[Editor's note: Scientist tz takes a trip down memory lane with the Commodore 64 for his contribution to this month's Monthly Musing. -- CTZ]
I could type that command line with my eyes closed (and I often did) when I was 8.
Back in the deep, dark 1980's, my parents were simple folk who couldn't see any point to having a NES in the house. Therefore, I missed out on the golden early days of the NES era. We owned only one television and it was for watching programs (my dad's words). I never owned the golden Legend of Zelda cartridge nor did I play the first Metroid. More after the jump.
I have fuzzy memories of earlier videogame experiences when I was maybe 4 or 5-years-old. I remember playing that horseshit version of
Pac-Man at a Babysitter's house on an Atari. I remember asking her why Pac-Man can't eat through the walls and I remember her answer of "because they're made out of gold." I remember playing
Time Bandit at the Driftwood in Sister Lakes, MI.
But videogames never entered my home until I was 7 (I think.) My mom, a teacher, decided she needed a computer with a word processor. My parents settled on a Commodore 64, that being the most affordable home computer in 1986. I remember driving with them to a mall an hour away to buy it because our local mall didn't have any in stock. Did we really buy that shit at Kay-Bee Toys? I actually think we did.
Later that week we went to Toys R Us to buy software back when you could buy productivity software at Toys R Us. My mom bought some command line word processor for herself and a game called
Motezuma's Revenge for me. We also had about ten discs of various shareware and pirated games from my Babysitter's brother who apparently was a l33t haX0r by 1986 standards.
It is because I had this great wealth of games available that I have chosen the simple command line that started them all as the start of the affair. I wasn't tied down to
Mario and
Zelda like so many emerging gamers were back then.
In a way it's remarkable that I kept gaming through the C64 era. A lot of those games were
incredibly difficult and many of them were difficult because they were horseshit. As a kid I never considered the fact that a game might be bad; I always assumed that I just lacked the skill to finish it (or I required a color monitor, maybe.) The clerks at Babbages in the mall knew me as one of those kids who habitually bought games and returned them if they were too hard. I returned a few classics such as
Hacker.
Everything kind of clicked when I got
Beyond the Forbidden Forest for my birthday.
Here was a game with all of the elements that today we consider to be integral to a good game. Graphics, music, atmosphere, plot, controls. Back then I mainly cared about the sweet graphics and cool monsters. I think I probably sank 100 hours into this game. When I beat the Demogorgon at the end I ran around the house like an "idiot" (mom's words) and had to take a "time out" to calm down.
But I never finished
Impossible Mission 
"Another visitor. Stay awhile... staaaaay FOREVER!"
FUCK YOU ASSHOLE. I never finished it and I never will...but I digress.
Good games like
Beyond the Forbidden Forest and
Skate or Die combined with overwhelmingly tough games like
Impossible Mission and
Jumpman (EPYX ftw) clinched the addiction. In the summer of '87 I started scraping money together to buy a TV, a NES, and a skateboard. I never got any good at the skateboard but as the 80's were drawing to a conclusion amidst a sea of stonewashed jeans and inexplicable swatches of neon pink and green all over everything, I had become incurably hooked on videogames.
Contest:
5:06 PM on 06.12.2008
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Also, magazines back then didn't include discs: they had pages and pages of code to input for your game. I think my dad did one or two of these before obtaining the mysterious motherload that we had.
On a separate note, I remember thinking I would be way better at Karateka when I got older, just to make myself feel better about sucking at it. Fun how a kid's mind works.
*hugs Scientist tz*
Its okay, as long as you had some form of gaming to grow up with. Can't say I ever had the pleasure to experience these games but I'm sure your fond memories serve you well as any would :)
I enjoyed reading the start of your affair. I especially liked the last part about saving up money for a NES as I can relate. If nothing else can be said about gaming from parents of the 80's that didn't get it, at least it taught us youngins how to save money for a larger goal in the future. Actually being able to buy your own video game system is a liberating experience at such a young age.
It's a good thing I didn't wait until 1988 to buy the thing. The drought that year killed my lamn mowing income :(
I am proud to say that I have beat Impossible Mission. (Of course I did it about two years ago.)
I still love to play Movie Mogul, Lords Of Conquest, and anything from Epyx and SSI. Back then, EA was also known for having the best quality games. Funny how things change over time.
Jumpman was a super sweet platformer and I remember playing Skate or Die for hours and hours with a friend of mine.
I could never get out of the house in Hitchikers guide to the galaxy but the packaging was amazing!
I remember playing Street Fighter 1 on it and using the controllers on my friends Genesis!
The first game I ever completed (Count Duckula: No Sax Please, We're Egyptian, btw) was on that system.
Beyond the Forbidden Forest was scary to me. I'd always get caught out by a monster and get turned into mulch. O_o
Anyway, I was infatuated with my friend's Atari ST, but the C64 had plenty of good games out for it.
Wizball is one of my favourites, but it's impossible to explain to people. "Um, you bounce around until you can fly and you power up like Gradius while collecting colours to make spells." And then there's Elite, which felt like I was transported to a whole universe via my computer. And then Exile, which is like Metroid meets an inventory-based adventure game. And the impossible Cybernoid II, with amazing music but brutally hard screens. And Katakis, which is better than many arcade shooters from the same era...
Man, I love that old breadbox. The C64 DTV stick is definitely worth hunting down if you have any interest in the system but don't want a hulking computer. It has a pile of Epyx and Hewson classics (most notably Impossible Mission and the two Cybernoid games), but that's not what makes it great. The true genius lies in how you can hack it. There are hidden games, demos, and so on. But that's not where it ends. You can attach a keyboard and a 1541 disk drive and play real C64 disks on it.
Great game... Yes, it is possible to beat. My high score on the DS version is just over 20,000.
How about Blue Max- from a tape drive! Or Castle Wolfenstein? "Atchung!"
But I do fondly recall the thrill of finding a guy parked at a desk in Castle Wolfenstein. I'd bribe him, get a hint, and then try to blow him away before he could hit the alarm. Sometimes that fat bastard would take a whole bunch of ammo before going down :(
Check out my MM too:
http://www.destructoid.com/blogs/AgentMOO/the-start-of-the-affair-the-commodore-64-90329.phtml
First computer/games machine i ever owned.
Drain your power to my power!
PRESS PLAY ON TAPE
,Nintendo world and excite truck . i also missed a lot of cool games.