Commodore 64 To Get 30-In-1 TV Game

Lee writes "According to Peek N' Poke, there's an official Commodore 64 30-in-1 'TV game' in development, according to current C64 rights-holders Tulip Computers, who has a Dutch-language news story about it on their site." The Tulip story mentions titles including "Classic Games series from Epyx, inclusief Summer Games, Winter Games, World Games en the seminal California Games", and it's notable that Tulip's partner and exclusive C64 licensor is Ironstone Partners, who also list as a "sister company" DC Studios, software developers of the Atari 10-in-1 TV game.

Comments

hacking it..

[greywire]

will it be possible to hack the unit to allow use of arbitrary c64 software? Would we be able to hook up a keyboard and such to make a mini portable C64?

hmm.

Re:hacking it..

[gklinger]

Ever heard of the SX-64? I have one. It wasn't portable in the take-it-with-you-everywhere sense but it was mobile. I mostly took mine to friend's homes and to the occasional user group meeting. I do have a more portable Commodore 64, in a sense, in that I run Frodo for Palm on my handheld. As for why? Nostalgic gaming mostly.

Re:Seriously

[greywire]

1. Nerds like like video games
2. Any sufficiently well rounded nerd who wasnt born yesterday probably grew up with C64's, or at least played with their parent's antique discovered in a closet...

Where's the full list?

[mahdi13]

That whole "Games" series was bad. Why put them all together like this? What are the other 23 games on it?
With any luck they will be other great EA games from the time like "Monster Construction Set" "Pinball Construction Set" "Archon" "Seven Cities of Gold" "Arctic Fox" "Caveman Ugh-lympics" "Wasteland"
Just to name a few. Has anyone seen Monster Construction Set anywhere but the C64? It was one of those great R3 games where you customize a monster and send him to fight other monsters for prize money to build better monsters...

Cheap Sid Chips ?

[polyp2000]

Hmmm .... will it have a proper SID chip in it?

Re:Cheap Sid Chips ?

[polyp2000]

For me the C64 Sid Chip music was as much important to me as the rest of the game. Im just wondering if this thing will include a real SID?

World stocks of SID's are practically out, the Elektron SidStation (a SID based midi groovebox) bought pretty much all the remaining stocks from wherever they came from.

It would be nice to think that the Sid was going back into production again in some form. But I suppose if it did, it would not quite be the same, I doubt if they could source authentic capacitors for the filters for a start. but heck I can hope! Even so, this thing would be worth buying for that chip alone.

Nick

Re:Cheap Sid Chips ?

[hiroshi912681]

I'm betting that they'll be quick and dirty ports of C64 titles, and most likely won't feature decent SID emulation. Just take a look at the Atari TV Games or the Namco arcade games... The Adventure easter egg is missing on the Atari TV Game, and the Pacman "patterns" are missing on the Namco one. Definitely not the original hardware... just ports that are good enough to fool you at first glimpse.

Re:Cheap Sid Chips ?

[polyp2000]

Oh sure there are good emulators, no doubt about that but they aint quite perfect. That maybe more down to the fact that there was an analog element to the sound.
The C64 had capacitors which were used for sound filters, this is pretty hard to recreate authentically through emulation. Addtionally no two C64's sounded identical, although I can categorically say that the original brown C64's sounded generically considerably better than the 2nd generation cream colored C64's which had an updated SID and possible different filters which let to a harsher sound lacking in the bottom (bass) end. In a selfless gratuitous way the SID chip was kinda like the Moog of the microcomputer world. You can get close ... but no cigar without the real thing.

Nick ...

c64 games

[BrookHarty]

I'd like to see for classic c64 games, Skate or Die, Bruce Lee, Karataka, Trolls and Tribulations, Exploding Fist, Last v8, into the eagles nest, green beret, turrican, archon, attack of the mutant camels.

I'm forgetting a game, the battledroid game I think. I couldn't find it on Lemon64.com.

The 64 had some pretty good games, and in the later years when they started pushing the hardware, some good gfx and sound for an 8bit system.

Re:c64 games

[BrookHarty]

Found it, Heavy Metal Paradroid.

One of the most entertaining games had a plot and game play, the gfx didn't have to be top notch if the game play was fun. Qix, wasnt exactly the most eye catching game, but the game play and idea was quiet Interesting.

I'd love to see the C64 games make a comeback, even if java on a mobile phone.

Re:c64 games

[linzeal]

Litle Computer People was the first sim I ever played even before Simcity and Maxim's other ilk. The sounds from them as they became happy and sad used to haunt me, heh. I wish there was a proper way to kill them though as they bothered the hell out of me sometimes with their 'needs', bah! If I wanted needs I would get a girlfriend, wait I'm a slashdotter strike that, more likely I will grow a third arm from over consumption of stimulants and oh yeah baby! Cue: DISCO MUSIC

Sports Games fun

[Flyboy Connor]

Ah... Epyx Sports Games.

I remember it still. First, you had the 100 meter dash. That meant hitting the space bar very fast for about 15 seconds. Then, you had the 200 meter dash. That meant hitting the space bar very fast for 30 seconds. Then, you had the 400 meter dash and you stopped playing.

A friend of mine had an easy time winning those dash events. But he had fixed a small strip of wood to the end of a drill and used that to hit the space bar with something like a 100 RPMs. His character finished in a few seconds. Not so good for the keyboard, though.

Re:Sports Games fun

[prockcore]

I remember it still. First, you had the 100 meter dash. That meant hitting the space bar very fast for about 15 seconds. Then, you had the 200 meter dash. That meant hitting the space bar very fast for 30 seconds. Then, you had the 400 meter dash and you stopped playing.

You don't remember it quite clearly though. It required a joystick. For the sprints, you had to rock the joystick back and forth really rapidly. For things like diving, you basically just beat the shit out of the joystick trying to pull off as many tricks as possible.

I think the Sumemr Games box should have had a picture of a broken joystick on the cover.

There's some problems here...

[JMZero]

Many classic C64 games used the keyboard - either for all or some gameplay functions. Even Jumpman (the best game ever - try my free remake!) used the keyboard during the menu screens (and to select a run-speed).

Are they going to include a keyboard? If not, are they going to try to rewrite parts of these games? Or are they going to limit this to really bad titles like "California Games" and whatever else they can find that doesn't use the keyboard?

Perhaps they can munge together necessary functionality by having a few extra buttons that function as different keyboard keys according to the game being played?

Re:C64 connection to TV

[Anonymous Coward]

Not in the US. The C64 and Atari 2600 used manually switched RF cables and lacked the extra voltage or whatever that made the NES and SNES RF switch boxes automatic.

Last I checked, (3 or 4 years ago) Radio Shack was selling the manual switchboxes that would work with the C64. An RCA to Cable TV style coax adapter will do it too, if you don't mind unscrewing it every time you want to switch between the C64 and your cable TV/antenna connection.

But why use the RF outs? Unless you have an old TV or you like static, the C64s A/V outputs are much nicer. Most even have separate (a.k.a. "S-Video") outputs, but you'll need to whip up a custom cable to use that.

Re:My votes for inclusion

[Bambi Dee]

The websites is low on details, but it mentions a price of EUR 30 -- no idea what that means with regard to production costs, but somehow I don't think there'll be anything particularly cool about this little toy. Apparently similar joystick consoles contained sloppy ports rather than originals, and if they go that route there'll be no need to simulate the original hardware too accurately.

What I find somewhat more interesting is that Tulip's hinting at further Commodore-branded gaming products; though frankly I don't see the need for cheap reduced-functionality clones whose only appeal is that something about them is fashionably "retro".

Considering your eclectic taste in games, there's a chance those 30 games won't include *any* of the rather cerebral games you would prefer. Straight arcade games seem more likely. Is more in tune with the retro schtick anyway - something undemanding and grotesquely pixelated for modern people to simultaneously enjoy and laugh about. (Jaded? Me? Jumping to conclusions?)

Now if this TV stick thingie used 30-in-one cartridges instead... oh, well.