My C64 and Me
This post is an updated version of something I wrote for my old blog, Games Theory. Given that the sum total readership of that blog was me, I’ll post it here. Enjoy!
1993 was a memorable year for many reasons: US and Russian authorities pledged to halve their respective nuclear arsenals, American soldiers were caught up in the ‘Black Hawk Down’ incident; and the UK music charts were in the process of being defiled by Noel Edmonds’ satanic creation, Mr Blobby.
For me it was the year in which I received my first ever computer: the Commodore 64, also known as the C64.
The C64, like riding a water slide with nubile blondes apparently.
I received my brand new C64 on my seventh birthday, my variant being a less bulky device than its predecessor and complete with a built-in slot for box cartridges, a data storage format which loaded games instantaneously. This was a potential godsend as C64 gamers had previously been using cassette tapes which took a millennia to load and would often fail to work, providing the cassette deck hadn’t already mangled the tape, which mine frequently did.
Whilst the cassette loaded, you would be treated with a picture related to the game to stare at for half an hour or a spasmodic mess of convulsing colours, an effect not dissimilar to the direct application of LSD on the retina; arguably not so fun for those of an epileptic disposition.
Good times.
Terminator 2 was the big film at the time and I was ecstatic to see that the cartridge version of the game had been bundled with my C64. Despite a graphically superior (and musically hilarious) version appearing on Commodore’s premier machine (the Amiga 500) the C64 version was, in my opinion, the better game. Given that both were actually somewhat rubbish, the C64 wins a hollow victory in this case.
1:12 – Arnie dispatches the T1000 in a somewhat ungentlemanly fashion.
Despite my own joy at receiving the C64, the computer itself suffered in the Nineties, having been rendered obsolete by rival machines offered by Nintendo and Sega, who were the dominant players in the computer games market. Nintendo and Sega’s mascots, Super Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog respectively, were emblazoned on the consciousness of gamers. Unfortunately for Commodore, the closest thing the C64 had to a mascot was Seymour the potato.
Seymour takes the decline of the C64 rather badly.
The most popular consoles of the time, The Super Nintendo and the Mega Drive, were both far more powerful than the C64 and generated substantial profits for their parent companies, in stark contrast with the C64, which was a dying games platform.
The C64′s own cartridge system failed to achieve the ubiquity of its rivals, at least that was the case if my repeated failed attempts to source them are anything to go by. This may have been the result of the cartridge’s expensive manufacturing costs in comparison to the cassette tape format. The C64′s disappearance from high street retailers was somewhat of a premonition of Commodore’s own business fortunes, the company would go bankrupt in 1994.
Whilst Commodore had disappeared as a business entity the computer itself lived on, with magazines such as Commodore Format and Commodore Force continuing to keep C64 aficionados happy with cover mounted game demos of recent releases (as game developers hadn’t abandoned the machine just yet) and home brew games, all available in the cheap and prolific cassette tape format.
By this point, the C64 had accumulated a huge back catalogue of great games, the most famous of which were produced in the Eighties. With their distinctive blocky graphics, limited colour palette and catchy music, these games possessed a charm that captured the innocence of a bygone gaming era, preceding the lucrative and gargantuan modern day gaming industry. Jonathan Dunn‘s title track for the game version of Robocop (the C64 version having been released in 1989) was even used in a televised advertisement for home appliance company Ariston in the early Nineties (albeit from the Game Boy version).
Ariston, a company that today like Commodore remains a cherished household name. Or not.
A sign of the creative freedom enjoyed by C64 game developers was reflected in the game titles: the critically acclaimed and somewhat odd Frankie Goes to Hollywood (a game based on the Eighties band of the same name) and the not so critically acclaimed How to be a Complete Bastard (based on a book by comedian Adrian Edmondson).
A most profound life lesson…
I was fortunate enough to be gifted an old C64 cassette deck, though looking like it had been extricated from the rear end of an elephant, after a good clean it worked for the most part. So began my affair with the C64 classics such as: Arkanoid, Commando, Impossible Mission 2, The Blues Brothers and IK+; to name but a few.
Thanks to many dedicated Commodore enthusiasts you can even obtain programs which emulate the old C64 (unsurprisingly referred to as ‘emulators’) as well as games files (known as ‘ROMS’). Although copyright issues often surround the legal use of many C64 games no meaningful action appears to have been taken by the copyright holders of old C64 titles against distributors of C64 game ROMs, nor is there much financial incentive to do so. Those who are so inclined are more or less free to play the games they remember from their early gaming years.
Proof that you can never have enough copyright infringement.
The Commodore brand briefly resurfaced in 2007 under the guise of Commodore Gaming who offered high performance, custom built PC gaming machines; albeit for a considerable price. The success of this venture appears to have been somewhat limited, given that the website for Commodore Gaming is no longer active and the company itself is no longer selling custom PCs.
However the Commodore 64 still enjoys a presence in the modern age of gaming, with C64 classics available to play on the iPhone, iPod Touch and Nintendo Wii . Websites such as C64.com, Lemon64 and C64 Forever dedicate themselves to keeping the memory of the C64 alive.
Oh and for the record: I actually wanted a NES for my birthday.
(Update 10/04/11) As of April 5th 2011, desktop PCs that replicate the classic C64, only with modern day innards, are available for purchase from Commodore USA.
