Remember when game companys used to put this kinda effort into the packaging?! I miss this more than anything in gaming these days. Not even instruction manuals in many new games these days!
Today, they just grab ya by the feet, turn you over and shake out all your extra change with DLC like a thug or mobster. And dammit, you better like it! :)
We have a few exceptions like Shovel Knight and Shantae Half Genie hero which includes a sound track cd, but most games today just give you a piece of paper saying refer to the electronic manual.
well you have to remember Smash JT, that back in the day it was the box that was the biggest advertiser more than any tv promotion, they made it to where they opened the box and friends would be like "whoa, look at all this stuff you got! i should grab myself a copy!"
Technology evolves, as do games, as should gamers. I too have nostalgia, sentimentality and rose-tinted glasses as a player introduced to gaming in the 80-90 period remembering when C64, then Amiga 500 were the "top dog gaming rigs" while arcades were still THE place to play. For me though, personal opinion obviously, it's better now. Back then online was a non-feature so the packaging was a marketing point and more importantly manuals were relevant as that was the ONLY source for game info. People forget how packaging was often hyped and used back then to sell complete turd games and I'm glad it's more based on the game in question now with a plethora of sources for gaming info, manuals, player knowledge and wikis etc, etc, online. If I take off the rose-tinted glasses gaming as a whole is in a way better place and marketing hype based on packaging is largely irrelevant. It SHOULD be about the game, not the 200 page manual and shiny packaging. Music and movies have all gone the same way. Tbh now it's just a waste of coin for such companies that cater to that minority with collectors editions anyway. /2 cents.
Impossible Mission - Airborne Ranger - Echelon - Pirates - Some of my top video games still of all time. Man I grew up on those along with the C64 SSI gold box games. Thanks for this video!
The Temple Of Apshai packaging seen at 20:15 is an unusual variation. CBS Electronics (later ECP) produced it in Australia under licence, but that clamshell case is one AFAIK exclusively used by Commodore. The topmost slot (above the two cassette slots) is for a Commodore 16 cartridge and no third parties produced those. The package is transitional from when CBS Electronics in Australia closed and its product line was shifted over to ECP: note how the cover slip is printed with CBS Electronics references, but has ECP stickers overlaid.
Really liked the presentation here, where you had the game cover and in-game video/pics visible at the same time. C64 games don't need to be shown full screen anyways being so low def as they are. Good stuff.
That's a different angle of the game room. Nice dude! Even though I'm a console gamer pretty exclusively I still find your PC centric videos very entertaining. Keep them coming!
Cool video. I just recently picked up a cool somewhat rare C64c bundle called Test Pilot. It has a giant box with a C64c, 1541 II disk drive, a joystick and 5 games. The bundle was missing the games, but the C64c and 1541 II boxes were in excellent shape. I set it all up last weekend and played a bunch of C64 arcade ports for about 5 hours. www.the-nextlevel.com/tnl/threads/60361-This-Month-s-Haul-It-s-April-fools!/page9?p=1065075554#post1065075554
In Europe we use nearly only cassettes because the floppy market was too expensive, the floppy drive alone at the time costed nearly as much as the C64 itself
Wow so many sealed in box! Great condition on those. I was an Apple II guy back then and was often jealous of the cool games my friends had on the C64.
Amazing C64 lot! I don't have much experience with the C64, outside of a neighbor kid growing up, but I really enjoy seeing some of the early computer games that I never had an opportunity to play growing up. There's such a wealth of interesting titles from that era, and developers pushing into then-unexplored territory and trying new things.
What a find dude, like seriously it's none of my business what you paid but I watch a fair bit of retro gaming and collector commentary and this is a haul of gargantuan proportions let alone the amazing condition they are in. Outside that many of these games hold SO many memories for me...memories I did'nt even know I still had. Thanks so much for taking the time to share this as unlocking those memories is a gift I do not take for granted. Much appreciated.
Skyfox II was made by Damon Slye, who was one of the founders of Dynamix. In fact his very first game was Stellar 7 for the Apple II and C64. He later went on to make Arctic Fox for the C64, Amiga and others, and he also made the much-loved Project Firestart for the C64. Staff of Karnath - I got pretty far in this game, but there were a couple pieces of the pentacle that I couldn't figure out how to get and a couple more than I couldn't even find. The same author created three other games in a similar style exclusively for the C64; Blackwyche, Dragonskulle and Entombed. Impossible Mission II - My biggest problem with this game is that the rooms are confusing. It's hard to tell where the platforms are, plus you have some where the rooms connect to other rooms vertically, or you have to blow up floors. Then there's the code used to move between the towers being based on a musical sequence, which was a mystery to me as I'm not the least bit musically inclined. Driller is definitely a European release as the American version was named Space Station Oblivion. Rocket Ranger - Was the Rick Dangerous screenshot a mistake or did you just want to see if anyone would notice? :) Masters of Time - I used to own this game, but either sold it, or it got lost over the years. As I recall you had to pilot a ship in a first person view, catch some kind of objects , and then answer history questions. Sadly since I no longer have the game and can't find a copy of the manual anywhere online, I don't really know how to properly play the game any more. I remember thinking it was kind of cool at the time. Pretty sure that's kind of a rare game these days. You may have some problems running the European releases on a U.S. machine. In case you don't know, the video circuitry in the C64 was very much tied to the television standards of the countries they were meant for. U.S. models were designed to run at 60FPS NTSC, while British and European models were designed to run at 50FPS PAL. You mentioned having a lot of pirated software back in the 80s; Did you ever get smaller, one-file games where you load them up and when you start the game, the graphics are flickering, there's garbage on the screen and the music doesn't sound right and you think "It figures, another screwed up game!"? I used to get that all the time and I used to think that the crackers were all incompetent, releasing such broken copies of games. Turns out that they were PAL games and that running them on an NTSC system screwed up the timing. This affected some games more than others. It's apparently possible to convert an American C64 to run PAL games properly, but you'd probably be better off just buying a PAL C64 if you want to run a lot of European software. Finding a CRT TV to display PAL signals can also be a challenge. Later Commodore monitors like the 1080 and 1084 should handle it fine (they do for the Amiga), but an American 1702 monitor might have problems. I once tried an 1802 monitor with my Amiga in PAL mode and it worked, but the colors were wrong.
Some absolute gems in that collection US owners were lucky to have disks in the UK we mostly had games on tape and they took forever to load, multiload games were a nightmare! Please can we have more computer game content rather than just consoles in the future, so many good 80s systems.
I spent so many hours playing "Seven Cities of Gold", "Airborne Ranger", "Pirates", "M.U.L.E" with my brother in the 80's on our C64. Games well ahead of their time. I played so many of these games you showed (yet we "traded: for most of ours..). Amazing trip down memory lane.
OMG ROCKET RANGER!!! My favourite game of all time! had it on the Amiga and it was ahead of its time! Great Episode as I remember most of these games from back in the day \m/
I can't be the only one that's getting sick of SEGA/Nintendo retro videos in general, right? I'm glad to see channels branch out on to more esoteric formats, especially as a Brit where things like the c64 saw a little more love.
No, you aren't the only one. I Guess you haven't heard of Lazy Game Review's youtube channel then. If you haven't just give it a try, you'll not be disapointed. Oh and I thought that the ZX Spectrum was more famous in Great Brittain, compared to the C64.
Oh I love LGR's channel, I've also recently gotten into Nostagia Nerd and Kim Justice who very much stray from the typical consoles. The Speccy was huge but the C64 was at pretty much the same level of popularity, both those and the Amstrad CPC were in a computer war here in the UK. (there were more too, like the BBC Micro and Dragon 32.. we had tonnes of microcomputers fighting it out)
I've been watching your videos for nearly a year and forgot to subscribe. Finally did you have great, entertaining content and I'm always learning something watching your videos. Keep up the good work.
Unless I'm mistaken, that looks like the U.S. release, which sucked. For some reason, Capcom made different versions for the U.S. and UK/European markets. They did this with some other games too, like Ikari Warriors.
The c64 has 2 versions of ikari Warriors, 2 versions of bionic commando, 2 versions of donkey kong. Time to hit the internet and see if there are more double releases for the c64 out there
I appreciate you being one of the few guys online who seems to give infocom the love they deserve. What an amazing company and what fun games even to this day even for new players. Can't recommend them enough.
Amazing find, congrats MJR! The C64 was my first computer and here in the Netherlands, most software was also sold on tapes. Disk drives weren't uncommon but still, tapes ruled. I even remember radio broadcasts, where they would send the software code through the airwaves for you to record on tape... it sounded like experimental death metal played by manipulating the sampled sound of seals. Those boxes look fabulous though and add so much atmosphere and context. Back then I could only afford budget software really. These were mostly just a tape with a case and an insert, like the recordable tapes you could buy. But yes, there were "other ways" of getting a lot of software... The "C64 scene" is still surprisingly active and lively! As sites like Lemon64 prove. Amazing demos that push the hardware beyond anything thought possible are still being made and commercial software is still being produced as well. Check out Psytronik for some hot new releases :) BTW a LATE release for the C64 here in Europe / UK would be from 1993 (!). Mayhem in Monsterland was probably the last new succesful commercial game released that year. And then later the internet came...
got to love the bionic commando soundtrack, by the legendary Tim Follin. especially level 1. as an old dear from the uk brought up on the c64, it just has to be said.
MJR, I remember the splash screen when you connected to Sierra Online. There was a big satellite dish in the back yard of some nice old farmhouse at night. It felt really special when you got on. Also, I've not seen it pointed out very often, but the early computer games were a lot closer to the big, complicated board games of the time from places like Avalon Hill. The computer was doing the "dice rolling" and managing the counters so-to-speak, but the imagination was much the same as you used with a board game.
Fantastic to see this video, thanks for producing it, the C64 and ZX Spectrum were the main game systems I played growing up but never see them featured in videos that much. Its also funny to hear that the US never had cassette gaming as all my games were cassette. Some of the gaming documentaries I've seen kind of suggest with the eclipse of Atari there was a dark age and then BANG! Nintendo!! I love the extras, which I think you described as "feelies", to my knowledge some of those were included as tie ins to gameplay to try and prevent video games piracy. The did similar things with Amiga and then PC gaming (which were the main pirated platforms as I remember it, I also remember media speculation that cartridge gaming consoles would eclipse PC and other platforms because they could not be pirated so easily). I think a lot of the game play on earlier games was amazing, despite the graphics issues, if you ever get a chance (even try an emulator) play Cookie, Psst!, Lunar Jet Man, Pedro or even these two games called Trashman and Travel with Trashman. They are about as powerful as a very simple android game and very easy games by today's standards (people would probably think they are a joke) but they are really great fun. Really fun. Imaginative stuff too. That's before you even consider the weirdness of some of the Lama Soft games but that's for another time. Cheers.
As a child of the 90's these games were unfortunately before my time, BUT I respect the crap out of them and love their charm, the passion and professional words showcases them very well, this is why metaljesusrocks is the best video game TH-camr......rock on. :)
I had a Commodore 64 while some friends had NES and I was immediately turned off by the NES controller- loved using my Atari joysticks... RC Pro Am for NES was great however
What a great find! I had a massive C64 collection back in the day, and yet there are lots of titles here I have never heard of. The Arthur Pendragon series however, (Staff of Karnath, Blackwyche and a couple more) was seemingly very popular on the C64 in Europe back in the day, so it surprised me that it was new to you. The reason is probably that the divide that existed between the US and Europe when it came to things like music (lots of artists were big in Europe but not in the US (maybe not even released at all) and vice versa) also extended to other types of media. In those pre-internet days you were largely at the mercy of what companies wanted to market in different parts of the world, making lots of titles unavailable and simply unknown to you until years later.
I was born in "93 so I grew up with the Genesis, SNES, then eventually the N64 and beyond. Throughout my life I've turned into an avid PC gamer and HATE digital downloads. I missed the time frame to enjoy those C64 games but the packaging and artwork is awesome. I know we have companies like IndieBox but I don't really play indie games. I just wish bigger titles would put more thought into the packaging now like they did in the 80's and 90's. You have the part of the market that just wants the DD, but for the others, I wouldn't mind paying extra for all the physical extras when I go to buy the game.. BTW I've been on a huge MJR kick for like 2 weeks now. I don't know what I'd do if you stopped making videos. Keep up the good work man. You have a good taste in games and music. Also, I'm still jamming Khemmis !
I'm glad I've been around since coleco vision. as a gamer I have been able to experience and appreciate how games have evolved throughout the years. it's amazing. as always, I love your channel. and you rock metal Jesus!
I wish had kept track of and stored my C64 from back in the day. Got it in 1984 for Christmas while i was in high school. Got the tape drive to start and mail ordered my first game, Bruce Lee. I remember it would take what seemed like 30 mins to load from the tape drive into the C64 ram. Ah the good old days. Still my favorite system of all time for all the memories and games I played and trying to learn programming with it.
I love your channel! would love to see more stories about how you and your friends met and just yall drinking I really enjoyed it. I listened to it while I was at work
I totally love videos like this or the one with the flight simulators you did a while ago. That´s stuff nobody talks about in that quality anywhere else...really informative and entertaining! Please keep em coming. Text Adventures next? ;)
This vid dropped into my recommend list and I'm glad it did. This really took me back to my youth when I owned a C64. I had the Lord of the Rings game you showed with the copy of the book, it was awesome. Also had Staff of Kanarth (plus many others of course). I'm from the UK and you're right we mainly only had the games on cassette and not on floppy disk, some catridges as well. Such fond memories.
wow...as young kid in the late 80's I remember being obsessed with a game and it's box art. I have tried for YEARS to remember it. and you show it within the first 30 seconds! Impossible Mission II!
Great vid, loved all the box art. I had a c-128 back in the 80s along with hundreds of games. But, saying that I've only played a handful of your pickup games, HUGE library.
If I remember correctly, my memory is very good. Beyond Castle Wolfenstein inspired the game Wolfenstein which became Doom. Little history for you Metal Jesus found out about it from my cousin who was big into C64 games.
This was great! I have so many fond memories of the C64. The Three Stooges was one of my favorites! The mini games were lots of fun, challenging, and I loved the sound clips.
Hey MJR! There's another series to collect besides those AD&D/D&D gold box games.... all those MICROPROSE games. You have Airborne Ranger. Oh, man... remember Gunship? Silent Service games? DUDE! I think this video is now one of my favorite gaming finds video you have ever made!!!! I have owned my C64 for over 30 years now and it still works ;)
I know little to nothing about that system but some of those games look like they'd be a blast. I'm dying for some developer to make a new battletech/mechwarrior style game
Download a copy of WinVICE (or whatever version is appropriate for your system) and you can find copies of the games on various web sites. Set it up like any other emulator. Then just use the Autostart Disk/Tape option on the File menu. Or manually attach a disk or tape image using the appropriate menu option and type; LOAD Followed by the Enter key for cassette games, or; LOAD"*",8,1 For disk games. If it comes back to a READY prompt, try typing RUN and hitting Enter. If a game doesn't work, try switching the machine type from NTSC to PAL or vice versa. To bypass the cracking intros at the start of games, press the spacebar. If the firebutton doesn't start a game, try pressing each of the function keys. The C64 had two joystick ports and there was no standard as to which port any given game used, so it helps to familiarize yourself with the Swap Ports option because it's pretty much guaranteed that the wrong port will be active for some games. Old C64 joke: Which port does this game use? The other one! :)
The irony being that Sky Shark version is way better than the Flying Shark version, but both were programmed in the UK anyhow! The former was done by Software Creations, and if you know your C64, then you'll know their reputation on the machine. As it turns out, a lot of the games featured in the video were originally programmed in the UK and then released in the US, but the disk games you feature are definitely the US releases. I wonder how some UK tape games ended up in Seattle (such as Staff of Karnath)? Maybe he imported them ages back. The video used for Ikari Warriors is the Elite (UK) version, but the Data East release was programmed in the US, and is completely different (and a lot worse!). There's quite a few of these in existence, two versions programmed either side of the Pond. The clamshell games you note, Temple of Apshai is definitely the Australian release as you can see ECP on the label on the front.
The Three Stooges was also an arcade game conversion. I remember playing it in the arcade as a teen. It was similar to Atari's Food Fight. All those arcade games are available on MAME emulator.
Oh, man. Operation Wolf!!! That on is a treasure - back in the 90's they used to have it in almost every amusement parks here in Finland and I was always playing it. I think I never had it on my C64 collection back in the day but THAT brought a lot of memories.
LOVED that video!! so fond memories from the Commodore days :-)))) It's amazing how they put so much coding in so little space then, Big THANK YOU, MetalJesus, you ROKK!!
This is a great find. From us Commodore collectors, thanks for sharing! Definitely agree a lot of these are British releases, due cassettes as you mention, the Mastertronix title, and A2. Did they have any PAL/NTSC distinction labeled? EA also had a title called Instant Music which was a lot like GarageBand. I remember when Commodore 64 games were clearing out in the late 80s and early 90s and you could get all those Infocom games for like $2 each.
amazing stuff. I had a C64, it was the most common computer in my country (Argentina) but we never got the chance to see real boxed games, 100% of games were bootlegs. This was like a dream come true for me!
I've been praying that for years speedball would return, I LOVED it when I was little and I think it would definitely work now, with online co op and games like rocket league doing so well, even keeping the top down look.. not sure, but I know the game would be epic
I'm in the UK and never realised that you didn't get many cassettes with the c64. You were lucky to miss out on the 10min loading times but unlucky that you missed out on some of the amazing loading music!
Extremely nice haul I'm so jealous lol! Thanks for sharing. I hope you go over some of these rarer games in a little more detail (or a brief let's play of them) sometime.
Such a good deal you found. The C64 wasn't my first computer (that would be the Vic-20) but it was the first computer that really influenced me as a PC gamer. Among others I had played on it was Pinball Construction Kit (Bill Budge, who would later create Virtual Pinball for the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive), Temple of Apshai, Zork, Hacker and Forbidden Forest; that game wasn't much to look at from today's standpoint but the mood and especially the music, still send chills down your spine. The C64 was also the first computer that got me online, so there's that too. I still have a C64c and a 1541 floppy drive in my collection. Now I just need to re-buy all of the games of my bygone youth :)
Dude yes! Rendezvous with Rama - read the books and had the C64 game. I still have the fold out blueprint of Rama that came with the game. Awesome! Yes so much fun with Eidolon and Mindshadow and Heart of Africa. Great memories. And wow - I loved Driller but had forgotten the name of the game until now (thank you!) I wish some of these great older C64 games would be available on places like gog.com - and games like Fort Apocalypse, Killerwatt, and Telengard. Thanks for the great video MJR :)
Hey Jesus! Just started watching you a few months ago, and let me tell you Im hooked!! You are GREAT to watch. Thank you for what you do. I use a app on my phone called "Offer Up". Great game finds on there aswell . Thanks again! - Pete
That Three Stooges game was a great birthday gift for me. I loved all the different games they had in it. I fondly remember the oyster cracker eating game.
Great collection! Thanks for sharing. But would've been great if you had a screenshot for all the games. Most of them I also didn't know. C64 was one of my very first. :D
What a treasure trove of a find. Although I was never a Commodore fan (Sinclair Spectrum and cassettes for me), there are some multi format classics shown. Nice to see the seller, Andy, kept all the goodies in the boxes! Please, you have to return to him a buy the Amiga collection. Please! (With maybe, Xenon 2 Megablast, Speedball 2, Cadaver, Mercenary, et al)...
Remember when game companys used to put this kinda effort into the packaging?! I miss this more than anything in gaming these days. Not even instruction manuals in many new games these days!
Today, they just grab ya by the feet, turn you over and shake out all your extra change with DLC like a thug or mobster. And dammit, you better like it! :)
They say that they're saving the trees by not giving us manuals when really they're only saving their cash.
We have a few exceptions like Shovel Knight and Shantae Half Genie hero which includes a sound track cd, but most games today just give you a piece of paper saying refer to the electronic manual.
well you have to remember Smash JT, that back in the day it was the box that was the biggest advertiser more than any tv promotion, they made it to where they opened the box and friends would be like "whoa, look at all this stuff you got! i should grab myself a copy!"
Technology evolves, as do games, as should gamers. I too have nostalgia, sentimentality and rose-tinted glasses as a player introduced to gaming in the 80-90 period remembering when C64, then Amiga 500 were the "top dog gaming rigs" while arcades were still THE place to play. For me though, personal opinion obviously, it's better now. Back then online was a non-feature so the packaging was a marketing point and more importantly manuals were relevant as that was the ONLY source for game info. People forget how packaging was often hyped and used back then to sell complete turd games and I'm glad it's more based on the game in question now with a plethora of sources for gaming info, manuals, player knowledge and wikis etc, etc, online. If I take off the rose-tinted glasses gaming as a whole is in a way better place and marketing hype based on packaging is largely irrelevant. It SHOULD be about the game, not the 200 page manual and shiny packaging. Music and movies have all gone the same way. Tbh now it's just a waste of coin for such companies that cater to that minority with collectors editions anyway. /2 cents.
Impossible Mission - Airborne Ranger - Echelon - Pirates - Some of my top video games still of all time. Man I grew up on those along with the C64 SSI gold box games. Thanks for this video!
Wow, that guy took really good care of his games. What a find.
The Temple Of Apshai packaging seen at 20:15 is an unusual variation. CBS Electronics (later ECP) produced it in Australia under licence, but that clamshell case is one AFAIK exclusively used by Commodore. The topmost slot (above the two cassette slots) is for a Commodore 16 cartridge and no third parties produced those. The package is transitional from when CBS Electronics in Australia closed and its product line was shifted over to ECP: note how the cover slip is printed with CBS Electronics references, but has ECP stickers overlaid.
Wow, just a phenomenal haul.
Lazy Game Reviews hi
Really liked the presentation here, where you had the game cover and in-game video/pics visible at the same time. C64 games don't need to be shown full screen anyways being so low def as they are.
Good stuff.
I owned a commodore 64 when I was younger. And there was lot of classic games made for it. Great pick up....
Man those flat record style packages are gorgeous, never seen those before.
I always look forward to these videos. I love to see games I never had the chance to see myself
OMG what good memories! I got a C64 when I was 9. It made me everything I am today.
I played a lot of C64 as a kid, had tons of games, still I only recognized maybe 4-5 of those you picked up. The C64 library is just insane.
That's a different angle of the game room. Nice dude! Even though I'm a console gamer pretty exclusively I still find your PC centric videos very entertaining. Keep them coming!
Even though I played it as a kid over thirty years ago, Dan Dare Pilot of the Future was one of the best gaming experiences I've ever had.
I'm going to need a BIGGER game room ;)
we all do :-D
Well since you collect oversized pc game boxes, you would eventully need a game room like The Last Gamer :)
MetalJesusRocks love 80's home computers. love commodore. love big box pc and dos. keep it coming.
Cool video. I just recently picked up a cool somewhat rare C64c bundle called Test Pilot. It has a giant box with a C64c, 1541 II disk drive, a joystick and 5 games. The bundle was missing the games, but the C64c and 1541 II boxes were in excellent shape. I set it all up last weekend and played a bunch of C64 arcade ports for about 5 hours.
www.the-nextlevel.com/tnl/threads/60361-This-Month-s-Haul-It-s-April-fools!/page9?p=1065075554#post1065075554
+Poopie pants
WFT?!
Always makes me happy to open TH-cam and see a new MetalJesus video :D
In Europe we use nearly only cassettes because the floppy market was too expensive, the floppy drive alone at the time costed nearly as much as the C64 itself
That's really too bad... When coupled with an EPYX fast load cartridge, most games would load in under a minute
Wow so many sealed in box! Great condition on those. I was an Apple II guy back then and was often jealous of the cool games my friends had on the C64.
Snakebite and Wolfenstein were the only two Apple IIe games I had.
Amazing C64 lot! I don't have much experience with the C64, outside of a neighbor kid growing up, but I really enjoy seeing some of the early computer games that I never had an opportunity to play growing up. There's such a wealth of interesting titles from that era, and developers pushing into then-unexplored territory and trying new things.
Josh Dieckmann
What a find dude, like seriously it's none of my business what you paid but I watch a fair bit of retro gaming and collector commentary and this is a haul of gargantuan proportions let alone the amazing condition they are in. Outside that many of these games hold SO many memories for me...memories I did'nt even know I still had. Thanks so much for taking the time to share this as unlocking those memories is a gift I do not take for granted. Much appreciated.
Skyfox II was made by Damon Slye, who was one of the founders of Dynamix. In fact his very first game was Stellar 7 for the Apple II and C64. He later went on to make Arctic Fox for the C64, Amiga and others, and he also made the much-loved Project Firestart for the C64.
Staff of Karnath - I got pretty far in this game, but there were a couple pieces of the pentacle that I couldn't figure out how to get and a couple more than I couldn't even find. The same author created three other games in a similar style exclusively for the C64; Blackwyche, Dragonskulle and Entombed.
Impossible Mission II - My biggest problem with this game is that the rooms are confusing. It's hard to tell where the platforms are, plus you have some where the rooms connect to other rooms vertically, or you have to blow up floors. Then there's the code used to move between the towers being based on a musical sequence, which was a mystery to me as I'm not the least bit musically inclined.
Driller is definitely a European release as the American version was named Space Station Oblivion.
Rocket Ranger - Was the Rick Dangerous screenshot a mistake or did you just want to see if anyone would notice? :)
Masters of Time - I used to own this game, but either sold it, or it got lost over the years. As I recall you had to pilot a ship in a first person view, catch some kind of objects , and then answer history questions. Sadly since I no longer have the game and can't find a copy of the manual anywhere online, I don't really know how to properly play the game any more. I remember thinking it was kind of cool at the time. Pretty sure that's kind of a rare game these days.
You may have some problems running the European releases on a U.S. machine. In case you don't know, the video circuitry in the C64 was very much tied to the television standards of the countries they were meant for. U.S. models were designed to run at 60FPS NTSC, while British and European models were designed to run at 50FPS PAL.
You mentioned having a lot of pirated software back in the 80s; Did you ever get smaller, one-file games where you load them up and when you start the game, the graphics are flickering, there's garbage on the screen and the music doesn't sound right and you think "It figures, another screwed up game!"? I used to get that all the time and I used to think that the crackers were all incompetent, releasing such broken copies of games. Turns out that they were PAL games and that running them on an NTSC system screwed up the timing. This affected some games more than others. It's apparently possible to convert an American C64 to run PAL games properly, but you'd probably be better off just buying a PAL C64 if you want to run a lot of European software. Finding a CRT TV to display PAL signals can also be a challenge. Later Commodore monitors like the 1080 and 1084 should handle it fine (they do for the Amiga), but an American 1702 monitor might have problems. I once tried an 1802 monitor with my Amiga in PAL mode and it worked, but the colors were wrong.
Some absolute gems in that collection US owners were lucky to have disks in the UK we mostly had games on tape and they took forever to load, multiload games were a nightmare! Please can we have more computer game content rather than just consoles in the future, so many good 80s systems.
I spent so many hours playing "Seven Cities of Gold", "Airborne Ranger", "Pirates", "M.U.L.E" with my brother in the 80's on our C64. Games well ahead of their time. I played so many of these games you showed (yet we "traded: for most of ours..). Amazing trip down memory lane.
OMG ROCKET RANGER!!! My favourite game of all time! had it on the Amiga and it was ahead of its time! Great Episode as I remember most of these games from back in the day \m/
Mindroll? over here in the UK it was called Quedex. loved the soundtrack
Awesome video as always, dude. Really love that you showcase some of the old school 8-bit computer goodness.
I can't be the only one that's getting sick of SEGA/Nintendo retro videos in general, right? I'm glad to see channels branch out on to more esoteric formats, especially as a Brit where things like the c64 saw a little more love.
No, you aren't the only one. I Guess you haven't heard of Lazy Game Review's youtube channel then. If you haven't just give it a try, you'll not be disapointed. Oh and I thought that the ZX Spectrum was more famous in Great Brittain, compared to the C64.
Oh I love LGR's channel, I've also recently gotten into Nostagia Nerd and Kim Justice who very much stray from the typical consoles. The Speccy was huge but the C64 was at pretty much the same level of popularity, both those and the Amstrad CPC were in a computer war here in the UK. (there were more too, like the BBC Micro and Dragon 32.. we had tonnes of microcomputers fighting it out)
Yeah I totally forgot to mention them. NN and Kim Justice are both awesome, I especially love Kim Justice's documentaries.
Wow! So many memories just by looking at all those covers! Thank you so much for sharing, MJ!
Cheers!
MetalJesusRocks, love the format of this video (and great collection)!!
The editing is on point and your commentary is so nice. Overall, this video is so chill, and I love the wooden table.
Thanks so much! Glad you liked it.
Great to finally see some more C64 stuff on your channel. It would be good to see a bit more often actually.
I've been watching your videos for nearly a year and forgot to subscribe. Finally did you have great, entertaining content and I'm always learning something watching your videos. Keep up the good work.
Stay a while +MetalJesusRocks . Stay, forever!
He didn't include the original Wasteland in the mix. Copies of the Commodore release of that in original packaging can go for serious money.
This is just an epic collection, it makes me happy and also sad that the seller moved it all on - clearly a passionate collector.
Metal Jesus, no need to be so apologetic over this subject matter. This is a retro gaming channel. Plus, it's not like you do C64 ALL the time.
i was hoping he would have shown bionic commando gameplay while he talked about the clamshell box and showed the inside stuff
Unless I'm mistaken, that looks like the U.S. release, which sucked. For some reason, Capcom made different versions for the U.S. and UK/European markets. They did this with some other games too, like Ikari Warriors.
SNK made ikari warriors for the nes. i think the same for arcade too.
The c64 has 2 versions of ikari Warriors, 2 versions of bionic commando, 2 versions of donkey kong. Time to hit the internet and see if there are more double releases for the c64 out there
+Greymouth - There were also two versions of Crystal Castles and two versions each (cartridge and disk) of Congo Bongo, Zaxxon and Super Zaxxon.
I appreciate you being one of the few guys online who seems to give infocom the love they deserve. What an amazing company and what fun games even to this day even for new players. Can't recommend them enough.
When Eagle comic (featuring Dan Dare: pilot of the future) launched in the 50s in the U.K. it used to sell over a million copies A WEEK!
Great find, MJ. I'm glad these classics are in your hands. They'll be well-maintained and enjoyed. Thx for sharing with us!
I remember being impressed by the pc speaker doing speech for the Three Stooges game.
*we had it for dos
Amazing find, congrats MJR!
The C64 was my first computer and here in the Netherlands, most software was also sold on tapes. Disk drives weren't uncommon but still, tapes ruled. I even remember radio broadcasts, where they would send the software code through the airwaves for you to record on tape... it sounded like experimental death metal played by manipulating the sampled sound of seals.
Those boxes look fabulous though and add so much atmosphere and context. Back then I could only afford budget software really. These were mostly just a tape with a case and an insert, like the recordable tapes you could buy. But yes, there were "other ways" of getting a lot of software...
The "C64 scene" is still surprisingly active and lively! As sites like Lemon64 prove. Amazing demos that push the hardware beyond anything thought possible are still being made and commercial software is still being produced as well. Check out Psytronik for some hot new releases :)
BTW a LATE release for the C64 here in Europe / UK would be from 1993 (!). Mayhem in Monsterland was probably the last new succesful commercial game released that year. And then later the internet came...
got to love the bionic commando soundtrack, by the legendary Tim Follin. especially level 1. as an old dear from the uk brought up on the c64, it just has to be said.
Love the Commodore. It was my gateway to PC gaming.
MJR, I remember the splash screen when you connected to Sierra Online. There was a big satellite dish in the back yard of some nice old farmhouse at night. It felt really special when you got on. Also, I've not seen it pointed out very often, but the early computer games were a lot closer to the big, complicated board games of the time from places like Avalon Hill. The computer was doing the "dice rolling" and managing the counters so-to-speak, but the imagination was much the same as you used with a board game.
Fantastic to see this video, thanks for producing it, the C64 and ZX Spectrum were the main game systems I played growing up but never see them featured in videos that much. Its also funny to hear that the US never had cassette gaming as all my games were cassette. Some of the gaming documentaries I've seen kind of suggest with the eclipse of Atari there was a dark age and then BANG! Nintendo!! I love the extras, which I think you described as "feelies", to my knowledge some of those were included as tie ins to gameplay to try and prevent video games piracy. The did similar things with Amiga and then PC gaming (which were the main pirated platforms as I remember it, I also remember media speculation that cartridge gaming consoles would eclipse PC and other platforms because they could not be pirated so easily). I think a lot of the game play on earlier games was amazing, despite the graphics issues, if you ever get a chance (even try an emulator) play Cookie, Psst!, Lunar Jet Man, Pedro or even these two games called Trashman and Travel with Trashman. They are about as powerful as a very simple android game and very easy games by today's standards (people would probably think they are a joke) but they are really great fun. Really fun. Imaginative stuff too. That's before you even consider the weirdness of some of the Lama Soft games but that's for another time. Cheers.
As a child of the 90's these games were unfortunately before my time, BUT I respect the crap out of them and love their charm, the passion and professional words showcases them very well, this is why metaljesusrocks is the best video game TH-camr......rock on. :)
I never knew there were so many great games on the c64...I feel like I missed out just having an nes during that era.
I had a Commodore 64 while some friends had NES and I was immediately turned off by the NES controller- loved using my Atari joysticks... RC Pro Am for NES was great however
I think MetalJesus success is positive energy, enthusiasm and lack of controversy which simply appeals to all. I love these vids!
That's a hell of a haul. Love good ol' C-64 stuff. Found a nice little chunk of them myself last year, with 5 complete Infocom games. Good stuff.
Reggie's great and I love the dual pick ups vids but it was fun to see a "classic" Metal Jesus video of him going into new pick ups all by himself.
Thanks! I knew this would not be Reggie's thing...so I went solo this time!
What a great find! I had a massive C64 collection back in the day, and yet there are lots of titles here I have never heard of. The Arthur Pendragon series however, (Staff of Karnath, Blackwyche and a couple more) was seemingly very popular on the C64 in Europe back in the day, so it surprised me that it was new to you.
The reason is probably that the divide that existed between the US and Europe when it came to things like music (lots of artists were big in Europe but not in the US (maybe not even released at all) and vice versa) also extended to other types of media. In those pre-internet days you were largely at the mercy of what companies wanted to market in different parts of the world, making lots of titles unavailable and simply unknown to you until years later.
Rare used to be the company called Ultimate Play the Game, which developed Staff of Karnath. (6:49 mark).
I was born in "93 so I grew up with the Genesis, SNES, then eventually the N64 and beyond. Throughout my life I've turned into an avid PC gamer and HATE digital downloads. I missed the time frame to enjoy those C64 games but the packaging and artwork is awesome. I know we have companies like IndieBox but I don't really play indie games. I just wish bigger titles would put more thought into the packaging now like they did in the 80's and 90's.
You have the part of the market that just wants the DD, but for the others, I wouldn't mind paying extra for all the physical extras when I go to buy the game..
BTW I've been on a huge MJR kick for like 2 weeks now. I don't know what I'd do if you stopped making videos. Keep up the good work man. You have a good taste in games and music. Also, I'm still jamming Khemmis !
I love the ending on that intro!
I'm glad I've been around since coleco vision. as a gamer I have been able to experience and appreciate how games have evolved throughout the years. it's amazing. as always, I love your channel. and you rock metal Jesus!
I wish had kept track of and stored my C64 from back in the day. Got it in 1984 for Christmas while i was in high school. Got the tape drive to start and mail ordered my first game, Bruce Lee. I remember it would take what seemed like 30 mins to load from the tape drive into the C64 ram. Ah the good old days. Still my favorite system of all time for all the memories and games I played and trying to learn programming with it.
I love your channel! would love to see more stories about how you and your friends met and just yall drinking I really enjoyed it. I listened to it while I was at work
Sid Meiers Pirates! got remade on tons of systems including the Xbox, Wii and Genesis among others.
I totally love videos like this or the one with the flight simulators you did a while ago. That´s stuff nobody talks about in that quality anywhere else...really informative and entertaining! Please keep em coming. Text Adventures next? ;)
I love seeing pictures of the devs inside the old packaging.
I grew up with a Commodore 64 with a cassette deck!
This vid dropped into my recommend list and I'm glad it did. This really took me back to my youth when I owned a C64. I had the Lord of the Rings game you showed with the copy of the book, it was awesome. Also had Staff of Kanarth (plus many others of course). I'm from the UK and you're right we mainly only had the games on cassette and not on floppy disk, some catridges as well. Such fond memories.
wow...as young kid in the late 80's I remember being obsessed with a game and it's box art. I have tried for YEARS to remember it. and you show it within the first 30 seconds! Impossible Mission II!
Great vid, loved all the box art. I had a c-128 back in the 80s along with hundreds of games. But, saying that I've only played a handful of your pickup games, HUGE library.
Such positive vibes on this channel! Keep them coming! Such a cool dude🍻
Wow Andy really came up with the goods!
Lord of the rings game 1 really makes me curious and I've never seen game cassettes. Epic!
If I remember correctly, my memory is very good. Beyond Castle Wolfenstein inspired the game Wolfenstein which became Doom. Little history for you Metal Jesus found out about it from my cousin who was big into C64 games.
This was great! I have so many fond memories of the C64. The Three Stooges was one of my favorites! The mini games were lots of fun, challenging, and I loved the sound clips.
Hey MJR! There's another series to collect besides those AD&D/D&D gold box games.... all those MICROPROSE games. You have Airborne Ranger. Oh, man... remember Gunship? Silent Service games? DUDE! I think this video is now one of my favorite gaming finds video you have ever made!!!! I have owned my C64 for over 30 years now and it still works ;)
I LOVED Gunship on the C64. Played it a ton
I know little to nothing about that system but some of those games look like they'd be a blast. I'm dying for some developer to make a new battletech/mechwarrior style game
Download a copy of WinVICE (or whatever version is appropriate for your system) and you can find copies of the games on various web sites. Set it up like any other emulator. Then just use the Autostart Disk/Tape option on the File menu. Or manually attach a disk or tape image using the appropriate menu option and type;
LOAD
Followed by the Enter key for cassette games, or;
LOAD"*",8,1
For disk games. If it comes back to a READY prompt, try typing RUN and hitting Enter.
If a game doesn't work, try switching the machine type from NTSC to PAL or vice versa.
To bypass the cracking intros at the start of games, press the spacebar. If the firebutton doesn't start a game, try pressing each of the function keys.
The C64 had two joystick ports and there was no standard as to which port any given game used, so it helps to familiarize yourself with the Swap Ports option because it's pretty much guaranteed that the wrong port will be active for some games. Old C64 joke: Which port does this game use? The other one! :)
I really liked the inset screenshots and movies. Great job showing off those beautiful and interesting boxes.
The irony being that Sky Shark version is way better than the Flying Shark version, but both were programmed in the UK anyhow! The former was done by Software Creations, and if you know your C64, then you'll know their reputation on the machine. As it turns out, a lot of the games featured in the video were originally programmed in the UK and then released in the US, but the disk games you feature are definitely the US releases. I wonder how some UK tape games ended up in Seattle (such as Staff of Karnath)? Maybe he imported them ages back.
The video used for Ikari Warriors is the Elite (UK) version, but the Data East release was programmed in the US, and is completely different (and a lot worse!). There's quite a few of these in existence, two versions programmed either side of the Pond.
The clamshell games you note, Temple of Apshai is definitely the Australian release as you can see ECP on the label on the front.
The Three Stooges was also an arcade game conversion. I remember playing it in the arcade as a teen. It was similar to Atari's Food Fight. All those arcade games are available on MAME emulator.
The Seven Cities of Gold... OMG I loved that game so much as a kid. We actually played it in school as well. Also remember M.U.L.E?
Yep! M.U.L.E. is a classic as well. I don't have a copy though :(
I have always wanted to collect for C64 but dont know where to start. That would be a good video!!
Some excellent pick-ups there; I'm very jealous!
The box art on the 80's games were/are incredible.
Great Find! I love Elete. I use to use my C64 to Connect to BBS's and Text based Internet in the early 90's
The artwork on the covers is always amazing. That's the thing I remember most when thinking back tho the old pc type games of the 80s
Oh, man. Operation Wolf!!! That on is a treasure - back in the 90's they used to have it in almost every amusement parks here in Finland and I was always playing it. I think I never had it on my C64 collection back in the day but THAT brought a lot of memories.
LOVED that video!! so fond memories from the Commodore days :-))))
It's amazing how they put so much coding in so little space then,
Big THANK YOU, MetalJesus, you ROKK!!
Awesome pickups! 😀👍🏻 I love the box art! I grew up with the C64. I really need to buy one for my collection. So many great memories! 😊
In Australia we had a lot of tapes for the C64, and Melbourne House was an Australian publisher. So I'm guessing some of these games may be from Oz.
This is a great find. From us Commodore collectors, thanks for sharing!
Definitely agree a lot of these are British releases, due cassettes as you mention, the Mastertronix title, and A2. Did they have any PAL/NTSC distinction labeled?
EA also had a title called Instant Music which was a lot like GarageBand.
I remember when Commodore 64 games were clearing out in the late 80s and early 90s and you could get all those Infocom games for like $2 each.
Mindroll @ 7:28 was called Quedex over here in the UK - great game!
What a fantastic find! Indeed, in EU most of our C64 games were on cassettes. Which made them cheaper at the time, but they get damaged easily.
amazing stuff. I had a C64, it was the most common computer in my country (Argentina) but we never got the chance to see real boxed games, 100% of games were bootlegs. This was like a dream come true for me!
I've been praying that for years speedball would return, I LOVED it when I was little and I think it would definitely work now, with online co op and games like rocket league doing so well, even keeping the top down look.. not sure, but I know the game would be epic
I'm in the UK and never realised that you didn't get many cassettes with the c64. You were lucky to miss out on the 10min loading times but unlucky that you missed out on some of the amazing loading music!
So many of my favourite classics! Thanks for posting this!!
Extremely nice haul I'm so jealous lol! Thanks for sharing. I hope you go over some of these rarer games in a little more detail (or a brief let's play of them) sometime.
Question - Are you able to play the games on tapes? What a cool collection! Never really knew what the C64 was about so this was great.
Yep...all you need is a tape drive for the C64, which are really cheap.
Never seen that Operation Wolf comic before. Good stuff.
Such a good deal you found. The C64 wasn't my first computer (that would be the Vic-20) but it was the first computer that really influenced me as a PC gamer. Among others I had played on it was Pinball Construction Kit (Bill Budge, who would later create Virtual Pinball for the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive), Temple of Apshai, Zork, Hacker and Forbidden Forest; that game wasn't much to look at from today's standpoint but the mood and especially the music, still send chills down your spine.
The C64 was also the first computer that got me online, so there's that too. I still have a C64c and a 1541 floppy drive in my collection. Now I just need to re-buy all of the games of my bygone youth :)
Dude yes! Rendezvous with Rama - read the books and had the C64 game. I still have the fold out blueprint of Rama that came with the game. Awesome! Yes so much fun with Eidolon and Mindshadow and Heart of Africa. Great memories. And wow - I loved Driller but had forgotten the name of the game until now (thank you!) I wish some of these great older C64 games would be available on places like gog.com - and games like Fort Apocalypse, Killerwatt, and Telengard. Thanks for the great video MJR :)
I love these 80's games. I only have one big box: beneath a steel sky
DUDE! Massive fan of the c64 as I grew up on it.Had 2 complete systems with monitors and 100s of floppys.SO COOL!
I like the format of this video. Good job.
Nice haul. I really miss old school packaging.
Hey Jesus! Just started watching you a few months ago, and let me tell you Im hooked!! You are GREAT to watch. Thank you for what you do. I use a app on my phone called "Offer Up". Great game finds on there aswell . Thanks again! - Pete
That Three Stooges game was a great birthday gift for me. I loved all the different games they had in it. I fondly remember the oyster cracker eating game.
Great collection! Thanks for sharing. But would've been great if you had a screenshot for all the games. Most of them I also didn't know. C64 was one of my very first. :D
What a treasure trove of a find. Although I was never a Commodore fan (Sinclair Spectrum and cassettes for me), there are some multi format classics shown. Nice to see the seller, Andy, kept all the goodies in the boxes! Please, you have to return to him a buy the Amiga collection. Please! (With maybe, Xenon 2 Megablast, Speedball 2, Cadaver, Mercenary, et al)...