Tag Archives: 8-bit

Formula 1 Simulator, Commodore 16/Plus4

Oh dear. Formula 1 Simulator unfortunately proves that not all of talented and prolific coder Shaun Southern‘s games were “good”… Because this game is quite awful.

It’s a bad rip-off of Atari‘s Pole Position, and not even a playable one at that.

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Kikstart, Commodore 16/Plus4

Shaun Southern‘s Commodore 16 version of his hit bike game, Kikstart, is somewhat different to the original Commodore 64 version.

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Commodore 16/Plus4 Special

The Commodore 16 is a somewhat underrated home computer that had a relatively short lifespan and was intended as a low-cost replacement for the Commodore VIC-20.

It had 16K of RAM (thus the name) and a 6502 compatible CPU that ran twice as fast as the CPU in its older and more expensive cousin, the Commodore 64. It had a video and sound chipset called “TED” that offered a colour palette of 121 colours, and more efficient use of video memory than the C64, but it had no hardware sprites (it did however have a built-in software sprite routine with fewer restrictions than on hardware sprites).

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Trailblazer, Commodore 64

Trailblazer is a well-regarded, ball-based racing game written and designed by the prolific Shaun Southern of Mr. Chip Software and published by Gremlin Graphics in 1986.

Trailblazer did apparently originate on the Commodore 16 and was expanded to take advantage of the Commodore 64‘s extra memory, and the result is a suped-up version of the original game.

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Stop The Express, Commodore 64

Converted from the ZX Spectrum original by Hudson Soft and published on the C64 by Commodore itself, Stop The Express is both an excellent conversion, and a great little game in its own right.

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One on One: Dr. J vs. Larry Bird, Commodore 64

This classic one-on-one basketball game on the Commodore 64 originated on the Apple II in 1983 and was later converted to other systems courtesy of Electronics Arts.

One on One: Dr. J vs. Larry Bird is remembered as one of the best basketball games of all time and does indeed have a lot of subtlety to it that isn’t obvious until you play it.

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Kokotoni Wilf, Commodore 64

Of the three versions of Kokotoni Wilf released by Elite Systems, the Commodore 64 version is arguably the worst.

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Kokotoni Wilf, Amstrad CPC

Compared to the Spectrum original, Amstrad Kokotoni Wilf is pretty ugly. The developers have chosen a dark blue background with green caves, and the odd splash of colour in the (very flickery) sprites and landscape decorations. The graphics are very poor in my opinion.

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