Commodore 64

"An acient relic of an old system that has its ups and downs."

Ah yes the Commodore 64, a good amount of people remember this one fondly but to me its quite a mixed bag. I do remember playing games on this during my middle school days in the later 1990's. (My middle school has a LOT of retro stuff in it. But then again plenty of places in New Hampshire have really old stuff but thats a different story altogether.)

Since I'm generally such a positive guy I'll start with the good things first. First of all it has a surprisingly hige amount of games availible to play with and has even lasted up well into the early 90's. The variety of games is pretty darn lage and a good amount of them aren't even availible in other systems. The regular tech specs are good for its time, flawed & outdated but good. And its easier to find CM64 games in color than Apple IIe for one thing. And its overall not a bad system, but is it a good one? Is it as good if not better than the Apple IIe? Not really...

First of all Control is awful, its not UTTERLY devoid of playability but the control is not so good at all to put it quite mildly. The amount of the games availible on this may be large but they along with the system are not that great for the most part. I may not be an expert on this thing mind you but generally the stuff I've played is not all that great. The Apple IIe's specs may've been weaker but its games were more fun IMO. It may be really great for its more attended audience but it didn't do much for me. I wouldn't mind ever playing a CM64 game again but its not exactly high on my priorities here. And sadly in the later years it really started to show its age on how even the people who make the system realize that the CM64 was getting too limited. So needless to say making games like Street Fighter II and the like were not great ideas.

Overall not a bad system that might be worth a try for all you retro-gamers out there. BUT it's probably better than you get something like a Apple IIe first if you can. Its not a totally unrecomendable computer game system but lets just say while it has more style than the Apple IIe it tried to have more substance than the Apple IIe but it didn't quite work out.

+ A surprisingly large variety of games that surprisingly lasted for years.
+ Good technical specs
+ More likely to find games in color than Apple IIe
+ Has a good amount of games not availible in other systems
- Its awfully hard to find
- Control is awful
- The quantity of the games are large but the quality is questionable
- Some of these exclusive games were seriously underpowered due to the limits of the system

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 10/04/03, Updated 02/02/04