Nintendo vs. Commodore 64! *28 GAMES* Compared!!! 

Thanks for taking the time to watch the video! Check out my Instagram: instagram.com/gregsgameroom/ Every Konami NES Game: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-AO1qrfzyDtI.html Nintendo NES vs. Atari 7800: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-OtB1vwTntcs.html Playing Unreleased NES Games! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-OTm0vb-gHhA.html

This is the first time I've heard someone say "meh" to the C64 Commando music.

For an accurate representation of the two systems back in the day you would have to purchase the NES game for $25-50 and pirate the C64 game off a mate. The one button thing was annoying and followed onto the Amiga. :/

Commando music on C64 >>>>>>>>>>>>> Commando music on NES. It's a Rob Hubbard classic

The differences are a lot more complex. On a lot of the things the NES comes out ahead: it has many more (although smaller) sprites, _much_ better scrolling support, and more audio voices. The C64 has a lot of RAM compared to it, and with a specially-devised cartridge can make use of mappers just like the NES can, but didn't use too often because of the relatively inexpensive tape and disk media. The thing the C64 really has over the NES, though, is that it can update its screen more or less whenever it wants, while the NES relies on doing this during a fairly narrow period of time each frame. This means it largely cannot update all of its screen's background tiles each frame, and must stagger its updates over multiple frames. However its scrolling support really helps in making up for this, since in nearly all cases the updates will be done in an off-screen area. The C64 also has much bigger (although fewer) sprites. If its sprites are made double-wide, the whole horizontal area of the screen can be filled with sprites, although their pixels will be double-width. With multicolor sprites the pixels will be even wider.

That Commodore 64 sound chip is so unique. My grandma had one when I was a kid and those sounds really take me back

Excellent video and great nostalgic moments showing up everywhere as I used to be an 80s kid! Just one nitpick, how can you not love the fantastical and legendary soundtrack of C64 Commando by the master himself Rob Hubbard? :D

Another sub. Thanks a lot for this. I never had an NES, just my fantastic C64, but it's always nice to see another system in action.

I had the Commodore game of Ghostbusters. The car glitching must be an emulator thing. It definitely looked good on the original disk.

Awesome Job, Greg. I actually thing the C64 can put all 16 colors on screen in both medium and high res. Each with limitations. In High-res its 1 color per 8x8 square and in medium its 3 colors per 8x8 square. This is why the tiled backgrounds were easier to make on the C64 than the Atari 8bit (with Display list interrupts). Anyway, as always, your videos are some of favorites!

Excellent video and comparison. 👍

Nice video! It reminded me of all the Pac-Man and Donkey Kong clones I used to have on the Commodore. I do have to argue with you about the Commando music though, that song is still one of my favorites from video games. Its right up there with the Champions of Krynn theme.

Nice video. Enjoying watching Greg's new video in time for the holidays is somehow comforting, like visiting an old friend at Christmas. Have a good one, all the best.

The C64 actually does support 2 buttons, it's just a pity that hardly any games took advantage of it - Super Mario Bros does have the option. Probably didn't help that aside from the awful 2-button Cheetah Annihilator joystick, not many 2 button controllers or joysticks were ever manufactured for it.

I never had a Commodore 64, so seeing the comparison for these was a great experience. And like you, nothing made me angrier than the Ghostbusters game!

I used to have the C64 Ghosts & Goblins tune as my ringtone. Had it when I was a kid and played it a ton

There's a Commando Deluxe homebrew game on the Commodore 64 that's worth checking out. It restores the missing levels.

Greg’s Game Room has done it again!

"You only have one button on the joystick." Most C64 games map a second action to the space bar for a very important reason: space bar is mapped to the mouse button on controller port 2. This was done on purpose because they would (and still do) sell adapters that go on your C64 that bridge the 2 gamepad ports into a single sega master system (or genesis) compatible port, which works as a 2 button gamepad. The vast, vast majority of C64 games work like this, such as turrican, robocop, tmnt, etc.

I had no idea that these early, "low-fi" Nintendo games even existed. My first games were the NES Super Mario games, Zelds, and other "high quality games." Cool video.Thanks!.

Last weekend, I compared Wheel of Fortune First Edition for both systems. The puzzles are mostly identical in both versions with some spelling variants (i.e. HALLOWEEN on C64 vs. HOLLOWEEN on NES), but there are slightly more puzzles on C64. The NES version has more AI names, and both have Marty as an AI name. The letter turners look different on the two versions--there's a blonde wearing a pink dress on NES and a redhead wearing a white dress on C64.

WOW, it's surprising you never saw "Road Runner" in the arcade, as even though it wasn't the most popular title ever, I did see it in a good number of places. The arcade game did have a rather unique analog joystick that was rather stiff, but it was perfect for that game, and Atari were masters of special controllers back then. Sadly without being able to speed up and slow down in movement, it makes all home versions less than accurate gameplay wise. I've never played the C64 version, but just looking at it here, it looked way more arcade accurate graphically than the NES game. But can't argue with the sound, but going by looks I would prefer the C64, and being slower might actually help game play since analog controls aren't offered. Great video BTW, and maybe consider time stamps in the future to help overall video quality.

The graphics of Commando looks really nice on the NES but Hubbard's music on the C64 makes the Commodore version much better for me. Seriously that music should be in the first 5 best C64 music ever with some other Hubbard songs.

Its sacrilege that you find the C64 Commando music warbly 😂 that tune is regarded as one of the best C64 game tunes of all time 😮 Gyruss on the C64 is amazingly close to the arcade, it's definitely one of the best versions of Gyruss across all systems and even of all C64 arcade conversions ever. Whilst the NES version looks good, it tries to be too much with boss fights 🤷 Less is more some times and especially with Gyruss. I think Roadrunner on the C64 is very good...yes, its a shame about the glitchiness of getting caught in the scenery sometimes but its a smooth, fast paced and clean looking arcade conversion. I never grew up with the NES being from the UK. Home computers were more popular than consoles and so I am very much biased to the Commodore 64...and think yourself lucky...you had disks, we were mainly tape based 😂 imagine how long it took our games to load 😂👍

Are you sure the stats between the nes and the C64 at the beginning of the video are correct?

One good example of what C64 could do with sufficiently large cartridge can be seen in the fanmade conversion of the PC classic Eye of the Beholder, which uses EasyFlash cartridge instead of disk but otherwise runs on stock hardware.

The “brute”? That’s the warrior dude! You know how when you play it and you’re about to die and it says “warrior needs food, badly” I’ll never forget that.

The two choplifter games you compared are not the same game. The C64 version is a port of the original choplifter, which is only 1 stage long, and as you noted, began on the apple. This version was designed by Dan Gorlin for Broderbund. In 1986, Sega bought the license for the game choplifter to make an entirely new game for arcades, also called choplifter, which is a completely different game. The NES and SMS games are ports of this game, not the original computer game. Those extra stages? Those are from the Sega arcade version, made by Sega. And, just to note, the final stage of the arcade/SMS/NES choplifter, is the stage for the computer versions, set at night.

About Choplifter, the Master System version is excellent 👍😉

I was surprised you didn't cover Castlevania or Ultima. Great video though. GG!

the c64 version of robocop had ingame music. some versions of it were bugged and i was not be able to beat the second stage. i was running out of time every try......back in the day.

(I didn't watch the whole thing yet, just reacting to the specs you showed at the beginning) While the C64 had just 8 hardware sprites, they were much larger (24x21 as opposed to 8x8 or 8x16 on NES) and they could all be displayed on the same line, while NES could display just 8 of its sprites on a given scanline. The NES sprites were more colorful though, as even the multicolor C64 sprites (which were lower resolution but the same size on screen) had to share two of their colors among all multicolor sprites. The C64 could display in 320x200 but in that mode only two colors could be displayed per 8x8 tile, and on the TVs of the day a lower resolution but more colorful game would look better. I'd say the NES wins in that regard with its resolution halfway between those modes but still in multicolor

Hi Greg. Do you have a big selection of Commodore 64 games

C64 was great in 1982. The Atari 800 was great in 1979 and the NES was great in 1985.

I grew up with a 64, not an NES, and only recently started discovering the NES. Still I think the Commodore offered so much more especially since it was a fully featured computer. Btw, the music in Commando on the 64 is sick! That SID chip really shines in that game.

Wasn't The last Ninja 2 released on both the Commodore and Nintendo?

I preferred Commodore 64, and i later jumped on AMIGA. 1980's were a home computer thing at least here. Consoles were a rarity.

Can you give link for download "super mario bros 64" for c64

11:50 Don't let 'em catch ya with your pants down, Greg!

The NES was released 18 months after the C64 in Japan as the Famicom, but it wasn't available in the West for 2 years after that, this was at a time when computer power was roughly doubling every 12-18 months so the NES should be much better, especially since it was built just for games rather than a multipurpose computer. The C64 had the advantage in the earlier days of the NES of more experienced programmers who knew many tricks to get the most out of the hardware and the SID sound chip was uniquely amazing once used to it's full potential by people like Rob Hubbard. For piracy the C64 was an obvious choice, but I did much more than just play games including learn 6510 machine code.

In C64 Choplifter, you can shoot the tanks if you go closer to the ground.

17:54 not even the perfect sega Genesis port? Oh my

I loved the great giana sisters back in the day. Really wish we could get a remake of it outside of one level in the ds game.

You got specs wrong. Commodore 64 actually had resolution 368x272, however it had borders where you can draw only sprites and area for bitmap graphics or character graphics was 320x200. Both bitmaps and sprites have two modes: highresolution where you got one bit per pixel, or multicolor where you got two bit per pixel and that was half resolution. In character graphics Commodore 64 allows to mix high resolution and multicolor characters. Also, Commodore 64 allowed to use 16 colors onscreen of 16. Depends on what type of graphics to draw there may be limitation that some colors need to be shared. While there was hardware sprite limitation, raster interrupts where part of graphics programming so sprite multiplexing was was possible, to true limitation was that there was 8 sprites horizontally. So Commodore 64 allowed to paint whole screen overlay with sprites if you wanted. NES also had major disadvantage that it doesn't had bitmap graphics or large sprites, and Commodore 64 SID chip sounded better. So actually Commodore 64 had a lot better specs than NES that allowed to make much higher fidelity and complex games, but.... 1. Commodore 64 was made to use monochromatic palette. It was so old that people used black and white TV where to connect it and colors were actually option to make it look a bit better if connected to color TV or monitor. So Commodore 64 doesn't look that colorful. It had strongly grey shaded low saturation palette, designed to work monochromatic way on CRT. Colors are closer to be used as accent color or have monochromatic shade that can be tinted to some hue. Arcade games however were highly saturated colors and colors were actually cool thing to display so it was fashion back then to use colored graphics Commodore 64 just was not designed for that. Proper technical art direction that uses Commodore 64 higher resolution graphics, border area, and monochromatic type of graphics can easily make better graphics than NES. It is just not as colorful/saturated. To get idea of capability is that Commodore 64 had 16k memory that video chip was able to see at time and one 1k color memory. NES had 2k video memory and everything was based on characters sized blocks. 2. Game development in 80's was difficult, it was hard to make proper game ports so often original game had best balance and ports were not so good. Also because hardware was so different, identical gameplay required that there was same amount of characters used on different elements, and to ease porting they may prefer transforming graphics on pixel level. Commodore 64 had 40x25 characters, and sprites were 3x2.62 characters, NES had 32x30 characters memory limited sprites to be usually 2x2, 2x3, 1x1 and so on. Everything worked very different scale. Commodore 64 hardware however was capable to make games that was impossible to made in NES. Games that required Amiga, Atari ST or IBM PC where to port them. And almost all games before 3D era was possible to port Commodore 64 if it is scaled to lower fidelity (monochromatic like palette, often many areas of image lower horizontal resolution). 3. Console games were usually much more polished as it required more money to make it and console company (Nintendo, Sega etc.) controller what can be published. Nintendo got good reputation because they focused on quality in 80's. So Commodore 64 was often predessor platform what PC game developers used before. NES game developers where japanese and they develop arcade games after NES. It was after Sony Playstation where gaming cultures and developers started to converge. But yes, most likely arcade game ports were better in NES.

For Choplifter (7:42) on the C=64, you have a hacked version of some sort that increases the difficulty of the game enormously. Regardless, the NES version is certainly better. I remember this game on the C=64, and blowing up tanks was pretty easy. Most of the time you got killed, it was because you waited too long on the ground trying to collect POWs.

Never even heard of Gyruss, somehow. Just downloaded for c64 emulator. Very fun, would've bought that when new, if I had seen it in stores. I have a game in that style on my a Droid phone called Vortexica.

you have to be lower on the screen to hit the tanks on Choplifter

The NES/Famicom being tile based (as pretty much all 8 and 16-bit consoles were) is either an advantage or a disadvantage depending on the design of the game. Most scrolling games will be far superior on the NES. But that came with the disadvantage of not being able to do bitmap graphics at all, which the C64 could do. Not a whole lot of 8-bit games used that, but the ones that did would be better on the C64. This is really seen in Ballblazer and Ghostbusters. My headcanon, since the original Donkey Kong is called Cranky Kong now and the current Donkey Kong is either his son or grandson depending on continuity...is that "Jumpman" is the father of Mario and Luigi. Nothing official confirms that but that's what I'm going with.

About your "emulator issues": You either have corrupt copies of the games, and/or you're trying to run PAL games in NTSC mode (or vice-versa). I've run both Ghostbusters and Nebulus in WinVICE and they both ran perfectly. When a game is having problems in an emulator, try switching PAL/NTSC modes and see if that helps. If not, try a copy from a different source. Most C64 emulators should be able to run the vast majority of C64 games without issues. BurgerTime - That C64 version of BurgerTime was considered extremely poor, even by early 80s standards. BurgerTime '97 was much better. Also, someone just recently made a MUCH more faithful port to the C64. It would be perfect if it wasn't for the fact that the pepper use is much too sensitive. You accidentally use at least two peppers almost every time you press the button. Mario Brothers - There's also a later version where the platforms do bump up when you hit them. Two other games that appeared on both systems: Archon and Elite. The graphics are nicer in the NES Archon, but the music quickly gets annoying, and I don't like that the computer calls a stalemate after a set number of moves with no battles. As for Elite, some people regard the NES version as the best 8-bit version, but to me it's let down by the fact that you have to use an icon system to carry out certain functions, since the NES lacks a keyboard. Also, it has a weird save screen with three columns, where you have to copy the current game into an empty slot, but you can also accidentally erase it as well. Why they didn't go with a simple save system where you pick a slot and it saves, is beyond me.

I Love the Commodore 64 (I made games on it) but when it comes to color palette and stability of games the NES beats it or of the water. However we have to keep in mind the Commodore was a computer made for more than just games.

3:52 for real though, they couldn't put red on the burgers to simulate ketchup? I have to pretend the green is relish instead of mold?

Had an NES and Atari 2600. Parents decided we need a computer, and went to the top of the line VIC-20, complete with a tape/cassette drive. You 64 people had it good.

IMO If Nintendo hadn't released the Famicom in North America, the C64 could have easily became our de-facto video game console after the crash. It makes sense in a way: 2nd generation cartridge based video game consoles replaced the 1st generation dedicated pong consoles. Having a machine that can both play video game cartridges and serve as a multipurpose home computer could have been a logical next step, especially considering how good Commodore became at using vertical integration to manufacture and sell the C64 cheaply at places like Sears and Kmart. Plus, if video games were seen as an unproductive fad by parents it didn't hurt that the C64 could technically be used for schoolwork and education with games being seen as a bonus.

Mission Elevator for C64 plays like how Elevator Action should (you can duck)

I was so hyped for coop NES double dragon when I was a kid. I rented it and found out it was single player and was bummed. Salt in the wound was that Sega's port was coop!

In c=64 Choplifter - you almost had the tanks - gotta face front, and be less than 1/2 the screen in height. You'll see your bombs exploding when you're low enough.

Had both of the then, loved both of the them 😊 still playing (but on emulators unfortunately😅)

I had some other version of donkey Kong for c64 that had all levels and looked good and didn’t run slow

I had a C64 growing up then went over to NES later. I always remember my parents not quite understanding why because it seemed the same but the game price for C64 was £3.99 and NES games were £39.99. Watching this video I can see why they didn't see the value in it!

It shouldn't be hard for someone who knows how to mod games to make a Modded version of Commando using the commodore graphics for the NES. The C64's are more detailed even though NES has a larger color palette which could be a major perk in the game It would be the "best of both worlds" kinda project. Even though i'm partial to the Warbly soundtrack the C64 has.

This is an unfair comparison because many NES cartridges included custom hardware and were always made by actual companies. Many C64 games by comparison were made by indie developers.

I think the main issue with these computers, were not the games that were available on both computers. It is the exclusive games to each platform. Nintendo feels family friendly, safe but very professional, while the 64 games feels more edgy, experimental but a bit shabby at times. I really enjoyed games like Lords of Midnight, Enigma Force or Skool Daze. However, the c64 was weaker when it comes to platform games. So I think it is very much about the type of game you want. Also, the C64 offered a LOT of free pirated software....

Rather than heads up, you should have done genres. C64 has the edge is sims, strategy, and dungeon crawlers, NES in platformers, action RPG, and bullet spam.

did you know that the team colors of each team in blades of steels NES matches that cities football team.

I wish I could go back to the 80's with the knowledge I have now.. Thankfully I technically had both of these.. A C128 was basically a nicer looking C64.. I do regret making my dad get me an Adam to start with being it was just a glorified typewriter.. From what I remember The Last Ninja was my fav Commodore game and I got it round this time maybe 35 years ago..

One glaring error from the comparison screen: you claim "C64 has 4 colors onscreen of 16". That is patently wrong. C64 can use all of the 16 colors at the same time. The limitation is that the multi-color graphics cannot have more than 3 colors and the background in a 8*8 pixel area (actually 4*8 since it's the multicolor mode, but horisontal "pixels" are two-pixels wide), sprites excluded. The cartridge format also limits the games to be certain maximum size. The floppy disks give the possibility to expand the game much more.

you just stayed in the same room on the nes smash tv instead of going in other rooms lol

Wait until this dude finds out slower loading c64 tapes

You lost me with the Smash TV pick. The C64 game is sparser looking, missing content, and on the NES, you can hold both pads vertically and have something akin to arcade-style controls.

remember summer and winter games?

I have a complicated love / hate relationship with the NES. Some of the games were amazing for the time, while others were horrible. Nintendo took a big chance releasing it shortly after the crash and earned success, but they used predatory tactics to eliminate competition and bullied 3rd party publishers out of a lot of money. The hardware along with MMC chips allowed for games to have amazing graphics and lots of depth, but the badly engineered cartridge connector and 10NES lockout made the front loader extremely unreliable. In the end I think they earned their success, but also earned the spanking Sega and Tom Kalinske gave them with the Genesis. PS The Arcade version of Gyruss is absolute bliss, it was butchered into a different game on the NES and I would prefer to play the C64 port by a mile 😀

Sometimes the commodore 64 reminds me in some games the Atari 2600.

C64 Robocop is actually unfinished, the final level is glitched and unplayable so they made it impossible to get there. There is a cheat to see it though.

man, the ghost and goblins from NES just destroys that pixelated blocky thing from C64,,,same as the Die Hard.... The "i pick this cuz i dont like any of the G.G games was childish" :(

But the Commodore games were free. 😊

Green Beret / Rush n Attack can be compared too - same games, just a different name. And it'll be a tough one ;) Also The Last Ninja :) (but here the clear winner is C64) I would say that graphic wise, in 60-80 % the NES games are more visually pleasing BUT very often the sounds were plain horrible. For example if you take the last ninja NES ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-vjI76JIFCuA.html and compare it to C64 ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-CWmqoEdjKR4.html then it is a night and day (pleasing japanese "ninja" motiv vs ... computer bleeps trying to be music). Actually, sounds and music are the biggest turn offs when I try to play some C64 originally released games on NES. It literally looses all the charm and makes me quit game after 10secs. I think that for me, as a kid, at that time, music and sounds were equally important in terms of shaping imagination, creativity, as well as visual aspects. SID chipset was able to create music that felt more like a game soundtracks while NES music was more on the side of just blips (there are course some exceptions). Take ie. The Last Ninja II ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-XrCK38adwsA.html 13 soundtracks just for the one game. That was crazy! Even the most iconic sounds / melodies (Super Mario Bros) is in terms of sounds on NES, were in 90 % scenarios ultra basic compared to what C64 sound chipset could offer. I think that overall: - there are games that should be played on C64 and play / look awful on NES (the last ninja is perfect example, when it comes to me, i also prefer to play Command, Ghost Goblins and Green Beret on C64, even if NES version was closer to arcade machine original) and - there are games that should be played on NES and play / look awful on C64 (for example Blades of Steel or Castlevania and many, many different games). I would love to have games such Shatterhand, Castlevania on C64 - probably would spend hours ;pp :)

Commodore version of ghostbusters was great and among the best ever for commodore.

NES Donkey Kong wasent arcade perfect at all: Its missing a stage. The second version of C64 Donkey Kong is quite good port (released only in UK, doh). Its worth out there exists a redone version of Commando and Ghost & Goblin, both to 64... both great, so check them out.

Wojna mojego dzieciństwa. Ja miałem C64 koledzy podróbkę NES. Oczywiście byłem przekonany że tylko c64 to prawdziwy komputer. Konsola to zabawka :) Grałem głównie w Pirates!

The sound isn't as good because it's an emulator so it's only emulating the Sid chip.

you find out the c64 is better than the nes by playing Sam's journey which is made on booth systems now. the c64 sounds and looks way better even if it has less power than the nes

Stroker is the main reason why i would choose c64 every time.

20 seconds on disk is a long load time? Try the C64 with a cassette, it could take about 8 minutes! Kids these days would never have the patience. lol

Too many "must be an emulator issue" to take your video seriously.

Bubble Bobble?

The Commotari 2600 Evolution will be better 🙂

While they both can play games, it's important to realize that the C64 can also MAKE games too, so C64 wins!

‘Donkeykong saved Nintendo’??? NO,it did not, it may have saved nintendo of america from getting bankrupted but NOT nintendo as a hole,because i believe that nintendo could,ve became rich from other arcade games,we should remember that nintendo also did made other good & successful arcade games as well in both japan and the west, Also shame on you for liking the nes version of donkeykong more then those C64 versions because those versions are more complete ,yes it’s true that one of those versions do run a bit slow but not slow enough to run like a crawd, But hey it is what it is,each their opinion,i guess.

SID chip is king 👑

The NES is clearly superior. Western developers couldn’t program well on the NES, so western developed games are probably going to be a little better on the C64. If you wanted a fair comparison, the C64 vs the 7800 is a more interesting concept.

Every time you complained about the commodore sound, in my opinion, the commodore sound was much much better. (e.g. commando, road runner, ....). While in general, the NES graphics are nicer imho.....

I gotta say to me that c64 version of Commando looked and sounded better

Commando on NES was awful compared to the C64. The music especially. Good video though, but picking NES Commando is a huge mistake

NES still the best

You're just prejudice against the c64.

I'm one minute into your video and ball blazer sucks. It has no place in today's world. Then I moved onto your frog game, losing the ability to shoot while moving and you pick that version? Great video, but you're a terrible human being deep down.

there's no reason to ever play a commodore or atari. might as well play kick the can.

Ur wrong about the ghost busters game nes is better