When (8-bit) Dinosaurs Ruled the Land! – C64 For iPhone

(written by guest author Tim Giron. follow Tim on Twitter @timgiron)

Commodore_64 Let us travel back in time, to an age when 64 KB of memory was all that was needed to be a real computer. The year was 1982 when Commodore International introduced the best-selling single personal computer model of all time, the Commodore 64. I got one a couple of years later, when I started college and found it beneficial to have a computer at home for CompSci homework (the labs were always packed during the decent hours). Coupled with a 300 baud modem and a dot matrix printer, this was a system that was ready for action! And it wasn’t all school work, oh no… The C=64 had some of the best games of the era: interactive fiction adventures like Zork, flying games like Choplifter and one of my personal faves, the fighting game Karateka.

C64-3up

And so it was with a sense of nostalgia that I dug into the C64 app by Manomio. Included with the app are 8 games: Dragons Den, Le Mans, International Basketball, International Soccer, International Tennis, Jupiter Lander, Arctic Shipwreck and Jack Attack. I only recalled two of these from "back in the day", so I fired up Dragons Den first. There are 2 different view modes for the games. In portrait mode, the playing screen is pretty small, but you get a clear view of the game controls (namely a joystick and fire button… that’s all we needed back then to have a good time). In landscape mode, the playing screen fills the space and the controls are invisibly overlaid.

C64-Dragons-Den-1  C64-Dragons-Den-2

After several minutes of riding around on a pegasus, I was ready to take the wheel of a formula one racer in Le Mans. In both of these, the gameplay is smooth and the music is appropriately retro. It shouldn’t surprise you that the games play well, the iPhone is much more powerful than the old hardware. For several of the other games, I had to look them up online to figure out the goal. While playing Jupiter Lander, my wife walked by and told me she remembered the game and although neither of us remembered Arctic Shipwreck, it was great fun to trample the people stranded on the ice floe with the woolly mammoth (not the "official" goal of the game, by the way).

c64-11  c64-22

Manomio has done a great job in preserving a grand old platform for a new generation. I fear that licensing will prevent some of the best games from showing up, but I did see that there will be new games (some free, some for in-app purchase) available in the next update (which should be approved next week): Bruce Lee, Laser Squad, Uridium, Paradroid, Druid, Kikstart, Cybernoid, Storm Lord and AlletKat.

At $4.99 [iTunes], C64 is priced appropriately for the entertainment value it provides to fans of the old-school.

 

Comments

  • jollyolestnick

    HoHoHo! i remember when i had to drop off a TON of these (well, only for the NICEST girls and boys).

  • Hey thanks for stopping by Santa, especially during this busy time of year
    for you … rock on and travel safe!

  • jollyolestnick

    HoHoHo! i remember when i had to drop off a TON of these (well, only for the NICEST girls and boys).

  • Hey thanks for stopping by Santa, especially during this busy time of year
    for you … rock on and travel safe!