Tag Archives: Commodore 64

Eye of the Beholder, Commodore 64

This amazing Commodore 64 port of the 1991 Amiga/MS-DOS RPG classic, Eye of the Beholder, was released on 21st November 2022 and is one of the best homebrew remakes I think I’ve ever played. It was written by “Jack Asser“, with the help of a number of other talented individuals, and comes as a CRT (cartridge) file for quick-loading.

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Ultima VI: The False Prophet, Commodore 64

The Commodore 64 version of Ultima VI: The False Prophet was programmed by Axel Brown of Imagitec Design and published by Origin Systems in 1991 and is the only 8-bit port of the game available. It is a somewhat stunted version of Ultima VI, with a number of changes made to make it fit onto three double-side floppy disks (six sides in total).

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Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny, Commodore 64

Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny was originally released by Origin Systems in 1988 for the Commodore 128, with a Commodore 64 version following in 1989. The game was remastered in 2020 by Drunella, to provide CRT (cartridge) and d81 versions for fastloading, although the graphics remain the same as the original (there are no enhanced graphics, like in the remaster of Ultima IV). The music from the C128 version of Ultima V has been included in the remaster, though.

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Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar, Commodore 64

The fourth game in the Ultima series first came out on the Commodore 64 in 1985 and the game was converted by Chuck Bueche, who also did a great job of porting the third Ultima to the C64. So it plays similarly to its predecessor. Ultima IV was also re-made by The Genesis Project in 2015, with superb new graphics, a trainer, bugfixes, a savegame editor, fast-loading d81 and CRT (cartridge) versions, and various other enhancements. If you’re playing the C64 version for the first time then that’s the version I’d recommend – unless you deliberately want to play the original version. I’m showing the 2015 remake here first, then at the end of the set I’ve shown screenshots of the original 1985 version, for comparison. It’s easy to tell them apart.

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Ultima III: Exodus, Commodore 64

The Commodore 64 version of Ultima III: Exodus was first published by Origin Systems in 1983 and came on three floppy disks. There is a fan-made ‘Gold’ version of the game available, that has compressed these down to a single floppy disk file, which saves a lot of disk-swapping, and that’s the version that’s probably worth finding, if you want to play this game on the C64.

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Ultima II: The Revenge of the Enchantress, Commodore 64

The 1983 Commodore 64 version of Ultima II: The Revenge of the Enchantress is a bit of a mixed bag in my opinion. On the one hand it is a gigantic, innovative, involving, and highly challenging Role-Playing Game, and a worthy sequel to the first Ultima (which was a great game). And on the other hand it is a fiddly, visually insipid and annoyingly vague quest into who knows what kind of fantasy, time-travelling nonsense…

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Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness, Commodore 64

Although the first Ultima game was an Apple II original, the Commodore 64 version of this early RPG is arguably the best-known. Re-made and released in 1986, the C64 version of Ultima [one] features colourful graphics and absorbing gameplay that is pretty much identical to the Apple II remake.

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Confuzion, Commodore 64

Confuzion was written by Paul Shirley – of Spindizzy fame – and published by Incentive Software in 1985. It’s a sliding puzzle game where you have to re-arrange tiles so that a spark can reach a bomb before the timer runs out.

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Law of the West, Commodore 64

Law of the West was developed and published by Accolade in 1985 (it was distributed by US Gold in the UK and Europe), and is a ‘Wild West’ style action game where you play as a sheriff in the frontier town of Gold Gulch.

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Strike Fleet, Commodore 64

Strike Fleet is a naval combat simulation developed by Lucasfilm Games and first published by Electronic Arts in 1988. It is the unofficial sequel to the game P.H.M. Pegasus* and it received rave reviews at the time of its original release. * = You can even take control of a Pegasus class craft if you want, which is a classy nod to the game’s predecessor.

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