Yeah, that C64 version of Karnov looks just like the Speccy version that I owned back in the day. It even has the same distinctive thick black outlines around the sprites, which was an impressive trick to avoid the "attribute clash" that the Speccy hardware was prone to, but totally unnecessary on the C64.
I laughed at the break thru comment "my many days in Spain - came back white" haha. I had similar experience, but in the bar next door they had Chelnov - Atomic Runner
That's brilliant! I remember being brought in at the end of the development of C64 Guerrilla War. By that time Imagine was basically just Ocean and we got a copy of the arcade game in the office at Sentient Software but the only thing I did was to rewrite the sprite multiplexing stuff to stop everything from flickering. Otherwise it would have been more crap than it was 😂
Having moved on from the C64 in '88 when I see your 'best of' vids I'm always a little fed up that I missed so many great games but when I see lists like this I'm glad I didn't hang around. Some stinkers here for sure! Only one I remember is Dragon's Lair which I soon gave up on but c'mon! what was we expecting? lol. Liking your new style m8, nice touch having the games play side by side, dig the demo style outro too, nice one :)
Nah this is the standard first version of it by melbourne house. The other one was by ocean and was actually a little bit better gameplay wise... but still pretty shitty.. i actually thought we were going to get a proper version 2 years ago after seeing some early screen and short video on indie retro but doesnt look like it came of...which is a shame cos it looked awesome...in fact im actually gonna chase the coder up now to see what happened with that
@@JoeSim8s I have a lot of the Ocean cartridges. I sourced them just after I got my 386 PC and was amazed that the C64 could run cartridges. They used bank switching so they could store more than 16K. Those Ocean cartridges were brilliant.
Wow thats brilliant how you've got the arcade footage to the left, just perfect! Oh boy these games remind me so much of the let downs.. over and over. But Double Dragon was the biggest letdown of all because it was my favourite game at the time. Still, I wouldnt trade those C64 days for anything : ) Great video mate!
OutRun was a disaster, another proper let down by US Gold. Only thing that was good about it when you opened the double tape case, there was an original soundtrack tape inside to play on an external tape player.
Kid Niki is another horrific Data East port done by Quicksilver (as is Ikari Warriors). They also did Victory Road (Ikari II) which is completely wretched but slightly better than Ikari I. Paperboy is one people seem to dislike but I think it plays pretty well. Congo Bongo is a very early example of a garbage port (it came out on cartridge so memory is limited). Later there was a disk version that was great. Jackal has a good/decent US version and a much worse UK version.
Especially for me since I actually paid for that pile of crap with the money I earned delivering papers on weekends. Inside the manual was even a note from the programmers saying they were sorry about the quality of the game!
Another great video, I fully agree with the game selection but, hey OSG, where is your C64 top 20 BEST arcade game video?I am sure you made it but I can't ménage to find!
Sadly, the graphics and quality of arcade games from 84 onwards far surpassed the capabilities of the 8 bit. I remember watching a demo of APB after spending a fortune on it in Blackpool. Severely disappointed with the result...
Dragon's Lair is an odd one. I think the arcade game just gets a pass because of what you see on the screen. I don't think conversion is _bad_ per se, but that it was building on uneven foundations. What surprises me is how Software Projects were able to do so much better with the follow-up.
Good stuff - love the side by side comparison. Gosh I remember how ripped off I felt when paying full whack for Chase HQ back in the day - perhaps my biggest gaming disappointment.
At the time, Double Dragon was also my favorite game, and when I got it on C64 I was SOOO disappointed. Punching and kicking the enemies didn't feel right and you couldn't even climb the ladders, which was so cool to do in the arcade version. Later, I bought an Amiga, mainly for this game, and while it was a definite improvement, I was still a little disappointed. The game needs a controller with 3 buttons and must have all cool weapons intact - whips, steel drums etc. Only when I much, much later played the arcade version on a an emulator did I feel fully satisfied. But it was 10-15 years too late.
Look at the production values on that! Side by side comparisons with the arcade cab and then smooth as butter transitions! Move over George Lucas! Great video mate :)
Imagine if this set of 20 games got released in late ‘88 or ‘89 as a glossy compilation for £14.99 (or maybe even £12.99) and they called it ‘The 20 Worst Arcade ports on the C64’. I bet it would still have sold by the lorry load! I have a weird fascination for Chase HQ on the 64, I know it’s rubbish but I still enjoyed it. Also to echo what others have said; I love the Arcade comparison on the left with the 64 footage on the right of the screen. You’ve even lined up the footage on both for a direct level comparison. That is superb, and well worth doing. Perfectly executed here.
I can actually live with the visual compromises of Street Fighter on C64 as I think they found the best approach but the control is really where it fails most. Don't get me wrong, I've tried many terrible Famicom pirate fighters, but it IS possible to do proper 8-bit fighting game action as Street Fighter Alpha on GBC actually works. Just shows that control programming is a whole type of skill in itself that many arcade porters failed at. ;)
it's always sad to see an Arcade game poorly ported, just so companies could make a quick buck, nowadays that stuff doesnt fly but back then, this crime was perpetrated all too often.
That C64 version of _Chase H.Q._ looks like a Spectrum port, to a certain extent, especially with the drop in speed compared to the actual Speccy version.
My biggest letdowns with arcade ports on c64 were Double Dragon (but then i love part 2) and Golden Axe, both Double Dragon 1 and Golden Axe were personal favs in the Arcade and awful on c64
First one that springs to mind is C64 Chase HQ, looking forward to how high on the list it'll be! 😂 e: must say, one of the worst things about C64 Chase HQ is the sound. So grating! Also I may possibly be blind but I think i fell off the patreon list!
Oh f**kin hell.... sorry man...ill make it up to you Ill give you a proper shout out and dedicate the next video to you.... sorry again, this Laptop breaking has really hung me out to dry
There were so many Shite games on the 8 bit era, mostly down to the high turn over rate of titles. Games were released FAST and consequently without much care and attention. I remember seeing a video about US Gold version of Outrun. It was coded by a kid over a weekend. And he made a mistake that he only found the night before he had to turn in the code and was up all night before school trying to fix it. Same with Oceans 1986 WC game. Apparently the guy who was supppsed to be working on it 'missed the memo' and when asked how he was getting along said 'what game?' 2 weeks before launch. So they bought another developers Euro '84 game and rebadged it for Mexico '86. Great games take time. Nostalgia Paige's version of Super Mario took almost a decade. If you took even 5 years to develop a game back in the 80's your company would be bankrupt. Cheap and Cheerful was the business model. Many of the best games of the era were made by kids in their bedroom and sold to publishers. In house development was usually fast and messy.
As a young gamer back in the eighties I'll forever associate U.S Gold and Domark with garbage games that should be avoided. Titus released some real stinkers too. Codemasters were also always eager to disappoint.
It has to be said that the arcades represented the top technology of the time, not even on the Amiga or the 16-bit consoles like Megadrive or Super Famicom was it possible to have decent conversions.
Silkworm, Toki, Truxton, Golden Axe .... the list goes on for the Amiga and Megadrive...there were some absolute cracking conversions on those..id even say that Silkworm and Toki were actually better on the Amiga than they were on Arcade tbh
@@oldstylegaming The ones you mention were relatively 'simple' arcades and not particularly sophisticated on the technical side, titles like Afterbuner, Dragon's Lair, Hard Drivin, Wec Le Mans and others were objectively unreachable, so much so that the first perfect (or almost perfect) conversions came only on FM-Towns or X68000. To say, the Megadrive, which was also a powerful console, couldn't even get "arcade perfect" conversions of many Sega titles (Eswat, Forgotten Worlds, etc.).
I remember buying Dragon's Lair when it was re-released on Elite's "Encore" budget range. 10 minutes plus only for the game to crash whilst loading. WH Smiths replaced it multiple times but it must have been a bad batch so in the end I got a refund of my £2.99
This was an interesting road down the crap games of the time. I'd love to see a video on video games that had more then one implementation on the same computer. Now that you pointed out that there were UK and US versions of the same game with one being crap I wonder how there were and just how much they differ.
@@oldstylegaming I would have thought that it would be been better as the licensee to have one version but I guess they were not invested in anything but increasing licensing revenue.
I actually appreciate the effort given on making a C64 port of Dragon's lair. The arcade version was so advanced that to fit everything onto a C64 disk wouldnt have been practical. Scaling it to fit the C64 on a graphics scale sure must have some challenge. I prefer the loose sequel Escape from Singe's castle, mostly because of the soundtrack
Oh dear lord the horror i had a lot of these games but in my defense i was young i didn't know any better lol. Other than the nasty flashbacks this was a great video as always so as always buddy tkae it easy and roll on the next video. Am now going to try and take my mind of these games haha.
No mention of Rastan? Wow. The original C64 port was unfinishable, thanks to a jump rendered impossible by a software bug. The cover art by Tim Hildebrandt--yes, THAT Tim Hildebrandt, half of the duo that designed the original "Star Wars" movie poster--was the only good thing about it.
Plenty of great driving games on the C64 with speed and yet Ocean couldn’t get my favourite arcade game Chase HQ right. Gutted. Surprised there is no Final Fight but probably better we forget that one 😂
Another great video OSG, thanks! Dear lord Super Hang On looks horrible and all in all, very good list. Btw, did anyone else check their FB messenger..?
There was a rule we had back in the day and that was "what did the zzap mag say?" if it passed them it past with us. Mind you sometimes they were late on some reviews and i bought one of them in your selection super hangon, the other being jailbreak which I'm surprised isn't there.
To be honest, the North American version of Street Fight isn't too bad, it's not great, but at least it's playable Same for Afterburner and Space Harrier
This is a great, terrible list :) I've been keeping a list of C64 games that got two different versions, and I didn't know about Afterburner or Ikari Warriors, so thanks for highlighting those!
i did a video on some c64 games that had different US / UK releases... but there are loads of games like that..especially in Germany where censorship forced a lot of game changes, one of which being Commando which was totally reskinned and renamed as Space Invasion
You want to look at the modern conversion of Dragon's Lair to the TI99/4A, a machine that was inferior to the Commodore 64 for gaming (I had both). The conversion is incredibly playable exactly like the laser disk game arcade, it's kind of cheating however since back in the day it wouldn't have been feasible to stick so much memory on a cartridge which is the only way it was possible without actually having a laser disk.
Love the new format! Pretty sure I've not played any of this dreck - but I might have forgotten the odd demo - defo never bought any of them though. Shame the conversions were so poor because some of them were class in the arcades.
I've seen beter games made with SEUCK than the US versions of Ikari Warriors and Bionic Commando. Hell I'm quite positively convinced that Ikari Warriors US actually was made with SEUCK. LOL
I never understood why the C64, Amiga and Atari ST only had a one button controllers they could have made the same as the sega port but had 3 and 6 button controllers instead of having to reach for the keyboard, I believe they would have lasted longer than they did .
In fairness, I was under the impression Domark didn't release Hard Drivin on the 64 at full price because of it was pants. I got it on a compilation. Chase HQ was the biggest let down for me, after the absolute triumph that is the Spectrum version. I also thought -all- of the Renegade series were terrible on the 64
Considering the limitations, I didn't think Dragon's Lair was that bad. Hard? Hell yes! But I can appreciate what they were trying to accomplish. Hard Drivin' should not even have been attempted for the C64. There was no way that was going to look good unless it was being made specifically for people who had the SuperCPU add-on (20mhz processor).
You forgot Kid Niki from Data East (developed by Quicksilver), I don't think it ever made it outside the U.S., horrible conversion of the Apple 2 version with no scrolling, no sound (two sound effects), awful graphics...check it out just to see how bad it is.
Hmmm, Afterburner was pretty good. I’m not sure if it was the same version as in your video though. Maybe you could do comparison video for the games that had 2 versions? Best of luck!
So many bad conversations you can ad to the list many of which makes you wonder why they bothered when it was way too optimistic for the machine. Super Monaco Grand prix, Final fight etc
Yup, some absolute stinkers there...bought and regretted some of them including the slideshow that was Hard Drivin. Could have done with this video back in the 80s.....along with the internet and RUclips
Somebody should do a vid on those ripoff type-in game books. Beautiful covers with a wopping 20+ exciting games to type into your machine - all for anything between £10 -£20 You spend 3 days typing away and after ironing out the errors a drab looking effort appears on screen. And talking of typing errors: many of such basic listing's came with errors anyway.
I'm glad I didn't have to experience most of those stinkers but I bought Shadow Warriors (Ninja Gaiden) and what an incredible disappointment it was. People say Double Dragon III or TMHT 2 are bad on the C64 (and I disagree) but compared to that abomination they are gold. Thankfully it was the budget re-release!
i never player streetfighter2 in arcades, i did see it though - that looks a pretty decent effort on the c64 to be fair - at least as good as could be expected
Wow... every single entry on this List looks as if they were still in Alpha Development & one night after the Devs went home for the evening, some asshole Exec snuck into the Office & force executed the Order to Full Release them to Ship out that very night before the Devs could even come into work the next morning to continue Development, just cause the scumbag Exec KNEW he could use his Executive Powers to frame the Devs & get away with it... including all the Money from it... O_0 ... Seriously, I wouldn't put it past Execs to be capable of such greed...
Aw. I loved Dragons Lair on the c64. Eswat looked accurate. Karnov, ChaseHQ and Hard Drivin are obvious straight-across Spectrum ports. Strangely, ChaseHQ is considered one of the top games for that system. I had street fighter, the US version, and thought it played well, if not the same as the arcade. Double Dragon and Ikari Warriors were very poor.
Chase hq was one I brought and soo disappointed. Operation Thunderbolt was another. Previews looked great but I think ocean scrapped that version and had to rush another version out Also back in the days alot of titles showed the arcade or the amiga screen shots.it should of been a red flag to us to say this is likely to be rubbish lol
Some who are too young to remember might see this and think the C64 sucked. But the sheer amount of content that was released for it during it's official lifespan, and beyond up to today, there was still plenty of subjectively good to great titles to keep us amused, especially at pocket money prices. Not to mention tape piracy itself, but that's another basket of goats.
OMG so 4D sports driving was an arcade game! (arcades were absolutely not a thing at all in germany so I don't know many arcade games actually and those only from youtube)
Here are a few of DIShonorable mentions: (keep in mind that a lot of these are more meh or disappointing than "bad" per se) Juno First: great (and criminally underrated) game in the arcade, but the C64 version is meh at best (and the "music" that plays during the title screen is one of the WORST "tunes" that I ever heard coming out of the sid chip. How could they fuck up such a SIMPLE shooter game makes me scratch my head. If you want to play a home port of this game, the Atari 2600/VCS homebrew port is the best one to play. Bosconian: Another decent arcade game (released as Bosconian '87 on the C64, Amstrad, and Spectrum by Mastertronic) Awful port. The Spectrum version is brilliant though, but avoid the C64 and CPC versions, and somehow the C64 version actually plays worse than the CPC version as well. Final Fight...another example of a game that had no business being ported to the C64 or any other 8-bit computer for that matter Golden Axe: While the music was brilliant (I actually like it more than the original arcade, it was just another mediocre port that had no business being converted. This one wasn't so much bad as it was disappointing. Jailbreak: in this case though, it was a shit port of a rather crap arcade game to being with Legend of Kage: See Jailbreak (I do like the title music though) Rygar: A rather disappointing port IMHO. I'm not a MASSIVE fan of the original arcade, but they could have done a better port than THAT Defender: OK controversial I know, but after playing the brilliant GUARDIAN, the official port of Defender is a huge letdown...at least in my opinion
@@oldstylegaming its framerate is inconsistent first of all 😉 In less complicated scenes it's way faster than e.g. Test Drive, in more complicated ones it's horrid beyond anything. But Accolade racers also have totally unplayable framerate, actually. They're saved only by controls tailored for this slideshow fest. It's basically discussion about games running below 5fps which is ridiculous 😃
Of course Double Dragon was a letdown compared to the arcade but still....my parents got me an original copy but I had to wait about a week until I was allowed to open the present. My mum gave me only one night witin that week to take a sneak peak at the gameplay and boy I was disapointed....still played the hell outta that game after that, it was 2 players and some of the enemy sprites were quite okay to look at
Great to see you back! I like how you've got the arcade versions showing at the same time as the port so we can see the comparison.
someone suggested it a while back when i was doing comparisons...im always wanting input from my audience so i can give a better experience to you
Yeah, that C64 version of Karnov looks just like the Speccy version that I owned back in the day. It even has the same distinctive thick black outlines around the sprites, which was an impressive trick to avoid the "attribute clash" that the Speccy hardware was prone to, but totally unnecessary on the C64.
I laughed at the break thru comment "my many days in Spain - came back white" haha. I had similar experience, but in the bar next door they had Chelnov - Atomic Runner
oh i love Chelnov :-)
That's brilliant! I remember being brought in at the end of the development of C64 Guerrilla War. By that time Imagine was basically just Ocean and we got a copy of the arcade game in the office at Sentient Software but the only thing I did was to rewrite the sprite multiplexing stuff to stop everything from flickering. Otherwise it would have been more crap than it was 😂
Lol
Having moved on from the C64 in '88 when I see your 'best of' vids I'm always a little fed up that I missed so many great games but when I see lists like this I'm glad I didn't hang around. Some stinkers here for sure! Only one I remember is Dragon's Lair which I soon gave up on but c'mon! what was we expecting? lol. Liking your new style m8, nice touch having the games play side by side, dig the demo style outro too, nice one :)
Awesome Video, liked the format and some good humour thrown in. Cheers
This was always the case with me as a kid with a C64, we'd come back from holiday and get the cassette version and tears ensues
Is that the C64GS version of Double Dragon you played there? I know there's two completely different ports out there.
Nah this is the standard first version of it by melbourne house. The other one was by ocean and was actually a little bit better gameplay wise... but still pretty shitty.. i actually thought we were going to get a proper version 2 years ago after seeing some early screen and short video on indie retro but doesnt look like it came of...which is a shame cos it looked awesome...in fact im actually gonna chase the coder up now to see what happened with that
@@oldstylegaming they were remaking the amstrad version too if i recall,
Talking about c64gs: a video about the c64 cartridge game published in the 90s would be amazing!
@@JoeSim8s I have a lot of the Ocean cartridges. I sourced them just after I got my 386 PC and was amazed that the C64 could run cartridges. They used bank switching so they could store more than 16K. Those Ocean cartridges were brilliant.
Wow thats brilliant how you've got the arcade footage to the left, just perfect! Oh boy these games remind me so much of the let downs.. over and over. But Double Dragon was the biggest letdown of all because it was my favourite game at the time. Still, I wouldnt trade those C64 days for anything : ) Great video mate!
Me too...even when a game was bad you still stuck with it cos it had cost you your pocket money
@@oldstylegaming exactly!
One of my favorite arcade games (Tumblepop) got ported to the Gameboy. I cried a bit.
OutRun was a disaster, another proper let down by US Gold. Only thing that was good about it when you opened the double tape case, there was an original soundtrack tape inside to play on an external tape player.
Plenty of other bad arcade ports on C64....Final Fight, Golden Axe, Quartet, Altered Beast & Return of the Jedi. Plenty for another list
Maybe Ill do a Viewers suggestions video :-)
Return of the Jedi was the weakest game of the Star Wars trilogy even in the arcades TBH, but the C64 port was god awful
Like the original arcade version at the side!
Love that you did comparisons next to each other. Thanks for another enjoyable video. Best wishes.
took a while but worth it i think, next one will be easier now the foundations been laid
The Double Dragon (5:33) manual even apologizes up front for the split sprites, citing technical reasons.
I got duped into buying US Ikari Warriors. Saw the arcade screens on the box and was sold.
Kid Niki is another horrific Data East port done by Quicksilver (as is Ikari Warriors). They also did Victory Road (Ikari II) which is completely wretched but slightly better than Ikari I.
Paperboy is one people seem to dislike but I think it plays pretty well.
Congo Bongo is a very early example of a garbage port (it came out on cartridge so memory is limited). Later there was a disk version that was great.
Jackal has a good/decent US version and a much worse UK version.
Ive never played Kid Niki ill check that out
Great video, and a good public service announcement! I somehow unintentionally managed to avoid all these clunkers in my youth.
Lucky you :-)
Really like the format....good work as always.
Glad you enjoy it!
Double dragon was my nightmare. :/
Especially for me since I actually paid for that pile of crap with the money I earned delivering papers on weekends.
Inside the manual was even a note from the programmers saying they were sorry about the quality of the game!
Another great video, I fully agree with the game selection but, hey OSG, where is your C64 top 20 BEST arcade game video?I am sure you made it but I can't ménage to find!
hmmm i thought I had redone that... mustnt have, Ill add it to the list of To Dos
Sadly, the graphics and quality of arcade games from 84 onwards far surpassed the capabilities of the 8 bit. I remember watching a demo of APB after spending a fortune on it in Blackpool. Severely disappointed with the result...
Dragon's Lair is an odd one. I think the arcade game just gets a pass because of what you see on the screen. I don't think conversion is _bad_ per se, but that it was building on uneven foundations. What surprises me is how Software Projects were able to do so much better with the follow-up.
Yeah as a stand alone game its not too bad but lets face it the only real good thing about Dragons Lair Arcade was the looks so really .....
In all fairness most home ports of Dragon's Lair were doomed from the start, especially 8-bit ports.
I love DL II Escape From Singes Castle
Good stuff - love the side by side comparison. Gosh I remember how ripped off I felt when paying full whack for Chase HQ back in the day - perhaps my biggest gaming disappointment.
The strange thing is Chase HQ II on cartridge is a brilliant game for the C64.
At the time, Double Dragon was also my favorite game, and when I got it on C64 I was SOOO disappointed. Punching and kicking the enemies didn't feel right and you couldn't even climb the ladders, which was so cool to do in the arcade version. Later, I bought an Amiga, mainly for this game, and while it was a definite improvement, I was still a little disappointed. The game needs a controller with 3 buttons and must have all cool weapons intact - whips, steel drums etc. Only when I much, much later played the arcade version on a an emulator did I feel fully satisfied. But it was 10-15 years too late.
Oooh another OSG video about the c64! Thanks for your work!
Haven’t watched it yet, and I wonder where Street Fighter 2 falls.
I usually am not super keen on this kind of video but all said and done i feel well satisfied after watching this a pleasant surprise bro OSG FTW 💪
Glad you enjoyed it!
I think Chase HQ gave me tinnitus! 🤣
WEEOO WEEOO WEEOO WEEOO
I still ask myself why the hell did I buy it back then...
After this video , I will not sleep this night! :D
Look at the production values on that! Side by side comparisons with the arcade cab and then smooth as butter transitions! Move over George Lucas! Great video mate :)
George Doors more like lol
Imagine if this set of 20 games got released in late ‘88 or ‘89 as a glossy compilation for £14.99 (or maybe even £12.99) and they called it ‘The 20 Worst Arcade ports on the C64’. I bet it would still have sold by the lorry load! I have a weird fascination for Chase HQ on the 64, I know it’s rubbish but I still enjoyed it. Also to echo what others have said; I love the Arcade comparison on the left with the 64 footage on the right of the screen. You’ve even lined up the footage on both for a direct level comparison. That is superb, and well worth doing. Perfectly executed here.
thanks mate, im glad you like the format
My primary school buddy would happily play both C64 Double Dragon and Guerrilla War happily for hours, he was a strange lad ha ha 😂
I can actually live with the visual compromises of Street Fighter on C64 as I think they found the best approach but the control is really where it fails most.
Don't get me wrong, I've tried many terrible Famicom pirate fighters, but it IS possible to do proper 8-bit fighting game action as Street Fighter Alpha on GBC actually works. Just shows that control programming is a whole type of skill in itself that many arcade porters failed at. ;)
it's always sad to see an Arcade game poorly ported, just so companies could make a quick buck, nowadays that stuff doesnt fly but back then, this crime was perpetrated all too often.
That C64 version of _Chase H.Q._ looks like a Spectrum port, to a certain extent, especially with the drop in speed compared to the actual Speccy version.
My biggest letdowns with arcade ports on c64 were Double Dragon (but then i love part 2) and Golden Axe, both Double Dragon 1 and Golden Axe were personal favs in the Arcade and awful on c64
First one that springs to mind is C64 Chase HQ, looking forward to how high on the list it'll be! 😂
e: must say, one of the worst things about C64 Chase HQ is the sound. So grating!
Also I may possibly be blind but I think i fell off the patreon list!
were you not 3rd last? i lost my list and had one on my GDrive... 2 secs ill check
Oh f**kin hell.... sorry man...ill make it up to you Ill give you a proper shout out and dedicate the next video to you.... sorry again, this Laptop breaking has really hung me out to dry
Regarding Street Fighter II, it's a technical achievement, but yeah, it was never going to work.
yeah it looks and sounds class ...but 1 button just dont work
@@oldstylegaming Even two buttons isn't really enough for SF2, let alone one. LOL
There were so many Shite games on the 8 bit era, mostly down to the high turn over rate of titles. Games were released FAST and consequently without much care and attention. I remember seeing a video about US Gold version of Outrun. It was coded by a kid over a weekend. And he made a mistake that he only found the night before he had to turn in the code and was up all night before school trying to fix it. Same with Oceans 1986 WC game. Apparently the guy who was supppsed to be working on it 'missed the memo' and when asked how he was getting along said 'what game?' 2 weeks before launch. So they bought another developers Euro '84 game and rebadged it for Mexico '86.
Great games take time. Nostalgia Paige's version of Super Mario took almost a decade. If you took even 5 years to develop a game back in the 80's your company would be bankrupt. Cheap and Cheerful was the business model. Many of the best games of the era were made by kids in their bedroom and sold to publishers. In house development was usually fast and messy.
Great video. 👍 I got stung by Breakthru 😭
yeah it only needed a little bit better gameplay then it would have been awesome i think...a real missed opportunity
As a young gamer back in the eighties I'll forever associate U.S Gold and Domark with garbage games that should be avoided. Titus released some real stinkers too.
Codemasters were also always eager to disappoint.
Codemasters were the masters of hard to control games
Amazing video! I'm waiting to see the Amiga version of it!
Doing it now
It has to be said that the arcades represented the top technology of the time, not even on the Amiga or the 16-bit consoles like Megadrive or Super Famicom was it possible to have decent conversions.
Silkworm, Toki, Truxton, Golden Axe .... the list goes on for the Amiga and Megadrive...there were some absolute cracking conversions on those..id even say that Silkworm and Toki were actually better on the Amiga than they were on Arcade tbh
@@oldstylegaming The ones you mention were relatively 'simple' arcades and not particularly sophisticated on the technical side, titles like Afterbuner, Dragon's Lair, Hard Drivin, Wec Le Mans and others were objectively unreachable, so much so that the first perfect (or almost perfect) conversions came only on FM-Towns or X68000. To say, the Megadrive, which was also a powerful console, couldn't even get "arcade perfect" conversions of many Sega titles (Eswat, Forgotten Worlds, etc.).
I loved the C64 version of Afterburner back in the day 🤷🏻♂️
The Activision one?
Shocking addition of the mighty Dragon's Lair!
I remember buying Dragon's Lair when it was re-released on Elite's "Encore" budget range. 10 minutes plus only for the game to crash whilst loading. WH Smiths replaced it multiple times but it must have been a bad batch so in the end I got a refund of my £2.99
The C64 version of Final Fight is really awful...
This was an interesting road down the crap games of the time. I'd love to see a video on video games that had more then one implementation on the same computer. Now that you pointed out that there were UK and US versions of the same game with one being crap I wonder how there were and just how much they differ.
i did one on the C64 it can be found here ruclips.net/video/hwq_NpTwFFg/видео.html
@@oldstylegaming I would have thought that it would be been better as the licensee to have one version but I guess they were not invested in anything but increasing licensing revenue.
I actually appreciate the effort given on making a C64 port of Dragon's lair. The arcade version was so advanced that to fit everything onto a C64 disk wouldnt have been practical. Scaling it to fit the C64 on a graphics scale sure must have some challenge. I prefer the loose sequel Escape from Singe's castle, mostly because of the soundtrack
Awesome as always mate, bought far too many of these I bought 😂😂
Oh dear lord the horror i had a lot of these games but in my defense i was young i didn't know any better lol. Other than the nasty flashbacks this was a great video as always so as always buddy tkae it easy and roll on the next video. Am now going to try and take my mind of these games haha.
Chase HQ on the C64 was awful ! I did a Spectrum VS C64 VS video, can guess which system won? Great video matey 😉
No mention of Rastan? Wow. The original C64 port was unfinishable, thanks to a jump rendered impossible by a software bug.
The cover art by Tim Hildebrandt--yes, THAT Tim Hildebrandt, half of the duo that designed the original "Star Wars" movie poster--was the only good thing about it.
Its funny you should mention Rastan... im uploading a comparison on it tonight ...weird that
Plenty of great driving games on the C64 with speed and yet Ocean couldn’t get my favourite arcade game Chase HQ right. Gutted.
Surprised there is no Final Fight but probably better we forget that one 😂
Another great video OSG, thanks! Dear lord Super Hang On looks horrible and all in all, very good list.
Btw, did anyone else check their FB messenger..?
Lol i really need to switch notifications off when im recording
I was lucky to have played the better versions of Afterburner, Bionic Commando, and Ikari Warrios, and they were all great games.
Yeah well I had the crap After Burner being in the UK but Bionic Commando and Ikari Warriors were awesome
There was a rule we had back in the day and that was "what did the zzap mag say?" if it passed them it past with us. Mind you sometimes they were late on some reviews and i bought one of them in your selection super hangon, the other being jailbreak which I'm surprised isn't there.
To be honest, the North American version of Street Fight isn't too bad, it's not great, but at least it's playable
Same for Afterburner and Space Harrier
Yeah the US versions of those games were good, and I actually prefer the US outrun too
Wheres final fight?
This is a great, terrible list :) I've been keeping a list of C64 games that got two different versions, and I didn't know about Afterburner or Ikari Warriors, so thanks for highlighting those!
i did a video on some c64 games that had different US / UK releases... but there are loads of games like that..especially in Germany where censorship forced a lot of game changes, one of which being Commando which was totally reskinned and renamed as Space Invasion
@@oldstylegaming Nice, I'll look for that video. I didn't know about Space Invasion either.
You want to look at the modern conversion of Dragon's Lair to the TI99/4A, a machine that was inferior to the Commodore 64 for gaming (I had both). The conversion is incredibly playable exactly like the laser disk game arcade, it's kind of cheating however since back in the day it wouldn't have been feasible to stick so much memory on a cartridge which is the only way it was possible without actually having a laser disk.
Love the new format! Pretty sure I've not played any of this dreck - but I might have forgotten the odd demo - defo never bought any of them though. Shame the conversions were so poor because some of them were class in the arcades.
5:35 what about the ocean version of Double Dragon?
Its still not great, and actually i dont think it was a commercial release really, i think it was used at demos or something
I've seen beter games made with SEUCK than the US versions of Ikari Warriors and Bionic Commando. Hell I'm quite positively convinced that Ikari Warriors US actually was made with SEUCK. LOL
I never understood why the C64, Amiga and Atari ST only had a one button controllers they could have made the same as the sega port but had 3 and 6 button controllers instead of having to reach for the keyboard, I believe they would have lasted longer than they did .
Double Dragon on the 64 broke my heart. I wasn't expecting anything special but that was a sick joke.
I know you pain mate
I literally played early Shoot 'em up Construction Kit games that were better than US Ikari Warriors
In fairness, I was under the impression Domark didn't release Hard Drivin on the 64 at full price because of it was pants. I got it on a compilation. Chase HQ was the biggest let down for me, after the absolute triumph that is the Spectrum version. I also thought -all- of the Renegade series were terrible on the 64
Target Renegade wasnt bad on the C64...agreen no where near as good as the Speccy version but still pretty good
Great video, though surprised that final fight didn't make the cut. That is right up there for the title of worst port ever in my eyes.
I'm so glad they didn't try to do a conversion of Mortal Kombat. Jesus, that would have been just as bad if not worse than SF2. LOL
Considering the limitations, I didn't think Dragon's Lair was that bad. Hard? Hell yes! But I can appreciate what they were trying to accomplish. Hard Drivin' should not even have been attempted for the C64. There was no way that was going to look good unless it was being made specifically for people who had the SuperCPU add-on (20mhz processor).
You forgot Kid Niki from Data East (developed by Quicksilver), I don't think it ever made it outside the U.S., horrible conversion of the Apple 2 version with no scrolling, no sound (two sound effects), awful graphics...check it out just to see how bad it is.
will do mate
One thing we can all agree on is that they are all awful but discussions will go on for years as to what was crappier. Good video though.
Great vidéo. But I really think that gryzor deserve a place in this top 20.
Hmmm, Afterburner was pretty good. I’m not sure if it was the same version as in your video though. Maybe you could do comparison video for the games that had 2 versions? Best of luck!
i actually did a video on this but only the US vs UK version
ruclips.net/video/hwq_NpTwFFg/видео.html
@@oldstylegaming thank you!!!
06:04 - in fairness, the arcade version was nothing more than a back-elbow and move excersise...
You should add Rygar. How disappointed I was...
I've been waiting for the # 1 and could have sworn it would be hard drivin
So many bad conversations you can ad to the list many of which makes you wonder why they bothered when it was way too optimistic for the machine.
Super Monaco Grand prix, Final fight etc
Nice video !!!
Yup, some absolute stinkers there...bought and regretted some of them including the slideshow that was Hard Drivin. Could have done with this video back in the 80s.....along with the internet and RUclips
lol games would have never got to the shelves in this state if we had that back then
hard driving was so bad it never got a proper release
Somebody should do a vid on those ripoff type-in game books. Beautiful covers with a wopping 20+ exciting games to type into your machine - all for anything between £10 -£20
You spend 3 days typing away and after ironing out the errors a drab looking effort appears on screen. And talking of typing errors: many of such basic listing's came with errors anyway.
Enduro Racer deserved a mention
I'm glad I didn't have to experience most of those stinkers but I bought Shadow Warriors (Ninja Gaiden) and what an incredible disappointment it was. People say Double Dragon III or TMHT 2 are bad on the C64 (and I disagree) but compared to that abomination they are gold. Thankfully it was the budget re-release!
I got Double Dragon on C64 for xmas one year... so dissapointed!
There was two versions of street fighter on the c64 tape, the us one wasn’t too bad at all.
i never player streetfighter2 in arcades, i did see it though - that looks a pretty decent effort on the c64 to be fair - at least as good as could be expected
Wow... every single entry on this List looks as if they were still in Alpha Development & one night after the Devs went home for the evening, some asshole Exec snuck into the Office & force executed the Order to Full Release them to Ship out that very night before the Devs could even come into work the next morning to continue Development, just cause the scumbag Exec KNEW he could use his Executive Powers to frame the Devs & get away with it... including all the Money from it... O_0
... Seriously, I wouldn't put it past Execs to be capable of such greed...
Wait till you see the amiga video im doing.... omg
Aw. I loved Dragons Lair on the c64. Eswat looked accurate. Karnov, ChaseHQ and Hard Drivin are obvious straight-across Spectrum ports. Strangely, ChaseHQ is considered one of the top games for that system. I had street fighter, the US version, and thought it played well, if not the same as the arcade. Double Dragon and Ikari Warriors were very poor.
Chase hq was one I brought and soo disappointed. Operation Thunderbolt was another. Previews looked great but I think ocean scrapped that version and had to rush another version out
Also back in the days alot of titles showed the arcade or the amiga screen shots.it should of been a red flag to us to say this is likely to be rubbish lol
Some who are too young to remember might see this and think the C64 sucked. But the sheer amount of content that was released for it during it's official lifespan, and beyond up to today, there was still plenty of subjectively good to great titles to keep us amused, especially at pocket money prices. Not to mention tape piracy itself, but that's another basket of goats.
The Final Fight port was horrendous.
OMG so 4D sports driving was an arcade game!
(arcades were absolutely not a thing at all in germany so I don't know many arcade games actually and those only from youtube)
Here are a few of DIShonorable mentions: (keep in mind that a lot of these are more meh or disappointing than "bad" per se)
Juno First: great (and criminally underrated) game in the arcade, but the C64 version is meh at best (and the "music" that plays during the title screen is one of the WORST "tunes" that I ever heard coming out of the sid chip. How could they fuck up such a SIMPLE shooter game makes me scratch my head. If you want to play a home port of this game, the Atari 2600/VCS homebrew port is the best one to play.
Bosconian: Another decent arcade game (released as Bosconian '87 on the C64, Amstrad, and Spectrum by Mastertronic) Awful port. The Spectrum version is brilliant though, but avoid the C64 and CPC versions, and somehow the C64 version actually plays worse than the CPC version as well.
Final Fight...another example of a game that had no business being ported to the C64 or any other 8-bit computer for that matter
Golden Axe: While the music was brilliant (I actually like it more than the original arcade, it was just another mediocre port that had no business being converted. This one wasn't so much bad as it was disappointing.
Jailbreak: in this case though, it was a shit port of a rather crap arcade game to being with
Legend of Kage: See Jailbreak (I do like the title music though)
Rygar: A rather disappointing port IMHO. I'm not a MASSIVE fan of the original arcade, but they could have done a better port than THAT
Defender: OK controversial I know, but after playing the brilliant GUARDIAN, the official port of Defender is a huge letdown...at least in my opinion
I might actually do a follow up video to this with viewers choices
Hard Drivin' for C64 doesn't suffer from speed (it's faster than Accolade games tbh) but from ice skate like controls.
Doesnt suffer from speed? Are we talking about the same game...it runs at about 1 fps
@@oldstylegaming its framerate is inconsistent first of all 😉 In less complicated scenes it's way faster than e.g. Test Drive, in more complicated ones it's horrid beyond anything. But Accolade racers also have totally unplayable framerate, actually. They're saved only by controls tailored for this slideshow fest. It's basically discussion about games running below 5fps which is ridiculous 😃
Theres other bad games but it's hard to argue with any of these. Hard driving plays like an adventure!
Amstrad one would be good!
Ill add it
could never figure out how to deal with the skulls in level 2 of c64 Dragon's Lair. Waste of £2.99 lol.
Of course Double Dragon was a letdown compared to the arcade but still....my parents got me an original copy but I had to wait about a week until I was allowed to open the present. My mum gave me only one night witin that week to take a sneak peak at the gameplay and boy I was disapointed....still played the hell outta that game after that, it was 2 players and some of the enemy sprites were quite okay to look at
Yeah i still played it a lot but it always left me angry at how different it was in terms of gameplay