Who's gonna get the C64 DTV Joystick?

[Ted]

The 26th of November the Commodore 64 Direct TV Joystick will be available.
It's a joystick which directly attachs to the TV with about 30 built in original Commodore 64 games, like Winter Games, Summer Games, Pole Position 2. Pricing is very low, about $40 or so.
So, who's an 'old' C64 fan like me (still have two of them, including approx 1000 games) and is gonna get one of these?

(for more info, google on 'c64dtv')

Ted

[Rob]

Hey Ted & Loki!

If you are interested in old videogames you might be interested in the following (I guess the C64dTV must be similar)...



Games: Centipede, Adventure, Gravitar, Asteroids, Breakout, Missile Command, Circus Atari, Yar's Revenge, Pong, Real Sports Volleyball

or this one...



Games: Pac-Man, Bosconian, Dig Dug, Galaxian, Rally-X

or this one...



Games: Atlantis, Crackpots, Pitfall, Ice Hockey, River Raid, Boxing, Grand Prix, Spider, Fighter, Tennis, Freeway

I found the pics on the site of a german shopping-TV channel but I've seen these things sold in local supermarkets and toystores too. They approximately also cost about EUR 35 to EUR 40.

I probably will get myself one or two of them because most of these games bring back fond memories of my childhood

Cheers, Robert

[Ted]

Nice Rob! I like the Namco with PacMan.

[Senate]

Is there Half-Life 2 included in one of these?

[J Smith]

Kids got 2 of them last Xmas.They were about 10.00 each.The games looked just like the old games I paid .25 cents each to play.

[UK KEN]

Hello All


Thank you for the reminders of my youth! I started playing games on my dads Tandy TRS 80 when I was 16! It was very advanced having a green screen. I never did get to the end of "Domes of Kilgari". There were no graphics and instructions were typed in to progress through the games.

After the Tennis/Ping Pong games Space Invaders was a huge leap forward! Things really picked up with the introduction or Asteroids and when Galaxian arrived in the UK I was in my element. I could stand playing a Galaxian game for about 30 minutes without "dying".

Missile Command was another great game and introduced the “Ball” controller. We had competitions in our local pub, the “Chained Bull” in Leeds. They were carefree days where life was there to enjoy, no thoughts or worries about what the next day would bring!

I was playing Halo 2 on the X-Box last night with my son James who is almost 7. It is an excellent game and he will hopefully remember the times we spend together when he reaches my age. I still have some of the games systems from my past tucked away in the attic. I will have to get them out and try to explain to James how, before he was even thought of, his mother and I would sit with friends playing Dizzy on the C64 for hours! I wonder if the kids of today would see the attraction of navigating an animated egg through puzzles.

Thanks again for reminding me of good times!

Regards Ken

[J Smith]

Ever make it to the end of Galaxian?
256 stages and it gives up.Theres a trick to it.
We used to double team it,drop 25 cents in and 2 of us would play it for over 5 hours.That really ticked the arcade owners off.

[UK KEN]

J Smith

I never did get to the end! After 30 minutes of not blinking my eyes would give up! I did manage to upset the landlord of a pub who had just had the Galaxian machine delivered that day by putting on a high score that he felt would put future players off!

With Galaxian it seemed that I got into a rhythm with the dropping beasties. You'll know what I mean when I say after lengthy practice you knew exactly what each wave was going to do. Hitting the two reds and one gold group in sequence always added to the score.

It is good to find a fellow addict!

Ken

[J Smith]

IIRC the trick was to shoot all the ships except for the bottom 2 in the first colum either in the first or second stage(can't remember which) and dodge thier fire until they ran out of ammo (took a good while) after they ran out none of the other ships on any of the stages would fire at you.The only concern was getting hit by the ships.

[Ted]

IIRC the trick was to shoot all the ships except for the bottom 2 in the first colum either in the first or second stage(can't remember which) and dodge thier fire until they ran out of ammo (took a good while) after they ran out none of the other ships on any of the stages would fire at you.The only concern was getting hit by the ships.

I remember a friend of mine doing it this way. Wasn't there a specific position in stage 1 or 2 where you could 'hide' from the ships till they ran out of ammo?

Ted

[dialex]

He, he, I still regret that I sold my old Spectrum Z80 clone. There's where I started to learn Basic and PLAY (no it's not another OS). I remember I used a C64 tape recorder with the Spectrum because it had better (rectangular) signal. A C64 was, unfortunately, beyond our possibilities. Not to mention C64 software was by far more difficult to find.
Anyone who was into that sort of things should remember Arkanoid, Dizzy, Saboteur, Jet Set Willy and of course Elite Some of those games were quite remarcable. For instance "The Sentinel" had 10000 (ten thousand) levels in less than 64 kb! And it was fully 3D. "Academy" was also 3D, and it had a customizable object based interface (just like nowadays operating systems, you could choose the background, the windows aspect and position) - except it was also in less than 64 Kb. Now that's what I call programming!
However, I don't know if I'd get myself the C64 joystick. You see, some time ago I got an emulator that turns your PC into a Spectrum and I tried to live again the thrill - unsuccessfully.
It happened the same thing when I tried to play Wolfenstein, Dune2, Magic Carpet and even Doom. Only a few games have the privilege to last - at least for me. The first I can think of among those are Sid Meyer's Civilisation and Peter Molineaux's Dungeon Keeper II. Now and then - Tiberian Sun. Shooters are fine, but once finished, I hardly feel the need to play them again (except maybe for Half Life, I played it several times).