Here's an interesting item that was just posted on the Commodore Server user blogs.. a member named Rik Magers recently picked up one of Jim Brain's uIEC flash drives for the Commodore 64. He took things a step farther when he noticed that the alarm box for his door actually resembled a miniature CBM 1541 disk drive.

So whats a geek to do? Well, sacrifice the poor defenseless alarm sensor in order to bring back some long lost computing memories, of course! Nostalgia is a powerful motivator. The recent passing of such luminaries as Steve Jobs perhaps makes us cling to the these early memories of computing nirvana even more tightly than we normally do.

[ MAR . 27 . 2011 ]
 

Greetings folks! Welcome to the March 27th, 2011 edition of Three for the Road.

This week we take a look at a retro style platform game where you try to save the dinosaurs from extinction.. a shoot'em up where music plays an integral role in the gameplay.. and a recent scene re-release for the venerable Commodore 64.

[ FEB . 20 . 2011 ]
 
Greetings folks! Welcome to the February 20th, 2011 edition of Three for the Road. This week I take a look at a couple of new releases for the Commodore 64, with a remake of a fantastic Pac-Man clone.. as well as a brand new action / platformer, set aboard various star ships in the depths of space. Wooo! We also take a look at a unique arena / tube shooter which has been taken off active sale and is now being given away for free.

[ JAN . 12 . 2011 ]
 
I remember back in 1976 when my father came home with Atari Pong... We hooked it up straight away on the TV set in the kitchen and just played the hell out of it. Only being five, I didn't quite get the hours in on it that my older siblings did, but I still logged quite a few.

Who would have thought that something so damned simple could hold your attention for so long? Simply put, it was a new technology that really foreshadowed the possibility of what was about to come. And it didn't take long.. Atari 2600, Fairchild Channel F, Bally Astrocade, Intellivision, Odyssey 2... all of these systems owe their existence, at least in part, to the financial success of Atari Pong... and conceptually to the Magnavox Odyssey by Ralph H. Baer and, of course, Willy Higinbotham for his oscilloscope rendition of Tennis for Two.

I've been checking out a ton of Commodore 64 related sites recently and came across this little gem: C64 Pixels. The website is archiving and cataloging all of the C64 artwork it can get a hold of, and it looks fairly well organized. All of the artwork is broken down by year, format and artist.

If you're a fan of C64 pixel art and don't want the hassle of firing up an emulator or viewing these on actual hardware, then this site is a dead simple alternative to getting your pixel art fix.

-Chip

[ JAN . 04 . 2011 ]
 
It's just amazing that we can still be reviewing new Commodore 64 releases in this day and age.. and there's nothing wrong with that. You guys know that I always like to give these games a shout-out because they are getting fewer and far between. They also tend to get buried under the mass of new titles for current systems. Also, who wouldn't want some new games to play on this nearly thirty year old beast. :-)

So, today we were contacted by Shoot'em-Up Construction Kit (S.E.U.C.K) king extraordinaire, Alf Yngve, about his latest S.E.U.C.K. game release over at Psytronik Software.

>> Quick Peeks: Nanako in Classic Japanese Monster Castle [C64]

This week we are taking a look at Inside's [Portuguese Link] oddly entertaining (not to mention, odd) platformer for the Commodore 64: Nanako in Classic Japanese Monster Castle.

Newcomer (C-64) collageThanks to our friends at GameSetWatch for the excellent blog post informing us of the pending release of a computer role playing game (CRPG) for the legendary Commodore 64 (C-64), entitled, Newcomer. Apparently 20 years in the making, this appears to be the epitome of "epic", with top notch visuals, enhanced interactions, and everything else you'd expect from a modern day C-64 game. According to GameSetWatch, "The game has elements from both classic adventure titles and tabletop roleplaying games, placing an emphasis on interacting with characters, exploring the world, developing in/game and real life skills, and solving puzzles.

It's a massive title (for the C64), as one would expect after 20 years of development. Newcomer features 180+ characters to interact with (each with their own portraits), 10+ people who can join your party of six, 50+ areas created with 30+ graphic sets, 100+ cutscenes, 180,000+ words of in-game text, thousands of puzzles, and more all packed into 2 MB."

I for one can't wait, and I know one or two our readers surely feel the same...

Full Feature Set from the Protovision Website, where they seem to indicate that this had a prior life, including as "Enhanced Newcomer", with this version being "Ultimate Newcomer" (fingers crossed this gets a fully packaged release!):

·  · ·· Quick Peeks: Quod Init Exit [C=64] ·· ·  ·

It's nice to see new software being written for classic machines. Today we will be taking a look at a new platform game which was released on October 29th, 2010 called "Quod Init Exit".