The Gamer's Quarter

[dessgeega]

let's talk about old commodore 64 games.
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[Mister Toups]

Hell yeah. I have a Commodore 64 now. Someone recommend some games for me to ebay.
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where were you when nana komatsu got a wii?

[disneyland]

Katakis is cool. US version might've been Deneris.

It's a side scrolling/horizontal shooter.

I fucking despise the word "shooter".

[dessgeega]

there's m.u.l.e., of course.

and exile.
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[Mister Toups]

[Shapermc]

[dessgeega]

if you have a tape drive, i recommend crossroads 2: pandemonium.

it's an overhead shooting game - published as code in the pc magazine compute! never as a commercial release - with lots of little monsters. the monsters all have alliances: some monsters will never attack each other, but they will always attack their rival monsters (a monster is always friendly with monsters of its own color). if one monster is predominant in a certain level, you'll want to leave that monster's enemies alive.

the game treats the player as "just another monster" - one who happens to be rivals with everyone. collecting a spar gives the player a shield bonus (and you'll need five spars to clear a level) - but a monster will get the same bonus, and will seek them out and accumulate them just as you do (potentially making for some tough battles toward the end of a stage). there are also two differently-colored spars that give special abilities to whoever - player or monster - happens to collect them.

the stages are what pac-man's stages would be if they were deathmatch arenas. they're huge and open, and moving off one side of the screen will warp you to the other side. you can shoot a bunch of bullets off the end of the screen, move quickly out of the way, and watch the bullets loop across the screen until something wanders into them.

if you play the game, here are some of the enemies to be wary of: bullets bounce off purple eraserheads unless they're shot from the front. the green vacuums can kill anything they suck in instantly. also. the title screen "arena" can be randomized by pressing F7 (this is useful in determining monster alliances, and is pretty fun to watch). to use a joystick, it must be plugged into port 2.

make sure you download the game from gb64.com. i've had trouble getting the image on c64.com to run with winvice, which is the emulator i use to run the game.

EDIT: oh, and it's two-player simultaneous.
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[ApM]

People who have been paying attention know that I love the fuck out of Space Taxi.

Datasoft did some excellent shit. Goonies and Conan. Hell, I should check out more of their catalogue.

[JasonMoses]

Shane R. Monroe claims that Crazy Taxi is a Space Taxi rip off. How do you get that stupid? Is it the water?

[ApM]

Crazy Space Taxi would be pretty awesome, though.

[Mister Toups]

Post screenshots and information, too.

That video you posted is crazy Dessgeega. It made me want to play, though.
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where were you when nana komatsu got a wii?

[disneyland]

[SuperWes]

[dessgeega]

crossroads 2 is the definition of ordered madness. or rather...pandemonium??

hey, here are some other excellent c64 games:

paradroid. there is a huge, many-belevelled ship of renegade robots. your mission is to destroy them all. you pilot a control device that can take over any robot on the ship. move into a robot while holding the button, and a quick sub-game will be generated based on the power of your robot and the one you're attempting to capture. succeed, and you get to pilot it. start by capturing a security droid (one with guns!) and work your way to capturing a military bot.

impossible mission 2. good game, great screams. i will never get tired of hearing this man plummet to his death.

sword of fargoal. this is basically an arcade roguelike, and if that phrase doesn't thrill you, you are unthrillable.
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[Mister Toups]

Maybe so. What's a "roguelike"?
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where were you when nana komatsu got a wii?

[dessgeega]

[Shapermc]

I have never understood why people hate shmup. It is just a word. If I use it my friends don't say something like: "Oh, yea, I don't like halo-games anyways." Then I have to say something like: "No I mean over head shooters, like Gradius, or 1942." ...


"Like what?"

[dessgeega]

gradius is a hori(zontal) shmup, you silly.
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[Shapermc]

[SuperWes]

[dhex]

schmup is funny.
ifsomeone actually saves the world from aliens, we can call them simulators.
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[wourme]

[dessgeega]

[dessgeega]

[dessgeega]

here are some other games that were pretty good, at least according to sales.
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[Szczepaniak]

I see Shapes recomended:
Project Firestart

Let me second and third that. The best C64 game I have personally played, and one of the most atmospheric and chilling space adventures too. Creepy, fun, explorative, action packed, multiple endings, people with no heads, hell, it has it all!

Absolutely bloody brilliant game.

If anyone needs to emulate it, there are "places" to acquire it.

Get it. Painfully underated.

[Shapermc]

[dessgeega]

project firestart is horribly, horribly scary.

i'm probably going to scan some actual ads from that magazine soon. there's some good stuff, like an "electronic mall" where you can shop from your computer without ever having to leave your house!
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[wourme]

For the first few years that I had my C64, I didn't know there was such a thing as buying games. I had never happened to see any in a store, and I always just got disks full of them from people.

When I actually bought some in the store, I was generally very disappointed in them. I saw the arcade screenshots on the back of the box, and figured they'd look at least half as good. but they never did. Not because the C64 couldn't handle good games, but because the arcade conversions were often terrible. I found that Data East was especially bad about this.

But then toward the end of the C64's life on the market (I wouldn't move on to another platform for many years, myself) came a series of budget titles that were really amazing. Boulder Dash Contruction Kit, Spiderbot, Uridium, and some others. All for $5 each.

No, I don't really have a point. Just "talking about Commodore 64 games."

[dessgeega]

[kingmobster]

I recommend Druid, a Firebird game. It´s a lot like Gauntlet. You control a druid and get to shoot spiders and ghosts. You can also create a golem that is controlled (badly) by the AI, or (and this is more fun) by a co-player. The loading music reminds me of Sisters of Mercy!

[dessgeega]

so. the sentinel.



attempting to describe the sentinel to someone who has never played it may very well be an excersize in folly. nevertheless, IT'S TIME TO WORK OUT.

the game takes place on a series of polygonal alien landscapes. these landscapes are composed of a number of plateaus. at the lowest plateau is the player. at the highest point in the landscape is the sentinel.

the goal of each landscape is to usurp the sentinel's position. however, you can only affect things which are lower than you. your usual task will be to achieve a higher position on the landscape by building a boulder (on one of the checkerboard spaces you can see), building a robot host on top of that boulder, and then transferring your consciousness to it. typically you will then want to reabsorb the host you just abandoned for energy.

everything in the landscape has energy: a robot host has three, a boulder has two, and a tree has just one (each landscape is dotted by trees that contain the sentinel's dormant energy. you'll want to absorb these as you climb, adding to your own energy). you can build any of these things on the landscape (in a space you can see from above) if you have the energy.

the sentinel, of course, being located on the highest point of the landscape, can absorb anything. it will make forty-five degree turns every few moments, absorbing anything it sees that is not a tree (a boulder or a robot host, that is) and randomly redistribute its energy across the landscape in the form of trees. if it sees you, it will drain your energy one-by-one until you have none left and are absorbed.

a graph in the upper right-hand corner of the screen indicates whether the sentinel sees you. if it is flashing with static the sentinel has a clear view of you. if is only half-full the sentinel's view is partly obscured; it will transform a nearby tree into a "meanie." if the meanie sees you, it will force you to HYPERSPACE (teleport randomly to a space below your current location. you can hyperspace yourself, usually to escape a tricky situation, by pressing H, but it costs energy).

to win a landscape you must climb high enough to see the space the sentinel is standing on, absorb the sentinel, create a robot host on the space the sentinel has vacated, and then hyperspace to the next landscape. later on there are lesser sentinels ("sentries") who must be dealt with before you can confront the sentinel itself.

here is a list of keys for the c64 version:
pan left/right : S/D
look up/down: L/,
180 degree turn: U
absorb: A
create a tree: T
create a boulder: B
create a robot host: R
transfer to host: Q
hyperspace: H
pressing the spacebar turns your crosshair on and off. if it's off, you can turn quicker. it needs to be on, however, to absorb or create things. aim it at the floor of the space you want to absorb from/create on (or the top of a boulder).

there's a pretty super-duper remake of this game for windows and playstation called the sentinel returns. the advantages include much faster panning, 360 degree camera movement, lighting that highlights the object/space your crosshair is over, and mouse control if you're playing the pc version (much more intuitive). also, you don't need to see the base of an object to absorb it if it's yours. it's also been re-skinned to look crazily surreal.

as stated in another thread, i own the playstation version and am a few hundred levels in. it's pretty wonderful. there is a very 1984 feel to it (the origina version goes nicely beside i, robot) and a palpable theme of revolution.
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[aderack]

Did I link this?
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[Shapermc]

[dessgeega]

ancipital is probably my favorite llamasoft game on the c64. it is wonderful shooty goodness. unfortunately, it will probably make no sense without a thorough explanation of gameplay. so here you are.



the ancipital, of course, is that human/goat creature which is controlled by the player. a joystick in port 2 moves it around, and pressing the trigger makes it fire. (usually. sometimes it drops mines, or breeds watches which mature into wall clocks. or nothing at all. more on this later.) gravity changes when the ancipital jumps. it can walk along any wall, but if the player presses away from the wall it's on, it will leap into the air and land its feet on the opposite wall.

the one move that must be mastered is the all-important corner jump. by pressing the trigger in mid-jump along with a direction, the ancipital can land on a wall perpedicular to the one it started on. the timing of this is key; touching a wall with anything other than its feet will destroy the ancipital (don't walk into walls either; the only way to get from wall to wall is with a jump or corner jump).

ancipital takes place in a grid of one hundred rooms; the goal is to explore all 100. to move from room to room, you'll have to open doors in the walls. the wall status indicator in the top right of the above screen is useful - it shows which walls can be opened, and how much damage each wall needs to take before it opens. the white arrow points to an open door, and the green wall is damaged (it will continue to cycle colors as it gets closer to being opened).

the fun part is that each room has different requirements for opening the doors. the starting room, for example, contains green apples and brown apples (contact with these damages the player, represented in camels). shooting a banana at a green apple transforms it into a core which falls to the floor (the wall the player is standing on), damaging it. damage it enough and it opens. (you receive an energy bonus every time you open a wall.) each room is different, of course - in some rooms you'll have to collect things, or fire at the walls yourself to damage them, or drop toilets as mines to blow up halves of cars. you can press H in any room for a hint on how to complete it.

a timer (shown above) begins ticking down from the moment your ancipital enters the room. when the timer reaches zero, all the doors which have been opened begin to shimmer, and by jumping on them you can move to another room. you don't have to leave immediately; you can stay to keep accumulating points and to unlock other doors. you'll want to unlock as many doors as possible, because once you leave the room, it will be empty the next time you return. usually there will be ways around walls that havn't been opened, but as a last resort you can "body bomb" by pressing B. your ancipital will explode, costing you a life, but all doors in the room will be opened.

some walls are locked, indicated by the camel shown above. to open these doors you must collect "camel keys." there are six of these, each in a different color (this one's white), and each can be found in one specific room. there are also five magic goats. by collecting all five and completing the word "goats," your ancipital will gain the ability to open walls just by stomping on them (necessary for 100% completion).

the game is notable for having an amazing concept that's rarely been repeated (super dudester is the only contemporary game that comes to mind). it also gets fairly manic later on.

my other llamasoft recommendation for the commodore is voidrunner, the second sequel to gridrunner. it's a more traditional shooter whose "every level different" quality is that the player's four ships are in a different formation each stage: one, a traditional "delta" formation, another, arranged in a four-way-shooting cross, another as two seperate formations whose movements mirror each other. it has a heavy dose of trippy llamasoft particle effects and is very playable.
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[dessgeega]

so...speaking of c64 emulation...

i've heard tell of a c64 emulator for dreamcast called dreamfrodo. however, the site - frodo.boob.co.uk - doesn't seem to exist, although the internet vehemently insists it does. being able to play c64 games on my dreamcast would make me explode with joy - can someone help me, please?
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[ApM]

dessgeega, you probably want Sbiffy!. Dreamcast homebrew is often not all it's cracked up to be (The DC Descent port should've been called "Vomiting Squares"), but it's probably worth a shot.

[dessgeega]

you are awesome!

now...what do i do with this file?
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[ApM]

Basically, install Selfboot Inducer and follow the directions. After you've extracted the SBI(s), put all of your disk and tape images into the Inducer directory (they should be in the same place as frodo.prefs, from the looks of it -- the readme should be in Inducer\Readme or something similar). Then build/burn your image and off you go.

Let's talk Goonies.

The Goonies is a puzzle-platformer. Figure out how to get to the end of the level, move on to the next. Datasoft was very fond of these. What made Goonies especially delicious was its focus on collaboration. You control two characters (generally a different two every level), pressing the joystick button to switch between them.

Making things all the more frustrating are the fact that there's bats and shit flying around these caves. Having either character just dumbly stand someplace where you're not utterly sure that they're completely safe is asking for trouble.


This level should give you a pretty good idea of what you're getting yourself into. The man at the top takes random showers, which cause deadly hot water to drip from the leaky pipes scattered all throughout the level. Turning on or off one particular steam-pipe makes the deadly steam come out somewhere else. Turn the right two pipes on and you can actually blow one of them up.

Now! Someone offer me their copy of Cookie and Cream for PS2.

[dessgeega]

the goonies is incredible. i can't figure out how to get both characters through the first screen.

but i like it a lot anyway.
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[ApM]

The ingredients for success:

• Print money
  
• Tip over the water cooler
  
• Run like a fucking madman

It has a fantastic charm to it, even as it fucks you over again and again.

[dessgeega]

it's the madman part i have trouble with.
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[ApM]

Try to start running just as a dollar bill comes flying out of the machine. If you're holding down while you're running, you also immediately start descending any ladders or dropping down any holes, which is a very good idea.

Oh, shit, I just remembered Law Of The West.


More depraved than GTA, Law of the West puts you in the role of an old-west sheriff. In this game, not only can you sweet-talk hookers, you can shoot children to death.



The interface is simple; you stand around, and people walk up to you. A simple branching dialog tree allows you to play out the situation any way you choose. If you keep pressing up when you've got the top option selected, though, you'll pull out your gun. A tiny horse-drawn carriage in the background will run away, and you can shoot pretty much whatever you want. You can play through the game without ever uttering a word and just killing everybody on sight.

Want to be a tough-guy asshole sheriff? Miserable coward? All-around good guy? Just take the appropriate path down the tree. Someone takes offence to something you say and draws their gun? Take 'em down. If you get shot in the line of duty, the doctor comes along -- assuming he's in town, and sober. When you meet him, you can actually convince him to stop drinking, which improves your odds of recovery.

At the end of the day, your score is tallied up (You killed x people, y people fell in love with you, you got shot z times, etc) and it doesn't matter.

Next time: Hacker.

[Shapermc]

[dessgeega]

aww, shaper.

hacker has the best opening sequence of any game, ever.
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[Lackey]

Dessgeega! I believe that They Came From Hollywood is a spiritual descendant of Crush, Crumble & Chomp! It looks quite exciting as far as 50's B movie monster simulators go.

Its not out yet though. I am quite looking forward to it.

PS: I am quite impressed by indie developers like this who put an extreme amount of care and obvious love into their work. Truly, it is heart-warming.
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| Little bird fighting against a bat sect game |

[dessgeega]

it is! it is!



i am quite looking forward to it. EDIT: i totally wrote this sentence without realizing it is the phrase you just used. wow!

you know, Lackey, i hear wasteland is a c64 game.
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[dessgeega]

[Lackey]

[Shapermc]