Gaming News — Commodore 64

Rest assured, we do what we can to comb through the updates and bring you the ones we deem fit to suit your cultured tastes. As such, we cap off the month with even more creepy unsettling retro games that pack the right amount of punch when it comes to action and new upcoming console that pays tribute to the classics the best way it knows how.

If you're just about as ready as we are for the yuletide season, just around the corner, Stick around as we bid spooky November farewell and brace ourselves for the first days of snow. 

Let's go! 

SHADOW MAZE

Now, the CPC Retro Dev 2023 brought us a lot of potential bangers, and Rayon Studio just might have a game you'll find quite interesting, especially if you own an Amstrad CPC. Shadow Maze is a game that finds players traversing a dark tomb, only illuminated by precious glowing stones. There's a lot of darkness and a lot of exploration. Two things that don't really mix, but make for a good game mechanic.

In this title, you portray Gwydion, a young Celtic magician who finds himself in a temple to find a way to craft a potion of invincibility. Things won't be so easy, though. As Merlin, your rival looks to foil all your plans and transform the temple into a dark tomb, and seal you inside for all eternity, like all evil villains do.

It's a race against time to escape the dark tomb, follow the luminous stones, and craft that badass potion as destiny foretold. If you're into finding your way out of the dark and enjoy exploring while you're at it, Shadow Maze is a game to get hyped for.  

TOWER OF EVIL

This time, we take a look at another title for the Commodore 64. It's a nice part of the old-school classic game Tower of Evil, a title which first came out on the Commodore 16, plus/4, ZX Spectrum, and VIC 20 way back between 1984 and 1985, thanks to Creative Sparks. This top-down action game sees you playing the role of Andross, a hero banished years ago by a terrible king and can only return once he rescues the kidnapped princess and finds the king's lost treasure.

This would all seem nice and easy, but with an evil necromancer standing in your way, well, you'd be dead wrong. You explore the game by going through each floor, searching the rooms, looking for treasure, and battling various creatures until you manage to find the princess. It's an intense gauntlet of stages where you must be on your toes or fall flat on your face.

Pretty intense, given how high the stakes are. You're saving the princess and saving the world, after all. Looking to climb the Tower of Evil? then check hitport out. 

ANALOGUE POCKET CLASSIC

Now we're looking at a classic design handheld that'll tug on your heartstrings and bring back many fond memories of childhood. Yes, Analogue just unveiled yet another special limited edition run of their insanely popular Analogue Pocket Classic.

Last time, we had a glow-in-the-dark and transparent. Now, we're getting a variety of pretty colors. And by pretty colors, I mean red, green, blue, yellow, pink, orange, indigo, and silver. Yes, the Analogue Pocket Limited Edition is definitely a whole lot of eye candy, with a generous 3.5-inch LCD panel with a 1600x1440 resolution in a 10x9 format. You can see where this is going. 

Yes, the sweet devices are all modeled specifically after your favorite classic Game Boy Pocket and Game Boy Advance colorways. If you're a 90s kid, then you know exactly what I'm talking about. Aside from playing original game cartridges for Game Boy and Game Boy Advance, you can emulate using ROMs thanks to the dedicated FPGA chip and microSD card slot. Definitely a modern classic. As for pricing and availability, the limited edition Analogue Pocket Classic is now available with new colorways retailing for $ 249.99 each and limited to two per order. If you want to snag one of these colorful bad boys, best to check out Analog's official website. 

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November is in full swing, boys and girls, and for all of us, that means more retro games and consoles are in the pipeline. So it looks like we’ve got nothing but fun and excitement until the year ends. So, if you’re curious about why, then this week’s news will convince you.

Continuing with our theme of old-school action-packed gaming, we have a sweet side scroller, a fast-paced title for all the daredevil gearheads out there, and yet another brand-new handheld in the works. If that works up your appetite, stick around to find out more!

STUNT CAR RACER

First off, we’re getting a port for an unlikely console this week, namely the Apple II. For those who were gaming through the golden years of the 80s, you’re probably familiar with a certain title that involved a lot of racing and a lot of stunts. It’s in the name, after all. Jeff Cramlin’s Stunt Car Racer was a game that gave us fast-paced competition, satisfying crashes and the ever-infamous ski jumps, to name a few.

Thanks to some modern gaming magic, It’s finally making its way to the Apple II after finding some success on the Commodore 64. It’s nice that everyone gets to have a turn behind the wheel. This did come with a few compromises, though. For those who’ve been used to driving around with all the original features, a few had to make the cut. Like multiplayer championships or the ability to save your entire season on disk.

Still, it’s nice to see Stunt Car Racer getting more releases in 2023. Hopefully, we’ll be getting more of it in the following year.

TOKI

Heading back to the Commodore 64, we’re looking at yet another 80s classic that’s a good number, if you might remember. In 1989, Akira Tsukuma brought his arcade platformer and shooter, Toki, to the NES, Sega Mega Drive, Atari, Amiga, and of course, Commodore 64. So you’ll be hyped to know that it’s getting a well-deserved remaster.

For those unfamiliar, the game has you playing as a powered-up ape, transformed from a human, that shoots energy balls from his mouth. Now, if you know 80s Japanese pop culture, you know this was all the rage back then. Honestly, it still is now.

The goal is to keep defeating strange creatures and eventually an evil wizard with your psychic simian fire powers. It’s pretty badass and an absolute classic. The C64 port is still in development, with no specific release date. They did give a rough estimate of a 2024 launch, so at the very least, we can be hyped for the near future. Especially if you’re a true blue Toki fan. Feel free to go bananas!

ANBERNIC RG ARC

In the past couple of weeks, we’ve been talking peripherals, attachments, and even colorways. This time, we’ve gotten news on a completely new console. Yes, boys and girls, Anbernic’s coming through with the RG ARC handheld. If they look a bit familiar to our eagle-eyed, cultured viewers, you’ll notice that the new Anbernic RG ARC handhelds are heavily inspired by the good old Sega controllers of yesteryear. Especially the Sega Saturn controller, which also got a retro bit makeover recently. Long story short, it’s an absolute blast from the past.

It’s also worth noting that out of the recent handheld emulation devices to come out. It’s one of the very few to feature a 4-inch screen and no analogue joysticks, so that means it’s old school as they come. It's perfect for any Sega Classic title and 2D arcade fighting game you can think of.

As for specs, you can rest easy with both the dual OS and single OS models sporting a beefy RK3566 chipset with emulation capabilities up to 64-bit. The single OS version will retail for just under 70 USD. On the other hand, the dual OS RG ARC, which can run both Linux and Android 11, retails for just under 90 USD.

As of right now, you can score one of these bad boys over at the Anbernic official website. This is an absolute must for any hardcore, old-school Sega aficionado.

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As the month of September comes rolling in, so does a slew of retro gaming news and updates for everyone to enjoy. Now, towards the end of Q3 of 2023, the number of retro titles and retro-ready consoles keeps getting higher, and we know you're all excited for what we're bringing. From old-school story-driven games to action-packed shoot 'em ups, to super-powered pocket PCs, best believe we got a scoop this week, so sit tight and enjoy the ride. Let's go!

CHALUUL’S CURSE

To all the Commodore 64 havers who want a great retro PC game from the 90s, you're in luck. This week, BrocantyGames PC remake of Chaluul's Curse is available to download and play on the C64 thanks to Sönke Wolfgramm. While this may not be the most action-packed game you'll come across, the text-driven story mechanics will hook you right in.

You follow the exploits of Howard Carter, an archaeologist and Hobby Detective, who finds himself tasked by an old friend to uncover the secret of an ancient sword of the Knights Templar. What's so special about it? It comes packed with a good old ancient fatal curse, just like any old relic. Chaluul's Curse was written in Adventure Game Studio as freeware for Windows, Linux, and Mac back in 1995. The game itself featured several puzzles, which have since been remade to be more logical and more challenging to solve.

Newer versions, like this one, include extra responses and dialogue to player actions, different mouse controls, and new music and sound design for newcomers to enjoy. It's something to pick up in 2023 if mysteries, storytelling, and decision-making are a big part in your gaming experience. So, if taking on archaeological mysteries and ancient curses is up your alley, then maybe Chaluul's Curse will be worth your time.

COMMANDO

Now, for a little something that retro action gamers and Atari XL owners can get hyped for. We got news that Shanti77 just announced that the previous Commodore 64 conversion of Commando had received a small fix update for the Atari XL. While this has nothing to do with the old-school Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, you do kind of feel the same way John Matrix does in the movie.

Commando is a one-man army shoot 'em up where your mission is to kill anything that moves to progress through the game. Sounds easy enough, right? You might think otherwise, as the baddies keep coming, and the difficulty gets cranked up to the maximum. This port has a few differences compared to the arcade conversion from a while back, but this time, you're guaranteed extra sprites, some very smooth scrolling, and brand-new level changes, which is great!

The music and sound design still need a bit of work, but Shanti77 is on the job to ensure that this commando will be worth playing if you have an Atari XL/XE with VBXE. 

AYANEO

Console time. We've covered our fair share of handhelds, but we're kicking things up with something that packs more power. Our good friends over at Ayaneo just unveiled the first few clear and confirmed images of one highly anticipated handheld device. We're talking about the Ayaneo Flip. Just a few months after announcing the Ayaneo Kun, revealing the new Ayaneo Pocket S, and an upgrade for the Ayaneo Pocket Air, we're getting yet another banger from the popular brand. And from the look of things, we're in for quite the surprise. 

So far, we only have a sneak peek of the aesthetics and no specs just yet. It's also worth noting that this could be a Windows-powered device, given its design. So, the chipset packing is still up in the air. Ryzen 7 processor? Maybe. Hopefully, the flip features two joysticks, a compact keyboard, a D-pad, ABXY buttons and what looks like a massive OLED screen.

Given Ayaneo's track record of premium gadgets, we can only expect top-shelf quality. While having a long list of announcements over the year is nice, we feel the INEO flip won't be coming out anytime soon. The best bet would be early to mid-2024. Still knowing it's in the pipeline gives all of us something to be excited about. We personally can't wait. 

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We're now starting a new month, and while we did slow things down a bit in the past few weeks, we need to kick things up a notch to make up for last time. We never forgot about the fast-paced nature of retro gaming friends, so don't worry. 

From Atari to MS-DOS to Commodore 64, we're going coast to coast with three different titles that'll pique a variety of interests. It's always great to have options when choosing a game to keep you company over a busy week. It's time to make a choice, so watch on to see what you're working with.

TRAX

The year was 1993, and the Bitmap Brothers dropped one of the hottest games of that year. The original Chaos Engine initially made for the Amiga. It pits one or two players against horrible demonic entities in an intense top-down shooter. Fast forward to 2023. We have a very sweet love letter from Shanti77, to the OG Chaos Engine called Trax.

This time around, It'll come out on the Atari XL/XE. It's still too early to say if it'll be turned into a full game, but we're getting some development notes from the developer. So far, Trax features a variety of enemies, items to pick up, keys to collect, sound effects, three new levels, improved AI and some graphical improvements. So far so good. It looks like Atari XL and XE owners have a great game to look forward to. 

GOLD MINE RUN

It's quite a special occasion as we don't get that many MS-DOS releases, especially on GOG. This retro title comes from Juan J. Martinez, an absolute Chad who's released other great games like Hyperdrive for the CPC and Night Knight for the MSX.

This time we're getting a sweet MS-DOS game called Gold Mine Run, a high-quality platformer inspired by the classics, but with a twist. You have to collect all the gold throughout each of the 30 stages to progress. Now that's intense. So far, we know that Gold Mine Run is a single-screen arcade platformer that totally channels that old-school nostalgic vibe of eighties arcade classics.

The game's design was strongly influenced by Night Knight for the MSX, and Juan J. Martinez made sure of that. As for the requirements, of course, you’ll need MS-DOS to run it, plus a 386 DX at 33 megahertz, VJ Graphics, a sound blaster, and at least 4 megabytes of RAM. So to anyone on GOG who runs with the MS-DOS crowd, it's high time you checked out or took part in the Gold Mine Run.

BILL & TED'S EXCELLENT GAME BOY ADVENTURE

Last but not least, we get a very hip and cool blast from the past on the Commodore 64. If you're a fan of the nineties and, at the very least, own an old school Game Boy, then you'll be psyched to know that this latest release by Roman Werner is a wonderful Port of Bill and Ted's excellent Game Boy adventure for the C64. 

This title will definitely rekindle some of those very late eighties and early nineties memories because Keanu Reeves, even if it's just tiny pixels of him. Yes, LJN and Beam Software's legendary game has finally made its way to the Commodore 64 more than 30 years later.

Currently available on itch.io., this is a very accurate conversion of the legendary Bill and Ted Game Boy game for modern C64 sensibilities. It's remained from scratch, optimized for the C64 and features SID Music by Nordischsound. Did we mention that Pixel Keanu Reeves is in it? Yes, of course. What's more is, it's absolutely free on itch.io. So, if you wanna relive the glory days of the early nineties, best to download Bill and Ted's excellent Game Boy Adventure for the C64. 

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