Tag Archives: Commodore 64

Special Criminal Investigation, Commodore 64

Special Criminal Investigation is quite a ‘special’ game. It is part of the Chase HQ series and was released on cartridge only, for the Commodore 64 at least, by Ocean Software in the UK.

SCI was also released late in the Commodore 64‘s lifetime (in 1990 to be precise), so benefited from coders knowing advanced programming techniques that could push the beige bread bin further than it had ever been pushed before.

And the result is a fast-paced, visually-impressive, and highly playable racing game. Sorry, chasing game… A conversion of the Taito arcade game, sometimes known as simply S.C.I. or Chase HQ 2: Special Criminal Investigation.

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Platoon, Commodore 64

Developed and published by Ocean Software and licensed from the 1986 Oliver Stone film of the same name, Platoon on the Commodore 64 managed to win over gamers and critics, back in 1987 when it was first released, with its atmospheric and varied gameplay.

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First Samurai, Commodore 64

First released on the 16-bit Amiga and Atari ST in 1991, this 8-bit Commodore 64 conversion came later, in 1992. And – considering that it is stepping down a generation – the programmers did a good job of retaining what made the originals so good.

Platform action – lots of swords! Leaping around like a lunatic! Climbing cliff faces. Killing monsters – discovering secrets! Atmospheric SID tunes. What more could you want? 🙂

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Halls of the Things, Commodore 64

The Commodore 64 has a version of Design Design‘s classic Halls of the Things and it looks and plays very similarly to the original Spectrum version. Which is no bad thing, because this is a challenging and fun little action game.

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Out Run Europa, Commodore 64

Out Run Europa is an interesting game in that it was designed and written by British developer Probe Software in 1991. Sega simply provided a license and Probe made the game. And: this wasn’t a conversion of an arcade game – it was a spin-off from Out Run, produced only for home computers at the time.

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Dragon Skulle, Commodore 64

Dragon Skulle is the fourth and final game in the Sir Arthur Pendragon series, from legendary publisher Ultimate Play The Game. It was first released in 1985 and actually received lukewarm reviews in much of the press at the time.

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Blackwyche, Commodore 64

Blackwyche is the third game in the Sir Arthur Pendragon series, following on from The Staff of Karnath and Entombed. It was written by Dave and Bob Thomas and published by Ultimate Play The Game in 1985.

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The Staff of Karnath, Commodore 64

The first game in the Sir Arthur Pendragon series, The Staff of Karnath was released on the Commodore 64 in 1984 to some acclaim. Mostly because it was an Ultimate game, and in the eyes of many people (myself included), Ultimate could do no wrong.

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The Last Ninja 3, Commodore 64

The Last Ninja 3 was released by System 3 in 1991 and it follows the same isometric/action template as the previous two games.

Again: there are refinements and differences that make The Last Ninja 3 a worthwhile game in its own right – in particular: the graphics, which are more detailed and colourful than seen previously.

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The Last Ninja 2, Commodore 64

The sequel to the classic The Last Ninja was first released by System 3 in 1988 – one year after the original game.

It was designed by the same team as made the first game, except this time they had on board the highly-respected John Twiddy as writer/coder, and Matt Gray doing music.

Graphically, The Last Ninja 2 is arguably better than its predecessor, with more colour and variety in the environments, and some of the gameplay niggles from the first game have thankfully been addressed too. In particular: it is now easier to pick things up!

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