Commodore Free 18/Commodore_Free_Issue_18_2008_Commodore_Computer_Club.d64/t.c64 book

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The C 64 book 1982-19xx Infortmation

http://c64goldenyears.com

$17.99 one fixed rate for post &
packing worldwide

pay by PayPal or credit card

Foreword written by Jeff Minter

Over 200 game reviews, all in full
colour with screenshots & cover scans

Size of a Spectrum:
Physically the book is about the size
of a Zx spectrum in size, this ties in
with an earlier work about the history
of Spectrum games and so both books
(should you decide to purchase them
both) look nice on the shelf. The
cover shows a Commodore 64 wrapped
around the front and onto the back the
Commodore keys have been doctored to
read the books title and picked out in
a lighter colouring than the other
keys to make the title stand out.

Opening the book and you could be back
in the 60s  as the use of very vivid
almost acid style colouring If you
were a fan of the Jeff Minter colour
cycling then you will feel at home
with this. Talking about Jeff minter
he provides the forward for the book.
After a few small intos, the usual
thanks, acknowledgements & references
used for the book we are on the
contents pages.

Contents:
The contents page is broken down by
year and then each year by game listed
alphabetically from A to Z  Some years
have more entries than others and I
suppose some user reading would
complain that their favourite game isnt
listed and wonder why, It would be an
impossible task to accommodate every
game ever created into such a book.

Some games are listed because they are
classic games others because graphics &
sound stood out from other titles of
the era.

History:
After each year or chapter there is a
page with some history or general
information about Commodore tying into
the year The first section for example
details the birth of the Commodore 64
from early prototypes that were on
show at the CES in 1982 going to later
chapters about the SX64 portable
Commodore 64 and the Commodore 16.

Later chapters detail the introduction
of the Amiga range of machines and
there is even a section about CMD and
the SuperCPU and the DTV designed by
Jeri Ellsworth.

Scoring:
Each game has a brief description and
some witty one liners to tie in with
the games title or content Each game
lists the Developer and distributer
with a couple of in game screen shots
and a picture of the Cassette or disk
cover where applicable Also shown at
the top of the page is an icon system
showing if the game was released on
Tape disk or Cassette or multiples
thereof.

Very amusing to me at any rate is that
each game made was obviously reviewed
at sometime by the various Commodore
magazines of the day; the amusing part
come from the fact that their were
such wide varieties of scores given by
these magazines, I presume some form
of money changed hands for the
reviewers and the low reviews were a
result of no funds available for the
reviewer. The reader of said magazine
would look at the screen shots see the
review purchase the game with rave
reviews and then take it home load the
game up and find it was in fact well
should we say rather poor , I always
took these with a pinch of salt,
preferring a try before you buy option
that some of the independent shops
provided. Reading the book reveals
some of these rather amusing anomalies
in the scoring system of the magazines
for example on the first game review
we see Axis Assassins, Your Commodore
gave a score of 6 out of 10, Commodore
User decided to award 1 out of 5 and
ZZAPP 64 awarded 70% how does that
work out then.

Index:
Listed at the end of the book is a
full index from A to Z of all the
games covered by the book the final
few games bring the reader up-to-date
with mood 64 that started life in 1996
and has been worked on but is still
unfinished and the rather excellent
Bomb Mania from Protovision

http://www.protovision-online.de/
 main.htm

released in 1996 later on we have a
page referencing the Metal Warrior
series of games 1999 to 2004 and then
Metal dust for the SuperCPU Ending
with Jeri Ellsworth and the DTV
joystick with 30 included games

Summing-up:
Although the book is relatively
expensive costing 17.99 the book is
248 pages including the index and
intros and can you really afford to
miss this piece of history Mine came
with a note from Andrew Rollings
thanking its reader for the purchase
and support

Favourite games from the book:
My 5 Favorite games in the book in no
particular order are :
Mood 64 =Well everyone said it cant be
done on a stock c64

Bomb ManiaBecause my wife enjoys it

LemmingsAgain it cant be done they
said

The SentinalBecause it was so strange
and kept me off school for so long

Iridia AlphaBrilliance

Leaderboard The animation for the time
was breathtaking

Monty on the run The music shocked me
so much it was absolutely great (see
rob Hubard interview)

ParadroidExcellent idea for a game

Batalyx6 games for the price of 1
truly an adea of brilliance

AnticipalFinally I get the chance to
kill a gerbil

International soccer Great multiplayer
fun

Drat thats 11 games! But as I am
reviewing I have decided to make 11
the new 5

F.A.Q (from the Website)
1. How many pages will the book have?

254 pages, a similar size and format
to Andrew Rollings' Spectrum book.
http://www.zxgoldenyears.com/  It will
be full colour throughout. There will
be an introduction, a contents list
and then chapters for each year
starting with 1982. Towards the end of
the C64's commercial life, there is
one chapter dealing with 1993-1994,
and a final chapter looking at 1995 to
the present day. Each chapter opens
with an historical look-back at the
computer industry of the time and what
was happening with the C64. Each
review then has screenshots, a scan of
the cover artwork and the review
itself. This is split into three main
sections - a review of what I think of
the game, trivia about the game or its
creators, and finally a synopsis of
the story and how it plays.

2. I'd like to see "Game X" in the
book - will you include it?

There will be a definitive list of
games on the site as soon as it is
finalized (see question 8), but feel
free to make suggestions via the
contact page. In the case of sequels
and long-running series, there will be
references to them in an entry for
part of that series (e.g. Last Ninja
Remix is discussed under the entry for
Last Ninja 2).

3. Will it be all arcade games, or
will there be games that require a lot
of thought?

There's a good cross-section of styles
- from platformers to driving games,
text adventures to board games,
role-playing games to shoot'em ups.

4. How were the games chosen?

A combination of methods was used to
whittle down the list. First of all,
top game lists from sites like
Gamebase64 and Lemon64 were combed
through. Secondly, many of the titles
are games I played and remember fondly
for various reasons. There are also a
few obscure titles and several that
have a historic significance. The
final list was then sorted by
copyright date and alphabetical order,
and organised into chapters for the
book.

5. How were the screenshots taken?

It would be impractical to organise
screen photography, so PC emulators
like Vice and CCS were used to capture
the screenshots. The palettes used are
designed to give a "bright" image on
the page.

6. What are your qualifications for
writing this book?

I've been playing games for 25 years
and owned a Commodore 64 for more than
20 years. I have a large collection of
games and still play on my "real"
machine regularly, as well as taking
advantage of emulation to play titles
I didn't get the chance to play
before. As a freelance writer, I did
reviews for Commodore Format in its
last few issues, and the 2005 "Def
Tribute to ZZAP 64". I was also
"Professor Brian Strain", aka The
Mighty Brian in the pages of Commodore
Force. Throughout the 1990's I wrote
for fanzines and disk magazines. I've
also been published regularly in Retro
Gamer, interviewing programmers and
writing about classic games.

7. The Spectrum/Amstrad/MSX/Atari was
a better machine

All of the 8-bit machines had their
own particular strengths & weaknesses,
and often a game would be better suited
to a particular machine.

As a gamer I played a lot of Spectrum
and Amstrad games back in the day, but
the C64 was the first machine I owned
and loved. So that's what I am writing
about.