Was the C64 good or bad for the games industry?

[idrougge]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

Here's my idea for a drinking game: go to Lemon 64 Top 100 C64 game's list, crank the votes up to 50 to remove some modern stuff, and have a shot of your favourite poison every time you see an instance of brown, purple(ish) or sickly green, yellow or other normal colour. See how long you can last.

I think that’s one thing that puts the C64 in front of other systems: It has a brown colour. A lot of things in the world are brown, and on the Speccy, they are magenta.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by Dunny

Speccy did get Last Ninja 2 though, and it was faster (though less pretty) than the C64 version

Less 'pretty', but compensated for with good stippling and higher detail - a pretty good effort on behalf of the old speccy. Unfortunately the Amstrad CPC version is practically a direct port from the Spectrum. The sound in both versions is abysmal, excusable on the Spectrum perhaps but not on the CPC!

One thing I like about the C64 and Amiga versions is how they show the background being rendered as you enter a room, particularly on the C64 where it lays down the colors first and then puts the details in. It's like you're in a virtual world that is being generated as you walk through it - which you are!

I also like the clean graphics with well-drawn details making every pixel count. The commentary in the video below suggests that the Amiga version might be a bit over the top in color and detail, and I agree. Better hardware doesn't always translate to a better game!

The C64 version looks better because the artist had to work within its limitations, creating a unique style that other systems either couldn't match (Spectrum, Amstrad, PC CGA), or was 'beneath' the platform's capabilities (Amiga, Atari ST, Archimedes).

Last Ninja 2 - Comparing The ZX Spectrum, C64, Amstrad, NES And Amiga Versions
[ Show youtube player ]

The Last Ninja Versions Comparison
[ Show youtube player ]

The Last Ninja isn't really an example of the C64's superior 2d graphics hardware. Instead it represents how good a game can be when tuned to limited hardware. The Amiga easily beat the C64 in practically every way, yet in this game that superiority was its undoing. The Archimedes version was even worse, being a tarted up port of the pathetic BBC micro / Electron version.

[Megalomaniac]

Could the Amstrad have matched C64 Last Ninja 2, or did it simply fail to because it was a straight Spectrum port? Certainly, when comparing C64 and Amstrad, it's clear that more commercial games went closer to the C64's technical potential. So many Amstrad games outside France were built from Spectrum codebases, often with very lazy graphical conversion, and designed purely around cassettes with no use of the extra space and random access of disks. Amstrad owners suffered more from Lame Spectrum Ports than Amiga owners did from Lame ST ports, actually. It's telling that such a high proportion of the highest rated games on CPC Game Reviews are recent homebrew titles (though obviously the C64 has Sam's Journey and the Eye of the Beholder conversion for a start).

Anyway, this is off-topic. The C64 clearly did lead to innovative games, with a few like Wizball and Maniac Mansion only really possible to be created on the C64 out of the 8-bits (Spectrum Wizball is better than you'd imagine it could be, but you can't claim that it gets close to the C64 version - the same goes for C64 Head Over Heels or Elite). And not all big C64 hits had graphics or sound that were close to the machine's potential - Head Over Heels is one, Wizards of Wor, M.U.L.E., Wasteland (even compared to other RPGs, rarely the prettiest games anyway).

I'd still say that it's debatable whether there were enough innovative genre-creating C64 games, considering its global reach. If you name an innovative C64 game and I name an innovative one from another 8-bit computer system, I suspect that you'll run out first. Also, the top C64 developers seemed to achieve less in future than other 8-bit programmers of the same age. I'm not even sure that people who owned a C64 in the 8-bit era, but started developing games on later systems, did as well as those who started with, say, Apple II or Spectrum. There are C64 developers who did great work on the Amiga or elsewhere - Sensible, Shaun Southern, Andy Braybrook - but what other true post-C64 classics were made primarily by ex-C64 guys?

[AestheticDebris]

Originally Posted by Megalomaniac

Could the Amstrad have matched C64 Last Ninja 2, or did it simply fail to because it was a straight Spectrum port?

Technically, there no reason it couldn't have been better than the C64 port. It runs reasonably well as it is and there's no performance difference between the different CPC screen modes (if anything the more colourful Mode 0 is slightly faster to draw in as you can take some shortcuts).

The difficulty at the time would've been justifying spending money on an artist to redo the graphics as a proper 16 colour effort. Even when the machine didn't get direct Speccy ports it often suffered from the graphics instead being lifted from the more colour limited C64, since that had the same resolution. Barbarian being an example that springs to mind.

[idrougge]

Originally Posted by Megalomaniac

There are C64 developers who did great work on the Amiga or elsewhere - Sensible, Shaun Southern, Andy Braybrook - but what other true post-C64 classics were made primarily by ex-C64 guys?

Factor 5?

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by AestheticDebris

Technically, there no reason it couldn't have been better than the C64 port. It runs reasonably well as it is and there's no performance difference between the different CPC screen modes (if anything the more colourful Mode 0 is slightly faster to draw in as you can take some shortcuts).

The difficulty at the time would've been justifying spending money on an artist to redo the graphics as a proper 16 colour effort. Even when the machine didn't get direct Speccy ports it often suffered from the graphics instead being lifted from the more colour limited C64, since that had the same resolution. Barbarian being an example that springs to mind.

Barbarian is a special case : each version has been produced by an hardware development system that allowed from the source and assets of one machine to convert and make other versions without human assistance.

Regarding the CPC version, as explained above, the game on CPC only has the battle screens in CPC format. All the sprites are stored in the CPC version in C64 sprite format, converted real time in 2 passes : first in mode 1 4 colors, then in mode 0 16 colors. That's why the game is anormaly slow on CPC.

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by Megalomaniac

Could the Amstrad have matched C64 Last Ninja 2, or did it simply fail to because it was a straight Spectrum port?

Simple answer : it's completely bad because it's nothing more than a spectrum emulator running the game. The CPC version could have been in very pretty mode 0, much better sound, and a way better playability.

Any CPC coder could confirm that to you (those with extended knowledge).

Absolutely nothing can justify the abominations that Last Ninja 2 & Remix are on the Amstrad CPC, nothing.

Certainly, when comparing C64 and Amstrad, it's clear that more commercial games went closer to the C64's technical potential.

devs did their best on the C64. On the CPC, they did nothing, while a remake of Last Ninja 2 or Remix would have been as good as the C64 version with very pretty graphics and all that comes with it.

So many Amstrad games outside France were built from Spectrum codebases, often with very lazy graphical conversion, and designed purely around cassettes with no use of the extra space and random access of disks.

100% correct. Out of people like Raf Cecco, Mike Lamb, Andy Deakin, Jon O'Brien and others coders that coded very well the CPC during its commercial life, most of the coders outside France just have not a single clue.

Amstrad owners suffered more from Lame Spectrum Ports than Amiga owners did from Lame ST ports, actually. It's telling that such a high proportion of the highest rated games on CPC Game Reviews are recent homebrew titles (though obviously the C64 has Sam's Journey and the Eye of the Beholder conversion for a start).

The CPC has a "wider" range of possibilities than the C64. it's a shame that quite a number of coders really stayed in the "very normal" row, not doing or trying special effects..... when correctly handled, it can really bring out impressive results.....

Anyway, this is off-topic. The C64 clearly did lead to innovative games, with a few like Wizball and Maniac Mansion only really possible to be created on the C64 out of the 8-bits (Spectrum Wizball is better than you'd imagine it could be, but you can't claim that it gets close to the C64 version - the same goes for C64 Head Over Heels or Elite). And not all big C64 hits had graphics or sound that were close to the machine's potential - Head Over Heels is one, Wizards of Wor, M.U.L.E., Wasteland (even compared to other RPGs, rarely the prettiest games anyway).

Wizball has a good scrolling on Amstrad CPC as well.

I'd still say that it's debatable whether there were enough innovative genre-creating C64 games, considering its global reach. If you name an innovative C64 game and I name an innovative one from another 8-bit computer system, I suspect that you'll run out first. Also, the top C64 developers seemed to achieve less in future than other 8-bit programmers of the same age.

Correct. On the C64, the learning curve top was reached very early, on the opposite, the learning curve top on the CPC was much much longer to reach, and there are still new things to discover on the technical side.

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

What do you mean by that?
Even OCS Amiga have gigantic palette of 4096 colors, where you could pick just about any color you want, and many shades of the same color.

Look at the Amiga games, no graphists out of the C64 lovers used and made games with the dreaded C64 color palette.

[Adropac2]

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

Look at the Amiga games, no graphists out of the C64 lovers used and made games with the dreaded C64 color palette.

but it certainly suited most 64 games just fine I think a lot would say. I love the Amstrad's palette but I'm also glad that wasn't what I was staring at the whole time. C64 colours being rather washed out looked more natural and for something like Last Ninja and obviously so many games, it works really well. Something like Sorcery on Amstrad though looks dazzling compared to the drab C64 version and so many other games but still some people just didn't like the Amstrad colours being they were so intense

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Adropac2

Something like Sorcery on Amstrad though looks dazzling compared to the drab C64 version and so many other games but still some people just didn't like the Amstrad colours being they were so intense

Like you said it really depends on the game. For me that is the interesting part about the quite limited graphic capabilities of the 8-bit machines. Can you make it work for your game? And which machine does deliver the best experience. Yesterday I had a look at Barbarian on the CPC for the first time (thanks to this thread) and it does look pretty good. Both the C64 and the CPC versions have colors that are 'off', but the CPC version does look better in my opinion.

[Adropac2]

Originally Posted by TCD

Like you said it really depends on the game. For me that is the interesting part about the quite limited graphic capabilities of the 8-bit machines. Can you make it work for your game? And which machine does deliver the best experience. Yesterday I had a look at Barbarian on the CPC for the first time (thanks to this thread) and it does look pretty good. Both the C64 and the CPC versions have colors that are 'off', but the CPC version does look better in my opinion.

yeah Amstrad is very striking and just very nice looking and I can imagine those growing up with the machine will defend this aspect to it just as I would actually. Going from Amstrad with it's gorgeous pretty colours to very pale colours isn't going to go in C64's favour and just objectively it was the case that Amstrad's colours on some same games looked much nicer. And so it is interesting now as you say because we can go between them so easily and just enjoy those which we feel look best. A bit like eating food I guess

A good comparison maybe is Tau Ceti which runs very respectively on C64 and has that realistic natural tone that is just part of being a C64 game of course but then the Amstrad version with it's four colour mode has the most gorgeous looking version of Tau Ceti ever. Same with Elite and while the Amstrad versions are a little slower I guess from the higher resolution, the trade off is very much worth it. But for some games I really wouldn't want them dolled up any as the C64 has it's very own feel very much thanks to it's diluted colours

[kremiso]

yes it really depends of each single game

the fact that the CPC was released two years later than the C64 should be considered too

check the classics, one by one, there are different surprises in different ports
Exolon, Stormlord, Cybernoid 1 & 2, Uridium etc

Nebulus ie the C64 IS the version to play, i think just the later released NES version came closer

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Adropac2

A bit like eating food I guess

Indeed To use the analogy: You can say that you don't like something after you tried it, but it is a bit silly to not try it because you think that you might not like it.

[AestheticDebris]

Originally Posted by TCD

Indeed To use the analogy: You can say that you don't like something after you tried it, but it is a bit silly to not try it because you think that you might not like it.

And if you really like something, you can gorge on slightly different versions from different places.

I've lost count of how many platforms I've completed Impossible Mission on, but I'd always be up for trying another one.

[Adropac2]

Originally Posted by kremiso

yes it really depends of each single game

the fact that the CPC was released two years later than the C64 should be considered too

check the classics, one by one, there are different surprises in different ports
Exolon, Stormlord, Cybernoid 1 & 2, Uridium etc

Nebulus ie the C64 IS the version to play

some of these very pretty on Amstrad but yeah Uridium plays to the C64's strength and Nebulous certainly turned out great on it

[fxgogo]

Talking C64 colour palettes, I seem to remember a YT video going over this.

There is a difference in how the colours looked on NTSC and PAL machines. The machine was designed around NTSC and there was more saturation when compared to PAL output. Apparently they never bothered tweaking the values/timings for the PAL market.

[Samurai_Crow]

NTSC=never twice same color. Just because one person had weird results doesn't mean they were consistent across the board.

[CCCP alert]

VIC-II,SID, 6502 all existed in 1981, the C64 is nothing more than a repackaging of the abandoned Commodore arcade motherboard project. The C64 was 100% finished in Jan 82 as shown at the CES show, rest of the time was for building up stock for 5 months for launch and packaging design/manuals/game dev.

There were only 2 options for 60fps computer games AFAIK, Atari or C64. Nothing else had hardware scrolling.

[lmimmfn]

Originally Posted by CCCP alert

VIC-II,SID, 6502 all existed in 1981, the C64 is nothing more than a repackaging of the abandoned Commodore arcade motherboard project. The C64 was 100% finished in Jan 82 as shown at the CES show, rest of the time was for building up stock for 5 months for launch and packaging design/manuals/game dev.

There were only 2 options for 60fps computer games AFAIK, Atari or C64. Nothing else had hardware scrolling.

I dont agree with you on the chips being available and the C64 just being a machine which happened to bundle those chips together (good article on the C64) - https://spectrum.ieee.org/commodore-64

[AestheticDebris]

Originally Posted by lmimmfn

I dont agree with you on the chips being available and the C64 just being a machine which happened to bundle those chips together (good article on the C64) - https://spectrum.ieee.org/commodore-64

It's not quite right to say they were already available, but it's not entirely wrong as that article itself states. The project did indeed start out as an arcade board that Commodore planned to sell to others (they didn't really seem to have a plan but what's new!). By the time the chips were ready, Commodore wanted a 64K computer and so the "plan" just pivoted into what they wanted now