more difficult. However, the money found can be used to purchase extra lives and healing. The game is fairly fun on your own, but the real magic is in the multiplayer mode. Four people can compete, trying to complete the quest first. It's really satisfying to lop off somebody's head and take their precious key. There's also a PC port that remains fairly accurate and eliminates the frequent disk swapping.

Apidya is a fantastic shooter for Amiga. The graphics are stunning, the gameplay is great and reminiscent of both R-Type and Gradius, and the music is the best ever composed for a shooter. I think Chris Huelsbeck is the second-best game music composer ever.

The best game music composer ever is Stephane Picq. He did the dynamic music for Extase, as well as composing the soundtracks for many of Cryo's games. I think his music for Dune is his best work. Dune is an interesting game... it's a hybrid of adventure game and strategy, with a very unique art style and the best soundtrack ever. There were ports to a whole bunch of systems, but the Amiga one stands out for the best audio of them all. Too bad space limitations reduced the soundtrack to four songs. There was a CD release of the Dune soundtrack, called Spice Opera. It has studio arranged versions of all the songs in the game, plus a few new tracks. I highly suggest finding it somewhere like Galbadia Hotel. I've had "normal" people (non-gamers) ask me what I was listening to and then request a copy. It's that damn good.

Yeah, I've played Apidya and Dune. And Extase (though I never knew what the fuck I was doing). I will add Moonstone to the list. I guess between Amiga, C64, and Spectrum, I have the most experience with Amiga. I have made a concerted effort to go through and try the games I've heard about. I've probably played like 5 Spectrum games ever, and most of my C64 experience is with Epyx games.

The load times on Amiga games really are a bitch. I wish I was smart enough to figure out how to install games to the hard drive and run them.

Wizball is my favourite C64 game. If you haven't played it, you really need to. It represents everything good about C64 games - great graphics, fantastic music, excellent control, and unique gameplay. You bounce along landscapes collecting drops to make colours... until you get the first powerup and start flying around defender-style. Then it sort of becomes a weird shooter with a nonstandard goal. I probably haven't explained it well, but that's because it's really hard to explain. Just play it - the gameplay is really inuitive.

Newcomer is a modern C64 game. It was released in 2001, and boasts some of the best graphics on the platform. It's an adventure/rpg with a fascinating plot. The gameplay reminds me of Wasteland and Alternate Reality: The City... both of which are multiplatform titles that are worth playing, and happen to be available on C64.

Katakis (AKA Denaris) is a really neat euroshmup by Manfred Trenz. I think he was one of the only Western developers to really understand what makes a shooter fun. The gameplay is very similar to R-Type, but scrolls at a pace that's just a little too fast for comfort and makes the game surprisingly frantic. It's also one of the few C64 games to do both music and sound effects in-game - no small feat when there are only three voices available.

R-Type was also ported by Trenz and boasts the same, but the gameplay is really buggy. Apparently it was ported in six weeks. Still, the port is notable for having the best version of the music. Listen to R-Type's sid, but avoid the game.

Elite is a must-play on any platform. I like the C64 version - it retains the feel of the BBC original but adds a few new missions and features. It's certainly a lot better than the Amiga version, which has great graphics but seriously compromised gameplay.

Paradroid, by Andrew Braybrook, is a fascinating game. The goal is to destroy every droid on a spaceship. This requires a lot of strategy, as there are many different kinds of droids, each with different abilities. You have to plan out which droids to take over, which to simply attack and destroy, and which to save for later use after your current one is destroyed. It's an awesome feeling after you finally manage to clear a ship of droids... and then see that you still have a fleet of ships left to clear. I've had this one since I was young, and I have never finished it.

Uridium was also created by Andrew Braybrook. The idea in this game is to destroy several fleets of dreadnoughts. What makes this shooter really special is the fast pace. You will get annihilated if you slow your ship down and try to take your time, so you end up having to keep going at a breakneck pace, desperately weaving between outcroppings on ships while destroying waves of enemies and trying to find the landing strip. There's also an excellent sequel on Amiga that adds a really cool two-player mode and some of the finest graphics on the platform.

Speaking of games that ended up on both Amiga and C64, Gem'X is another, er, gem. Made by the same Japanophiles responsible for Apidya, Gem'X is an interesting puzzle game where you attempt to match patterns of gems by converting gems from one type to another. It's a more complex version of lights out, basically.

And if you think Amiga load times are bad, try a real C64 - the 1541 is the slowest consumer-level disk drive ever released.

Of those, I've only played Elite, and I actually played it on Amiga, so I'll have to check out the C64 one. That's a long list; I have my work cut out for me.

These are probably fairly popular games for the C-64, but I highly recommend the following titles:

Archon
Seven Cities of Gold
MULE
Racing Destruction Set
Mail Order Monsters
Raid over Moscow
Boulder Smash
Beachhead
Skyfox
Bruce Lee
Conan
Summer Games
Heart of Africa
Bop N' Wrestin
Pitfall 2
Pitstop
Space Taxi
Mr Do's Castle
Miner 2049'er
PSI 5: Trading Outpost (one of the coolest spaceship managing games ever! Highly addictive gameplay)
The Bard's Tale III: Theifs of Fate
Jumpman
Loderunner

I'm about 50/50 with those. I love Space Taxi, by the way.

The Last Ninja trilogy ruled(well, maybe not number 3). I recommend starting with the first game, C64 version. They can be frustrating (damn stone jumping) but rewarding.

Dreamweb is one of my favourite point and click adventures. Like most games in the genre, it's on PC too but for some reason it gets ignored by that crowd. Some adventure games like Chamber of the Sci-Mutant Priestess and Future Wars look and sound much nicer on Amiga than on PC.

Virocop (best on AGA Amiga) is a neat overhead view action game.

Wizkid, the Amiga sequel to Wizball, is a weird game mixing several genres.

I love the isometric action/adventure D/Generation. It's on PC too but that version has messed up controls.

Superfrog's a Sonic-type platformer on Amiga (and PC but that's not a good).

Lazy Jones (C64/Spectrum/MSX) was like the Wario Ware of its time. It's still pretty addictive.

DMA's Walker was fun for gunning down the little humans.

If you like Euro action/platformers, Assassin and Lionheart are pretty cool.

Then, there are ambitious games that might not have aged that well(I haven't played them recently) but are worth checking out for the history lessons: Hunter, Hired Guns, B.A.T. series, Zeewolf series, Dungeon Master, Hover Force, Skool Daze, SunDog, and Incentive Software's 3d games.

Zamzara on C64's a cool run 'n gun with brutal difficulty. So is Ruff 'n' Tumble on the Amiga but I'm guessing you have played it based on your sprite quiz.

They're simple but I still love these fighting games: International Karate series, Way of the Exploding Fist series, and Barbarian.

Head Over Heels on Spectrum (and others) is a platform/puzzle/adventure classic although there is nice a PC remake available now. And speaking of Speccy isometric view games other than Ultimate/Rare's stuff, I like Bobby Bearing.

And there's those Spectrum games I mentioned in the pre-Metroid thread not that long ago.

Super Pipeline (I like the first C64 one best) is an arcadey action game where you defend and fix pipes.

Death Chase on Spectrum should have aged like shit since it's a really old 3d-ish game but it's still fun to play.


I think this thread should definitely include American and Canadian-developed games too if you're not very familiar with those computers. It would a shame to leave those out, especially for 8-bit as less games got PC ports.

Some of those not listed already by gamevet:

Pharaoh's Curse
Necromancer
Zenji (just as good on Coleco, though)
Montezuma's Revenge
Mr. Robot (I spent so much time with the level editor)
Project Firestart
Aztec Challenge
Drelbs
Serpentine
Shamus
BC's Quest for Tires

Some of those games are a bit different on Atari 8-bit than C64 so both are worth checking out.

A good bunch of quality games on these computers are arcade ports, too. I won't bother listing most of those but they certainly added to the variety of the systems back then whether it was Up'n Down on C64, Toki on Amiga/ST or Rastan on IIgs.

I'm probably forgetting many of favourites but I think I listed enough for now. :)

I have indeed played Superfrog, IK, WotEF, Hunter, Ruff n Tumble, Head Over Heels, Barbarian, Shamus, and BC and enjoyed them all. I need to play Hunter more, because it seems amazingly ahead of its time.

It seems like I'm not as completely in the dark about these systems as I thought. I'm realizing I played more than I remembered, especially on C64, but I still have a loooong way to go. I will post impressions as I plow through some of this stuff.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Frogacuda

but I still have a loooong way to go

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I wouldn't feel bad. I had around 650 games on the C64 back in the day. I thought I knew the system well until the internet smacked me in the face and told me there are over 15,000 games on it. I'm sure most of them suck but I still find good games I haven't played before through emulation.

I'm also a big fan of the Atari 8-bit computers now. I used to think there wasn't much reason to play them if you had a C64+Atari consoles but I love the unique style of a lot of its games' versions.