25 Years of C64

Happy birthday to the Commodore 64. Its 25 years old now. Many may not realize but, the Guinness Book of World Records lists the Commodore 64 as the best-selling single computer model. Sorry Apple. In addition, it was the C64 that kept video gaming alive during the Atari console crash. Nintendo often gets credit for this, but in reality, The Nintendo did nothing more then take gaming concepts from the C64, and applied them to the dumbed-down console environment. Strategy, shooters, platformers, simulators...The C64 had it all. While the sound absolutely rocked. I remember writing a music simulator which mapped piano keys to the keyboard.

Its true, the C64 was not for the light of heart, with its load strings and other techie prep that often needed to be done to make a game work. But when they did...damn they were fun. The peripherals were great too, gotta love the auto fire option and EPYX speed loader. Not to mention, my first program ever written was on the C64! So lets all raise our over caffeinated drink and sing praise to the C64. Father of great computer gaming.

Here's my quick list of some great C64 games:

Arkanoid
Joust
Main Frame
Ultima series
MonteZumas Revenge (eat your heart out mario)
The Legend of Blacksilver
Qix
Defender of the Crown
M.U.L.E.
NATO Commander
Seven Cities of Gold
Flight Simulator Series
Test Drive Series
H.E.R.O.
Ghostbusters
Broadsides
Bad Street Brawler/Bop N Rumble
Astro Chase
Jumpman Series
Gauntlet
Raid on Bungeling Bay
Beach Head Series
Archon
Pinball Construction Set
EPYX Games Series
SSI Gold Box games (Pool of Radiance, drangonlance, D&D, etc)
HardBall!
Leaderboard Series
Karateka
Aztec Challenge
Spy Hunter
Bruce Lee
Yie Ar Kung-Fu
Wizard (Ultimate)
Tapper

For more info go to: c64.com (note, site getting many hits, so it may be down/slow)