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Ah, when games first came to CD.. That's when that FMV-machine of a game called "Mega Race" came out. (Which had a level of ridiculousness that I really enjoyed.) 😄

Of course, it could never quite match the beauty of the arcade game — a really good looking title, and a solid game, with a story-line that could only come out of Japan. But the C64 conversion saved me from spending a ton of credits down at the corner shops. 😄

And, if you look at all the various hacks/cracks on the C64 Scene Database site, there's one (by JPH in 1984) where someone thought "A four-colour screen is a bit boring. Let's try to jazz it up a bit!" Which I kinda like. 😊

The blue background, though true to the arcade, is unusual for the C64, where authors tended towards the safe choice of a black background. (Often the only way to make it high-contrast for the fuzzy TV's of the day.) There are a few hacked versions of the game that tweaked this:

Pooyan was quite a cool C64 conversion. Could certainly look better. But they did a darned good job of taking a tall-screen arcade game and translating it to the 4:3 screen of the C64. And those falling wolves, and the sounds of biting wolves were just adorable. 😋

Looks amazing! 😎 I didn't realise I want a Red Dwarf game. But suddenly I want a Red Dwarf game. 😋

Bank Panic (arcade) I just love the ridiculousness of this games premise: one lone lawman, defending the entire bank against a continual onslaught of robbers. Excellent cartoony graphics too, that make it a joy to play. 👍

Manic Miner will always be an excellent platformer. 👍

Barbarian 2 (C64) I question the career path of Princess Mariana, who the barbarian rescues in Barbarian 1 and is now a Warrior Princess? I mean, girl power and all that. But if I were a princess, I'd happily assign any muscular well-armed subject of my kingdom to this rather than do it myself. 😋

Combat School was a smart idea. They're basically doing the same Track and Field, Hyper Sports, Summer Games style of game. But, since it's military school, there's much more opportunity to blow stuff up. 😄

One thing I did like about Combat School was the extra tasks you could do to get back into the game, if you lost by an event by a narrow margin. The beautiful cruelty of the game: that you'd now be even more tired for the next event, having just done a bunch of chin-ups. 😊

But, in all seriousness, that looks really good. 👍 A GIF I made of the original.. (Capturing every second frame.) 🤓

Hyper Olympic / Track & Field (MAME) In the Javelin event, if you're running fast enough, you can go for the maximum throwing angle, and skewer a bird! 🐦 I mean, what more argument do you need to try it? 😄

Combat School on the C64 is awesome fun. Except that vertical-waggling running section. That can rot in hell. 😋

I never played Space Taxi on the C64 back in the day. So when I discovered Air Taxi on the Amiga (on Aminet) I thought it was a beautifully original idea. Air Taxi also supported the joystick 3+4 parallel port adapter, so full multi-player Taxi madness could occur. It made for some great times. 😊

It's certainly got an eye-catching look! 😊 All it needs now is colour-changing sound-sensitive LED lighting behind the display to reflect off the wall. 😎

I remember seeing the C64 version of Pitfall on demo, way back when I still had a VIC-20. I thought it looked *amazing*. 😄 Still, as always with those geniuses at Activision, they fit some excellent gameplay in a crazy-small memory footprint. 😎

Android 2 (ZX Spectrum) The Speccy game came first, I think. There's an Amstrad version too, that I haven't tried yet. There's more animation to the robots in the Speccy game, compared to C64. Gives them a bit more character. Also the Millitoids take 3 shots, not 2. Ouch! An unpleasant surprise. 😋

Android 2 (C64) A shoot-em-up can become a whole different beast when you're roaming round claustrophobic maze corridors with evil droids around every corner. 😎

Ha! I was pretty much saying the same thing on the 'other' social media site. hehe. I'm torn between which IK+ version to play though. Coz I like the extra bonus stage in the Amiga version, but I *really* don't like those headbands. 🤔 There's a nice simplicity to the C64 version that I like.. 😎

Indianapolis 500 was such a cool game. I played the heck out of it. 😄 ..Was always a bit torn which version to play: The PC version with super-fast frame rate and tinny sound, or the Amiga version with gorgeous sound but terrible frame rate. 🤔 But either way, fun big crashes on replay.

Bank Panic was always one I'd gravitate to when I was at an arcade. 👍 Brilliant fun game. 😎

Super Offroad (arcade) I don't know who thought to take 4x4 off-road racing and put it in a single-screen format much like Super Sprint. But whoever came up with that idea should be rewarded because "Ivan 'Iron Man' Stewart's Super Offroad", despite the crazy-long title is a barrel of fun. 😎

Super Sprint (arcade) I think Super Sprint shows that you can bring back a classic old game and, really, you don't need to add much to it. Collecting the occasional power-up wrench.. I like the opening gates which can shorten your path.. Oh, and I *love* the chopper when you crash and blow-up. 😄

Yeah, this was the first game Microprose made on the F-19, around a year before the F-117 Nighthawk was publicly acknowledged. So lots of educated guess-work on what its capabilities would be and what it would look like. (When the Amiga version came out, two years later, an F-117 option was added.)

I don't exactly *need* another Atari-to-USB joystick adapter, but I saw these ones on iCode dot com for a good price and thought "why not?" 😊 I'm surprised at just how much I like the wee display that shows the directions and button-presses it sees. 😄 www.icode.com/product/icod...

No problem. 👍 If there's a mediocre game to be experienced on a niche platform, I'm all over it. 😋 I did have a 128 back in the day but, apart a Word Processor and Ultima V, there was nothing to be found here that took advantage of it. So it's nice to find the C128 things that are out there now. 😄

Pew pew pew! 😎

Naughty Ones (Amiga) It's like a Bubble Bobble back-story, except they weren't turned into dinosaurs. 😊 The bouncy-balls as weapons mechanic is kinda fun, but you realise the electric shot power-up is so much more effective. But a fun single-screen platformer all the same.

This seems to be the story of half the C64's back catalogue: A lot of fun, but too damned hard. 😋 Some of them actually feel kinda reasonable with the emulator slowed down to 50% speed. haha.

I liked having a little bit of the flashy-border loading at the beginning too. I mean, I always liked a bit of flashy-border loading. 😄 You can really get into a trance looking at that thing. 😵‍💫

Cool! I haven't seen a decent gravity game on the C64 since.. 1986? 😊

Underwurlde is awesome fun. Then you fall five screens down and die. 😄

And lets not forget the sequel. For me, it was the perfect follow-up: futuristic metalic landscape, single-shots become double-shots, add a homing missile, and sprinkle some wee call-back easter eggs throughout the game. I've always got a spare credit for Time Pilot '84 too. 😄

Time Pilot (AKA Space Pilot) was always worth spending a credit on. 😊

The end of the week. My brain is trying to work out what to have for dinner tonight.. 😋

Uridium (C64) You ever wonder how much longer some of those Uridium demo games would be if there was some kind of obstacle-sensing algorithm for that ship? 😋

Winter Games — Hot Dog (C64) Freestyle Skiing is the proper name for this event now. But Hot Dog sounds cool, so I won't take any issue with that. Besides, it's a really fun event. If you time it right you can fit in two moves in a single jump.. If you time it right. 😊