Commodore 64

Book excerpt: Commodore 64: A Visual Commpendium celebrates one of the most popular home computers of all time, taking readers on a journey through the C64's varied and colorful gaming library. In the 1980s, the C64 played host to an incredible array of genres, from shoot 'em ups to puzzlers, racing games to arcade adventures, to games that still defy categorization (The Sentinel, anyone?). Other 1980s video game titles included Jupiter Lander, Beach Head, Dropzone, Impossible Mission, Elite, Mercenary, Uridium, and The Last Ninja. By the 1990s, talented coders were making the machine do things the original hardware designers didn't think were possible: games like Turrican, Creatures, and Lemmings showed that there was life left in the old CPU yet. Even when Commodore was no longer being manufactured, the games kept coming. This book pays homage to the developers that kept the system alive, featuring games that were completed and released a decade after the last boxed C64. Commodore 64: A Visual Commpendium features more than 100 titles, represented by beautiful in-game shots or loading screens, plus a gallery of artwork by legendary Zzap!64 artist Oliver Frey. Also included are a series of features, including profiles of key Britsoft developers, interviews with famous C64 artists, a look back at the demo scene, plus a showcase of unreleased titles and the new games being released more than 20 years after the last machine rolled off Commodore's production line. Presented in full-color throughout, printed on high quality paper, and complete with a spot-varnished protective dust cover, this book is a treat for anyone who grew up playing games or learning their craft on this most ubiquitous of home computers.