'Hidden Gems: Volume One' Brings Four Classic Commodore 64 Games To Switch Tomorrow

Would we be able to connect a Bluetooth/usb keyboard to play these with? Just to recreate that old school feeling!

How much, is the big question.
A fiver and I'll bite. Any more, no.

Four titles for volume 1?! Wow, they're really spoiling us. If they did a physical release, I wonder how many they can squeeze on one cartridge?! One maybe? With the rest as DLC?

Yes kids this is top end gaming back in 1984!

Now called hidden gems, not too sure about that, very difficult to appreciate without nostalgia.

to be honest, I preferred these in their Speccy incarnations. I can see why the C64 versions have been included, as ownership of the ZX machine ROMs are trickier to pin down.

Personally, other than Mutant Monty, they're all decent, with Monty not being related to any of the Mole-featured games!

Like SpringDivorce said above, if this is ~£5 then aye, go on. Any more and no. I already have the Speccy versions to hand!

@PeterW77
But C64 Games are mostly played with Joysticks or Controllers :>
Or do you want to type in the Load Code ?

@Azuris ha ha, I wouldn't go that far!! 😃

I understand the nostalgia effect, but these are games from the Mesozoic, insert at least a dozen!

I’ll stick with Evercade for my retro fix.
They have C64 collection cart and more to come.

Horace was the mascot of the Spectrum, but also a hidden gem. MaKeS sEnSe!

Surely this needs more titles. Like the saga package or something. 4 seems a bit pointless.

C64 is too old for even me and I love retro stuff.

@michaelf

I do actually quite like Mutant Monty, though as with Horace, more its Speccy incarnation.

N.O.M.A.D: 69%, ZZAP!64 Oct’86
Gilligan’s Gold: 7/10, C&VG Oct’84
Horace Goes Skiing: 6/10, PCG Aug’84
Mutant Monty: 7/10, PCG Feb’85

The mid-80s was an era of gaming journalism when you had to reach a 75% score just to be considered average. Classics? Nope, not even close. 6-7/10 wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t great either. These are Chad Henne titles when you have Dan Marino-level games on the shelf.

Uridium is a C64 classic. Paradroid is a classic. Wizball. Armalyte. Iridis Alpha. Que•Dex. California Games. Nebulus. Dropzone. Hunter’s Moon. Batalyx. IK+. The Last Ninja series. Hewson and Thalamus both regularly knocked it outta the park back in the day. Mayhem in Monsterland is considered by many to be the best platformer of the 8/16-bit pre-console generations; there’s a reason people in the retro scene still call only half-jokingly for the Rowlands brothers to do Creatures 3.

Virtual Console got the C64 right with many of its picks. The titles in this compilation, while some might be remembered fondly (never saw the appeal of Horace myself), don’t even scratch the term, never mind meet it.

So gilligan's gold is basically a Bagman clone. Nice that if you ever search for switch hidden gems, its going to pop up. cant say I'd buy this when you can get a c64 mini for 50 bucks. and load every game on that. but i think there is bigger classics on the c64 than these?

Just give me Paradroid.

I only remember Horace Goes Skiing on the ZX Spectrum but might give these a go if they're a reasonable price. I hope more get released.

Yeah, my favouite C64 games are probably Last Ninja 1 and 2, Platoon, Stunt Car Racer, Buggy Boy, International Karate... sadly, not games likely to see a compilation release.

Not bad but I would like to see 20 or so C64 games for $5 USD. I mean, some of these games are fun but pretty old.

@SpringDivorce probs £32.99 knowing nintendo

I love old Commodore, Spectrum and Amstrad games and first learned to program by tinkering with all three. In general, I welcome new ways for people to play and share the games. As for this collection, inquisitive types should research the company who thinks that they "licensed" these and exactly how they claim to have done so.

Many friends of mine including 3 of the people I love most in this world are too close to this situation for me to be objective, so I won't give an opinion. But these are worth a read for anyone interested in games of this era, and the ethics and legality of charging for them:
https://boingboing.net/2019/11/18/horace-goes-copyright-striking.html
https://www.digitiser2000.com/main-page/horace-how-hungry-is-too-hungry

I started gaming with a NES in 1992 and even then i thought C64 & Atari games looked bad...

Regardless of how you feel about this release, at least C64 games aren’t locked behind a subscription paywall like Nintendo is doing with their retro games.

The C64 carried my gaming interests through my entire childhood and none of these games resonate with me. Uridium, IK+, Bubble Bobble, Defender of the Crown, Lords of Midnight, Commando, Mercenary, Elite, Little Computer People, Wizball, Spy Vs. Spy, Monty on the Run (and other Mole games), Sentinal... To be honest, there are probably 100 classics that stand the test of time. None are featured on this collection.

As much as this is refreshing to see and being the wrong side of 52, I played these games and remember them with fond memories. However, these 4 games are not enough to make me bite as I have either some or all on Antstream on my Xbox. Which to me is a god send to scratch that retro itch! PS having a ball on Antstream (roughly £30 for 1 year membership and about £80 for a life long membership) and if you have a PC or Xbox and love retro gaming then it's a must IMO, trust me! Obviously there are other means of playing these games for free, but I do like what Antstream are doing and I'm happy to have paid out for a year's membership which I may turn into a life time membership if all is going well with Antstream, a year from now? PPS Going back to this 4 game collection, Hopefully, volume 2 of this (if made?) will be TranzAM, Deathchase, Horace and the spiders and Grebet (Spectrum Frogger).... Then you have my money!

@Don
I don't know. It is pretty good value. There are what, 220 legacy games on NSO and growing (some of them formerly unavailable to us in the U.S.)? Plus the SP versions, DLC, a few original games here and there, game trials.... All for what works out to $4.17 per month for the expansion pack ($6.67 for the family plan)? I can see the frustration of wanting to be able to keep the games after the service is stopped like it was for the Wii and Wii U. But I spent close to $2,000 on Virtual Console and Wiiware games that are still on my Wii U. There are many games that I bought that I wouldn't have if I was able to play them otherwise (City Connection, Balloon Fight...). I agree it would be nice to have the option to purchase games individually but that does not make the NSO overpriced by any means nor does it make it some villainous tactic by Nintendo.

Wake me up when the Amiga games arrive

Love me some c64. But to call these four classics…

@AndroidiOS I assume by Atari you mean the 2600, and yeah that's vastly less powerful than an NES, though much older of course.

Interestingly though, the C64 hardware is extremely comparable to the NES - they have basically the same CPU (the Famicom's CPU was actually a "dubiously legal" clone of a chip Commodore had an exclusive license for!) and in some specific ways the C64 is more capable.

The reason you get many NES games that appear to be superior what what the Commodore could do is mostly because most NES cartridges contained upgrade chips in them, and also that cartridges could potentially contain more data than was on a C64 cassette (though, the C64 could play games on cartridge too - it just wasn't common as the public prefered the cheap price of tapes and discs). Another limiting factor was that multiplat games were often coded simultaneously for the weaker Spectrum. Games at the time that took full advantage of the C64's power were comparible to quality NES releases... but these were rare. My favourite example from the time period is Mayhem in Monsterland. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldo2ewLBt3Y

Any of the "black box" NES titles that ran on stock machines were perfectly possible to have nearly 1:1 ports on C64. A few years ago a pretty much perfect homebrew port of Super Mario Bros was released! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jIrR9Iqq4Q

It can even run an extremely close port of Master System Sonic... which actually improves on the MS version in some ways! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4CGwp4N9xg though unlike SMB, that one requires a REU upgrade (which were available in the 80s, that's not a modern thing)

There are 100 games better than these. Probably 100 hidden gems too. They could (and should) have picked much better games.

@samuelvictor NES games had a much better resolution (comparable to arcade games from the late 70's/early 80's) than 99% of C64 games.

Also the ZX spectrum had a much faster processor than the C64 (the Z80 at 3.5 MHz and much better architecture - higher numbers of registers, instructions etc.).

But it didn't have a dedicated graphics chip like the C64 for hardware scrolling, and the early Spectrums (16 and 48K versions) didn't have dedicated sound chip either.

The Spectrum wasn't weaker than the C64 when it came to what you could achieve game play wise, and it had a resolution on par with the aforementioned Golden Age arcade games (then it of course had color/attribute clash and so called "see through graphics", but we don't talk about those.. "cough, cough" ).

Let's take Uridium as an example; at the time people said it couldn't be done on the ZX Spectrum - guess what? - It could. It scrolled very nicely and had higher resolution graphics than the C64 original (ok, it was large monochrome graphics because of the Spectrum's color/attribute clash issues).

Mutant Monty is a genuine gem. Or gold, rather, since that’s what you have to collect. Really inventive levels, and tough as nails but fair. Was a real highlight of early Amstrad gaming.

Going back to my dream volume 2, 4 game (Spectrum) collection if made? TranzAM, Deathchase, Horace and the spiders and will change Grebet (Frogger) for Jetpac! Will pay in advance for this volume, if ever confirmed? PS going back to Antstream, what I also love about it is you can play the NES and SNES Starwars games! If only someone would make a collection of these like the Jurassic Park classic collection coming out soon!!

@shgamer Haha I wondered if someone would call me out on the Spectrum being "weaker"... I was massively oversimplifying for the sake of not making a long post even longer.

You may have seen in my original post that I mentioned I literally learned to program on Commodore, Spectrum, and Amstrad CPCs. I'm very familiar with the strengths and weaknesses of them all. I started with a Commodore PET in the early 80s, through Vic20 & C16, 48K Spectrum, and by the early 90s I was making games for 128k Spectrum, C64 and CPC 464.

As you pointed out, the Spectrum ranges' greatest strength were their CPUs. I vastly prefer Z80 based 8bit systems to work with personally, though nowadays I lean towards NES over the Z80 based Master System for my own projects as the higher resolution is nicer for spritework. But the Spectrums' lack of hardware scrolling, "proper" sprites and limited way in which it could handle colour, but while being the "main" system multiplat games were made for, undoubtedly lead to many C64 and CPC games appearing weaker than what those systems could handle as they were essentially Spectrum code ports.

The thing is, the Spectrum models (especially the earlier ones) ARE the "weaker" hardware of the bunch, but they also were literally a third the price of the CPC and C64, and were remarkably capable for the cost. Its the "an affordable computer in every home" attitude that made the Spectrum the best selling system, lead to the widest software catalogie and the highest number of bedroom coders who are now giants in the industry... and is why if you'd have asked my favourite 8bit computer range I'd have said "Spectrum", despite the hardware being arguably the worst. Its the little machine that could. What the homebrew community manages to push them to do nowadays is frankly astonishing... though still not as comparible to the NES as the C64, which was what the original poster I was replying to was talking about, and the fact most people don't seem to know that they have the same CPU in all but name is what prompted me to reply.

As for the NES having a higher resolution than the C64, yeah I was going to mention that, but as its the only very obvious downgrade in that Mario video I posted, I left it out due to brevity and only said the C64 was more capable in "some" areas, and "comparible" otherwise, which I think is accurate. I also much prefer the colour pallette of the NES, but thats a more personal preference thing, and it does have its blind spots. Master System had it beat there, for sure.

@samuelvictor Yeah, you have do the routines for scrolling and (masked) sprites yourself on the Spectrums.

But there is an incredible fast scrolling routine that involves all the Z80's 14, 8-bit registers being push(ed) and pop(ped) to and from the Stack in very quick succession.

Only downside is that it uses quite a bit of memory (probably around 2K - which is quite a lot of the 48K version's around 41K available to the user/programmer).

Before I comment, it's in the small print of me being a gamer that I have to buy C64 games lol. That said...these are far from 'classics' lol. Gaming had much more to offer at this point in time than this paltry selection, no matter how epic the voice over guy is trying to sound.
Day one for the nostalgia hit. But I'll tell you what, I am bloomin' chuffed someone out there is bringing C64 games to Switch. There are some undeniable hidden gems for that god tier 8 bit computer...they just aren't on this collection. Hopefully volume 2 can deliver

@samuelvictor
Cheers for that, will have a read later.

@samuelvictor Well, Platoon is certainly better on C64 than NES, same for Last Ninja 2 (Last Ninja on NES). I did envy the NES instant loading though, those cartridge prices were mad if you were used to buying games on tape from WH Smith. Many an enthusiastic playground conversation was had about the Spectrum vs. the C64, and their respective ports... often came down to how well individual games utilised the hardware, but the SID chip was really something else for me, sound wise.

It's 1,399 yen, so about 11 quid. Hahaha no.

@samuelvictor That's great research.

@samuelvictor
Definitely thanks. No buy now, unless it drops to a quid at some point.

Over at AGameAWeek, I used to have a feature called AGameAWeek Gold, where I would (much like this) pluck out some old forgotten gems.
But people hated it. Because I wasn't picking the good stuff like Tetripong, Retro Raider, Alien Deathmatch, SpikeDislike and more, and was instead rummaging through the archive for things like Mr Money Grabber, BeHandy and Monoblast.

I had to drop it as a feature because, even when giving away free games all the time, and even with the solid amount of stinkers that writing at a rate of AGameAWeek brings... Some people just have a threshold for the quality of games they'll put up with.

I played a couple of these BITD.. And that's where they'll stay.

@shgamer Yeah the Z80 is capable of amazing things, as I said its my preference of 8bit chip to program for. If Sinclair had made a more expensive model with a dedicated graphics chip, instead of selling to Sugar when he did, history could potentially have been quite different. Although, I'm a heathen and actually prefer the plus 2 model Spectrums myself for collecting and playing.

Even though I grew up with and first learned on varous Commodores, I'm extremely fond of the Spectrum and CPC 464/6128/Plus ranges. Each system is capable of incredible things if you take advantage of each's specific strengths. I'm always fascinated whena console ( or home pc! ) generation's hardware each feels uniquely different. Its a shame that in recent years the difference between Xbox and Playstation versions of games is barely noticable.

@samuelvictor Yeah, I know, the ZX Spectrum is a bit of "an acquired taste" with its graphical issues and very sparse sound capabilities in the 16 and 48K versions.

Some times I wonder if it would have been a good idea to include the AY sound chip right from day one, but then again it wouldn't have been able to sell at the very low price it sold for (and there was quite a lot of competitors that failed miserably because they weren't competitive enough (and suffered delays etc.); Oric, Dragon, Lynx, Enterprise to name a few.

@SpringDivorce Thanks. Yeah. Its legally impossible to own the rights to Horace and anyone saying they do is either severely misguided or knowingly lying for profit. And he is not the only "IP" from these days being exploited in this matter to milk the UK retro community of money whilst retroactively suing Youtubers, bloggers and even documentary makers talking about "their" IP that they just "bought".

Simply checking government records for the company behind this compilation opens a whole barrel of worms. I'll leave it at that.

@Ristar24 Yes we've spoken about this before - the SID chip is capable of incredible things. One of the ways I personally think the C64 is arguably better than the NES. Last Ninja 2 is an incredibly impressive game for the system.

Weirdly, where I lived it was mostly arguements between those that owned Amstrads or Spectrums, I only knew one kid with a C64... but as I'd grown up learning to program on older Commodores I covetted it and eventually bought it off him. It was a C64c, and actually had one cartridge game, the only one I've ever owned for the system - Terminator 2. Really crazy to have a Commodore game load instantly! They were silly money though considering in those days most of us bought budget games on tape for £2.99

@AndroidiOS Thank you! Glad you found it interesting

@shgamer Absolutely. The SAM Coupé springs to mind. As a Welshman I love the Dragon systems too, sadly they were never more than an after thought at the time.

To be honest I think the main reason for the Spectrum's success was Sir Clive's absolute insistance on getting the price under £100, so that they could be affordable for every family, and teach coding to the masses. Considering he somewhat looked down his nose at gaming, it doesn't surprise me that corners were cut in the sound and moving graphics front. Adding an AY chip and a more powerful dedicated graphics chip and you'd have probably ended up with something very akin to the 464... and at a simialr price (probably £200 without a monitor). While that would have been cool, less people would have bought one and there would have been less variety and choice in the market. I'm happy with how history went, and the Spectrum sold very well, being the best selling range in the UK overall.

I'm sure you're aware of the ZX Spectrum NEXT but if you aren't, its a wonderful bit of kit.

@samuelvictor Yeah, mine was the C64C, came with the 'Hollywood Pack'. Top Gun and Miami Vice were rubbish, but Rambo, Platoon and the Great Escape made up for it. The Ocean Loader is legendary for the SID, made waiting for a game to load from a tape far less painful.

@samuelvictor I know of the Spectrum Next, yeah, but to me it's not a real Spectrum without the graphical issues lol.

It's partly an acquired taste thing, partly a nostalgia thing, partly a "love for the underdog that defies gravity" thing, partly it having higher resolution than the Amstrad and the C64 (in most games) - and I owned the latter two in the mid 80's, but they never really "clicked" with me, so I went back to the Speccy not only once, but twice.

@samuelvictor
That's messed up. I mean, I remember the whole 'Edge ' thing from years ago, bit I'm astonished to see how bad this has become now.

@Ristar24 Ah the C64c is a beautiful system. I love all the late stage redesigns of the early 80s hardware in the early 90s to make them look more aesthetically similar to their 16bit counterparts.

@shgamer Haha I can understand that. The colour clash certainly makes an entirely unique aesthetic and I can see how nostalgia would make games without it look "wrong" even though they are technically better. You're right about the higher resolution being a boon - as I said even though I'm a huge Master System fan, when considering making my first semi professional retro console homebrew I've found I lean towards the NES because of the higher resolution being nicer to work with for my personal style of sprite design.

@SpringDivorce Thanks. Yeah when going through a rough period in my personal life, I found solace in the retro community and quickly became close personal IRL friends with many of the biggest names in the scene. In general its a lovely, welcoming environment... but sadly on a pretty regular basis a huge scandal will happen and nearly destroy the whole thing, and everything becomes very "school playground bullying" but with relentless anonymous social media hate campaigns and sock puppets galore meaning its hard to escape from without just being harassed into going offline... as someone who's job is to be in the public eye, it became somewhat of a liability for me to be outwardly associating with it as it spills over into comments under interviews, reviews of films I've made etc... This makes me sad.

Every few months I try and come back to the world of making retro youtube videos and attending conventions and in person events, but then another one of my good friends is hit with a huge scandal and everything becomes stressful and anxiety triggering. Its so sad and uneccessary. Most of us are in our 40s or older - we should have grown out of this behaviour before we hit our teens. I just love old games and want to talk about them. That's all! lol

Disturbing lack of Creatures 1 & 2, Flimbo's Quest, Klax, Cyberdyne Warrior and Freddy's Circus.

@Kekshook I would shell out several months' worth of salary to play Realm of Impossibility on my Switch. And then my wife would leave me. Probably not worth it, but yeah, there are a bunch of Commodore 64 games I'd love to play on my Switch but after seeing this I doubt it would ever be within the realm of possibility. Get it?!?!? ...Sorry.

Like many on here, I own the Speccy version of Horace Goes Skiing, but I'd probably consider buying this just to have Horace portable and on a console I regularly play.

The other three, I could go either way, but in my opinion they're not bad games necessarily.

I run a weekly retro video game poll on Reddit. For these early eras (up until 1988), here are the computer games that made the lists (that aren't already on GOG):

• Montezuma's Revenge / Panama Joe (there is a remake on Switch and I believe the original will soon be ported)
• Manic Miner
• Wizardry Trilogy
• Rescue on Fractalus!
• International Karate + / IK+ / Chop N' Drop

Please give me a Dizzy collection, physical of course

@MontyCircus We're getting the original Montezuma's Revenge on Switch? I knew we got that remake, but that's exciting! Great game!

I would also gladly take Wizardry (did you see the original is getting a remake?) and Manic Miner too!

Who in their right might would pay money for these things?

@World @MontyCircus I think it's already out? At least I have the "8 bit edition" on my wishlist

PS I recently found out Montezumas revenge means travelers diarrhea irl, was a little shook

@CammyUnofficial Yeah, I know of the 8-bit one on Switch, but wasn't aware they were planning on putting an original version out as well (I think the 8-bit one is a port of the NES one that came out a few years ago, but I could be wrong)!

(Haha, yeah! It's funny some of the names 80s games had that actually mean something....quite different than we thought as kids)

@World ohh ohhh my bad - I had even looked up what version it was exactly and couldn't tell. Thanks for the tip, I'll hold out for the OG version.

Haha yeah true, this play on words was particularly repulsive

Well, I left off the GOG and Steam games:

• Zork Trilogy
• Ultima Trilogy
• King's Quest I: Quest for the Crown
• Sid Meier's Pirates!
• California Games
• Maniac Mansion

I bought this and like it. I've only played each game for a little while, but the devs did a good job bringing these old Commodore 64 games to Switch. The menus are pleasing, there are options, save states, and the games run at 60fps (I assume they did on original hardware...). I hope they bring more, especially the ones considered the greatest as mentioned by many commenters on this page