My favorite games for Commodore 64

I've been gaming since the late 70's, and owned and played heavily pretty much every AAA console in the generations stretching from the Atari 2600 to the Playstation 2. In the year 2000, I built my first gaming PC, and ever since have been gaming primarily on PC. In 4 decades I've pretty much seen it all.

I got to thinking the other day: "Which device did I have the most fun with, which was my favorite?"

I came to the conclusion that my favorite game machine of all time was the Commodore 64. At the time that it came out, it had the best graphics and sound ever seen outside of the arcade. It was relatively easy to program for and there were a gazillion "indie" (though I don't think that word was invented yet, at least as it applies to games) titles to go along with all the AAA studios' efforts. Long before they became symbols of everything wrong with the modern gaming industry, EA (then known as Electronic Arts) and Activision were absolute innovators and shaped the future of gaming with their original, cleverly-devised games. It was an era of unbridled optimism and enthusiasm.

I decided to compile a list of my favorite games of the C64 era. These are in no order whatsoever; that would just be too difficult and time consuming for me to work out. This will be a work in progress so check back in regularly for updates.

Off we go...

List items

• 

  Space Taxi

  Muse Software's Space Taxi is a simple game that combines Lunar Lander-style thrust/gravity gameplay with the concept of a taxi driver just out to make a living.

  You pick up passengers on one of several landing pads in each level and then drop them off on another pad that they specify. Scoring amounts to a "timer" in the form of a constantly draining amount of money that the current passenger will pay you upon safely delivering him. You also get docked for rough landings, so there is a constant balancing act of getting to the passengers, picking them up and delivering them as quickly as possible while maintaining enough control of your spacecraft to land safely.

  The levels get harder and harder, introducing increasingly convoluted pad layouts, environmental hazards and forcing you to fit refueling stops in amongst your regular rounds. Also notable is an early use of digitized speech, with the pitch randomly raised or lowered to simulate different voices.

• 

  Karateka

  A few years before Jordan Mechner created the masterpiece known as Prince of Persia, he and Broderbund Software treated us to this side-scrolling story-based karate beat-em-up. The animations were absolutely incredible for the time, and this is one of the first instances I can think of where cinematics were emphasized over pure action.

  The action that was there was incredibly hard. Like so many of the rotoscoped games that followed a few years later (including Prince of Persia), every animation has weight and momentum, which can really throw you off when precision is needed. It takes some getting used to but you'll get the hang of it eventually.

  That doesn't make the game any easier though; like most action games of the era, there are no checkpoints and no saves, so the smallest error and you are finished.

  There are also environmental hazards to contend with such as that cursed spiked gate that would drop on and insta-kill you, creating one of the first (if not THE first) realistic and brutal death animations ever seen on a home machine.

• 

  Archon: The Light and the Dark

  Archon, published by Electronic Arts, was a simple little game where you took on another player or the computer in a chess-inspired showdown.

  There are two distinct phases to the game: the chess board and the battle arena. Instead of the usual knights, bishops and pawns, players are given an array of mythological and fantasy-inspired creatures.

  Once one player attacks another, the battle phase begins. You have complete control over your attacking or defending creature, each of which has different abilities, strengths and weaknesses. The battles play out in a purely action setting, so player skill is an important factor to your potential success or failure. That said, some units have huge advantages over others, so even if you are a highly skilled player, you still have to be on your toes about which creatures you want fighting which, and plan accordingly.

  The result is an excellent blend of strategy and action, something that was quite novel at the time. Later games such as the original Star Control, and even the Total War series, use the same kind of dual-concept and owe much to this groundbreaking game.

• 

  H.E.R.O.

  Activision's H.E.R.O. was an early multi-screen platformer where you were tasked with rescuing stranded miners in a large, sprawling complex of underground tunnels and passages.

  Much of the novelty of this game comes from your method of motivation, a helicopter rotor strapped to your back. This gives you precision control at all times and with a little practice, you will be effortlessly zipping around the levels, rescuing hapless miners and zapping hostile creatures.

  Historically speaking, this was one of the first platform style games that featured multiple screens that were laid out vertically as well as horizontally. The end result is something that plays a little like Metroid but without the exploration and itemization aspects. It holds up surprisingly well today.