View Full Version : Why do all these C64 arcade ports suck?
Zaxxon
09-30-2003, 07:36 PM
I was checking out a bunch of arcade classics for the C64 on the x64 emu (VICE?) to see how they compared to the CV versions. They didn't suck but almost every C64 version was far inferior to the CV version. I thought at first maybe it was just a case of lazy programming. That would explain one or two but almost every one I tried looked and sounded worse. What's the deal?! I always thought and was led to believe the C64 was more powerful than the CV. It has 2x the memory. Is the emulator fucked up and not displaying it properly or are they really like this? Is the music all "chirpy" like that on every game?
These are the ones I was comparing to the CV versions:
Burgertime
Burnin rubber aka Bump n jump
q-bert
smurfen
Tarzan
Mr. Do!
Galaxian
Defender
Jungle Hunt
Centipede
Kid Ice
09-30-2003, 07:44 PM
I don't think you want to make a comparison such as this via emulation. I can't distinctly recall all these games, although I know the C64 had excellent versions of Mr. Do and Defender. Generally though, C64 games and CV games are probably close enough to be arguable.
IntvGene
09-30-2003, 08:30 PM
I think that alot of these were done by companies afterwards with their 'B' programming team. I mean, most of these releases were had been done, so it was just milking the marke that was already milked. So, they didn't put their best efforts into making them perfect.
Tarzan is bloody awful.. I don't even think it's supposed to be the same game.. but look who made it - Martech?? Who?
I don't think that C64 Tapper is all that bad. But, Bump N Jump is still best on the Intellivision. :)
Take a look at some of the other C64's arcade ports.
Donkey Kong
Paperboy
Rampage
Toobin
Rampart
R-Type
etc.
In competent hands, the C64 can do some amazing things.
Mayhem
10-01-2003, 06:09 AM
Tarzan wasn't anything to do with an arcade to my knowledge. Martech (a UK company) got the rights to the name in 87 and built an arcade adventure type game around it.
I like C64 Q-bert btw :P
If you're looking for excellent C64 ports then check out the following:
Gyruss
Wizard of Wor (Commodore Western version, not the MAX one)
Afterburner (US version)
Bubble Bobble (UK version)
Bionic Commando (UK version)
Commando (UK version)
Ghouls 'n Ghosts (UK version)
Buggy Boy (UK version)
Ninja Spirit (UK version)
Rainbow Islands (UK version)
Strange this... the UK version is almost always the better one ;)
Mr-Monday
10-01-2003, 08:12 AM
You HAVE to play Wizball, The Great Giana sisters and International Karate. Oh and also The Last Ninja and Uridium.
The C64 was really popular in Europe.
Mayhem
10-01-2003, 08:17 AM
True on all 5 of them, though the thread is about arcade ports for the C64 ;)
...and Green beret (Rush'n attack)
Mr Do's castle
Ikari warriors (UK version, stay far far away from the US version)
Cabal (UK version)
Hyper sports
Power drift
Turbo outrun
Salamander
Combat shcool
Arkanoid
Arkanoid - revenge of Doh
Rod land
...
Bubble Bobble (UK version)
I thought the US version was an excellent port. What's better about the UK version?
Mayhem
10-01-2003, 10:25 AM
If you give me a link to the US version, then I'll go check it out. For all I know, the version released in the US could be the same. Just wanted to distinct that the version I got to play back in 87 is probably the BEST arcade conversion the machine has 8-)
Jorpho
10-01-2003, 10:28 AM
Didn't the ColecoVision have a higher resolution?
Mr. Do's Castle is far superior on the C64 compared to the ColecoVision version.
________
Buy no2 vaporizer (http://no2vaporizer.net)
I just have the original disk. They're probably the same. Bubble Bobble on the 64 rules. :D
Mayhem
10-01-2003, 11:51 AM
Most of the games I listed had both UK and US versions, and the UK version was nearly always better. I've got the feeling that the US got the UK program with regards to Bubble Bobble however...
You're right about the lazy programming. The trouble with C-64 and UK is that most games were written for tape, as USA C-64 games were written for Disc. During the 80's the tape still ruled in UK, and it was easier for companies like Ocean to write the game with the Spectrum (most awful tape-only UK computer) in mind.
Even Commodore UK promoted the C-64 with a cassette device. Sad but true.
I always travelled to London in the C-64 haydays to get the latest and best disc games from USA companies like SSI, Micropose, EA, Origin, Broderbund, Mindscape and many more.
This doesn't mean UK didn't make good games, sometimes they got it right (Thamalus, System 7) and we had ZZAP!, which was the best C-64 mag.
Flack
10-01-2003, 05:30 PM
Many of those arcade ports you mentioned for the C64 were done very early in the machine's life. Many of the later games/ports were much better. For example, there is a game called Donkey Kong '86 that is much better than the original Donkey Kong port. Instead of being squashed and fat, the graphics are much closer to the arcade version.
Another known problem with most C64 emulators is that the palattes are off a bit -- not too bad, but enough for us veterans to notice. Of course, it's easier to notice when you still have a real C64 on your desktop ... ;)
Flack
Ed Oscuro
10-01-2003, 05:37 PM
All those Ghosts'n Goblins, Ghouls'n Ghosts and Shinobi/Shadow Dancer/Contra (Gryzor there though,) Green Beret, R-Type and everything else ports make me dizzy with their awfulness. Though there's some good to be found in these (Ghouls 'n Ghosts on the Spectrum in particular has some kickass stuff in there, even if "stuff" means pretty much the waving title screen, and the C64 version has some nice music) they're mostly just...awful.
I do hear that the Spectrum port of The Last Ninja was alright, it certainly looks good for the Spectrum :D
On the Spectrum...argh, even GOOD ports like the Spectrum Ghouls 'n Ghosts are obviously in dire need of CPU cycles. One problem in particular which seems to plague a couple sidescroller ports on Spectrum and the C64 was the "up key to do something special AND jump." In C64 Castlevania, you have to press jump and fire (a couple times, I hear) to get your secondary weapon to fire, but it makes you jump as well. You could probably chalk that one up to bad programming, though; Morgoth Galaxius (poster at the CV Dungeon Forums) describes it as the buggiest game he's ever seen...your character sometimes gets up after getting killed and walks around like normal! Blame that and all the other problems of that port on dodgy programming.
On Spectrum Ghouls'n Ghosts, however-- the finest sidescroller I've run into on the system, and likely the best arcade-to-mini conversion out there, universally acclaimed as a masterpiece of Spectrum programming -- the problem's symptoms are similar but the cause is undoubtedly different. You HAVE to jump and fire to get your shot to travel upwards. While you can map jump to any key, the computer apparently can't spare cycles to check if more than five keys (left, right, jump, crouch, fire; in that order) have been pressed, which I think is due to memory constraints. At least we had smooth scrolling on that one. Yay! Now let's play Shadow Dancer. Boo.
Mayhem
10-01-2003, 06:03 PM
Well you're wrong about C64 Castlevania... seeing as I own an original of it ;)
Fire = whip
Up = jump
Hold fire for a second = secondary weapon
It actually plays quite well in comparison to the NES version, I was quite surprised when running it for the first time.
As for arcade conversions, there are some great ones and some absolute stinkers. I can't see why you're puting Green Beret/Rush 'n Attack down at all, it's one of the best out there. In fact, I'd say it was BETTER than the arcade itself, and a lot harder! Ditto Spy Hunter, far more playable in its converted form that in the arcade.
Stinker wise I'd choose Breakthru, Space Harrier (great attempt at the graphics though), Paperboy (don't like it at all), Gunsmoke (the UK version that was never released), Galaxians (you can't do vertical games like that on a horizontal screen) and Sierra's Frogger (yuck).
Ed Oscuro
10-01-2003, 06:07 PM
Ah, guess Green Beret goes a bit far back for me. They did change the jump-kicking soldier's attacks around a bit...no, guess I'm not doing justice on that.
As for buggy C64 CV...I think I might've been talking about the Amiga version, actually..! That would explain things.
You're right about the lazy programming. The trouble with C-64 and UK is that most games were written for tape, as USA C-64 games were written for Disc.
Dont think the focus on tapes lead to lazy programming. On the contrary there was more optimation to get as much possible into each load.
Most of those old arcade conversions wasn't done with disks or tape in mind, they where made for cartridges. However a full 64kb cart in 1983 would have been very expensive so many of them was just 16 or 32 kb.
Another known problem with most C64 emulators is that the palattes are off a bit
Oh yes, if you have an older emulator visit THIS SITE (http://www.pepto.de/projects/colorvic) and get what's probably the most accurate palette.
Zaxxon
10-01-2003, 06:44 PM
I can't compare Ikari Warriors, Rush n' Attack etc.. since there's no CV version. I was just checking out the games(Tarzan,smurfs) and arcade ports that were also on the CV to see which looked/sounded better. Last night I checked out Spy Hunter, Mr. Do's Castle, Frogger, Frogger 2, Moon Patrol, Tapper, Time Pilot, Zaxxon. The CV versions were all better. Spy Hunter had much worse music and less detailed graphics. Mr Do's Castle looked squished, low res, boxed and the music wasn't as good. Frogger-bad. Tapper's character sprites don't look anything like the arcade version's and the saloon is much less detailed. It's not what I expected. I thought with 64k and the extra storage of a tape/disk vs. a 32k max cart would allow better versions.
Mayhem
10-01-2003, 06:50 PM
Well if you weigh up my personal top ten C64 games, 9 of them originate from the UK and only one from the US. Bias? Not really... the UK programmers were probably the leading games people in the mid to late 80s, even more so than the US. What you COULD rely on the US for during that period were good RPGs and strategy games.
Out of those 10, only one of them (and not the US game!) is a multiload, the rest are single loads. Tapes, as KJN said, made programmers here concentrate on getting everything right without having to rely on being able to always load new stuff in. Think of it in a sense comparing 2600 programmers early on having to work with 2-4k, to how carts got for the machine during the 80s of up to 32k possibly.
All early carts for the C64 were only 16k btw. I believe the first cart to break that limit was the Comol 80 release Commodore made in 1985. And they released a 64k multicart in 1987. By 1990 the limit was taken up to 512k with the release of "Myth" and "Last Ninja Remix" (both well worth checking out!). All those conversions you mentioned Zaxxon were limited to 16k running off the cartridge. Tapper does have a "full" release on tape/disc where it has all 4 bars, but no difference in graphics. I actually really like this conversion, along with Spy Hunter (playability man, it's how it really plays heh) and Moon Patrol.
Oh, for the record, my personal top 10 C64 games are:
IK+ (Chop 'n Drop Karate in the US)
Wizball
Bubble Bobble
Mercenary
Paradroid
Impossible Mission
Laser Squad
Mayhem in Monsterland
The Sentinel (The Sentry in the US)
Dropzone
IntvGene
10-01-2003, 07:06 PM
What about Donkey Kong? I don't think the C64 will lose there.
But, the Colecovision has some amazing ports, and I still think that they were done by proficient programmers. Personally, when I think of the C64, I remember the original games alot more than the arcade ports. I think that's where the best development was ever done. They could have made better arcade ports, but that's just not what was happened.
But, hey.. this thread has got me playing both the C64 and the Coleco again, so thanks! :)
The reason for putting games on tape in the UK was only for 'sales' reason, nothing else. Otherwise UK companies wouldn't make money.
As for UK programmers being the 'leading games people' in the 80's, that is a big joke. They were no match on Atari, Activison, EA, Mindscape, Broderbound, SSI, Origin, etc. programmers. David Crane mentioned in the magazine Hi-Res that a good game takes at least 1 year to program. UK programmers notched up a game in 2 to 3 days. Where's the quality in that?
My Top Ten (11) games for C-64? Not one UK game in sight (sorry Mayhem)
1: Rocket Ranger
2: Pool of Radiance (+ other SSI gold boxes)
3: Ultima 5
4: Solo Flight II
5: Defender of the Crown
6: Project Firestart
7: The Magic Candle
8: Breakers
9: Portal
10: Zak McKracken
11: The Halley Project (excellent game)
The quality of these games is totally top notch and never matched by any UK coder on the C-64.
Ok I guess I have a Top 5 UK games as well:
1: IK+
2: Mad Planets
3: Armalyte (and Delta) (quality)
4: Mercenary (but Atari XE version is better)
5: Last Ninja series (quality)
And of course the best C-64 game I own:
Katakis disc version: German Rainbow Arts
Mayhem
10-03-2003, 07:10 AM
I guess you liked different types of game to me then Tom ;)
Wizball took 9 months to write. IK+ took 5 months to write. Paradroid took 4 months. Mercenary took god knows how long. Mayhem in Monsterland took 16 months! Hardly 2-3 day knock offs now LOL
Saying that, Gridrunner took Jeff Minter a week to write, and that's a sure fire shooting classic. A game is ready when its ready, regardless of the time length. If I'd known Dave had said that about "1 year for a good game", I would have brought it up at CGE cos it's blatantly not true LOL
As for the top 10 you listed... my thoughts on them heh...
1: Rocket Ranger - great graphics, decent plot, not much longevity once you figure out how to beat the arcade sections.
2: Pool of Radiance (+ other SSI gold boxes) - plenty of freedom, not much plot at all. The Krynn series were my personal favourites.
3: Ultima 5 - okay so I'll say U4 was better, but was a definite classic.
4: Solo Flight II - boring to buggery. Sorry :P
5: Defender of the Crown - again great to look at, too damn easy to beat.
6: Project Firestart - another classic. One of my personal "bubblers" that would lurk in a top 20 list I could make.
7: The Magic Candle - very highly detailed, put a lot of people off. Never got to spend enough time with this.
8: Breakers - never heard of it, will have to check it out.
9: Portal - hardly a game, more an interactive novel. I was also mad enough to actually spend the time to go from start to end. Very interesting, but sadly not something I'd do again.
10: Zak McKracken - can't deny the quality here, another one in the "bubbler" category.
You're right, I like lots of games, I didn't wanna diss UK games, after all they learned from copying USA games (eg Jeff Minter) from the 80's, and now they write damned good stuff (Jeff Minter again), but to me, 80's UK games were just like Joe Santulli said in an old issue of DP: 'Just full of Kamikaze aliens and that's all' (something like that, haven't got the issue in front of me).
A letter in the USA magazine CGW mentioned that the only decent game to come out of the UK is 'Elite', so USA players were never keen on UK 80's games either (But they learned the lesson when Tomb Raider topped the CGW charts as 'Game of the Year' in the 90's).
You don't know Breakers? Or Essex, or Brimstone? (Broderbound) Text Adventures are not everyone's cup of tea, but well worth sticking with it. If you into adventures, well worth checking out, almost on par with Infocom.
Mayhem
10-03-2003, 05:56 PM
Most of the good early C64 stuff was naturally from America. I just feel that in the period 85-88, the UK programmers got on the case and ruled the roost ;)
By 89, a lot of licensed crap was pervading the market and started to kill off some of the originality. And by that time, most of the US publishers were cutting back or stopping their C64 output, which then just left Europe again.
I'm not a mega fan of adventures, but where they are done well, I do like them. Interplay produced some fun offerings such as Tass Times in Tone Town and Borrowed Time, which are 2 of my favourites. And you can't forget Hitchhiker's Guide, Leather Goddesses and the Zork Trilogy from Infocom. On top you have The Pawn and Guild of Thieves from Rainbird, and Scapeghost and certain trilogies from Level 9.
The only Broderbund adventure I own is Mask of the Sun (English version), which is quite rare as usually you only get the German version knocking about.
Just call me a twitch gamer... that's how I was back then rather than a more thinking person. That sort of progression happened in the early 90s when I started buying the SSI AD&D games, other RPGs, disc only US products etc mainly because I didn't get my own disc drive until 91...
Mask of the Sun, wow I forgot about that what an excellent game. I used to own it on Atari XE (just to let you know, I'm more an Atari 8-bit guy than a C-64 guy). Anyway, what was the sequel to Mask of the Sun? Remember it? I forgot, but that was a good game too. (Serpents something??)
I got into C-64 when I moved to the UK in 1987 (I am German), and I used to buy ZZAP! for a friend in Germany and shipped it over on a monthly basis. That got me hooked on ZZAP! and a C-128, since it was such a funny/good read (I got a complete ZZAP! collection. Remember Claire from Activison? She was pictured in early ZZAP! as one hot babe).
Anyway, the people in ZZAP always disliked Tape games too, since they wrote that with Tape games, usually bits were missing due to lack of storage space.
I used to own a boxed 1584 and sold it, the worst mistake ever. I could still cry today.
But even today I use my C-128 and load up a quick game of Savage or Game Over 2.
Mayhem
10-04-2003, 06:41 PM
Remember Claire from Activison? She was pictured in early ZZAP! as one hot babe.
Remember? I was lucky enough to meet and talk to her at one computer show here in the UK :D
And yes, she was a definite hottie ;)