Archon - wow - what a great game.. haven't seen this game since I played it back in the C64 times -goosebumps on every level! thank you for the great video
I played the hell out of Racing Destruction Set. I created numerous tracks, and it was so fun putting mines down and watch your opponent get so damaged they could barely make it up a hill. 1 on 1: Dr. J vs. Larry Bird was also a lot of fun.
it's a damn shame what has happened to EA. Having carved out a legacy all the way through to the dying days of the 64 bit era which made them utterly beloved they have now tarnished it beyond belief with the current day practices. Thanks for the reminder of how great they used to be
Yep. It's a toss-up between EA and Konami for the publisher whose decline saddens me more. I didn't play many C64 EA games, but their Mega Drive/Genesis made ones me a big fan, and they were awesome all through the '90s (I was particularly fond of their sims on the PC). They produced games of virtually every conceivable genre, and most of them had a slickness about them that other publishers struggled to capture. EA were still pretty good up through the PS3 and Xbox 360 era, but that was their last gasp of greatness. Now they just seem super risk averse. They might be making more money than ever, but creatively they're a pale shadow of what they want once were.
The people who formed and turned EA into something amazing during C64 times aren't there anymore. Who runs it now is what makes it completely different.
Project Firestart is a technical masterpiece, and the most atmospheric, cinematic, and tense survival-horror action-adventure experience on the C64! Apart from it being a bold and unique showcase of what can be done presentation-wise (with a little bit of disk swapping), it's also an original and exclusive C64 title. So it will always be a top candidate for "Best of C64" lists. It's a must-play for sci-fi and horror fans with interest in retro gaming. If you missed it back in 1989, you missed a piece of C64 history. It's one of the C64 big shots, released between the other big shots of that time, meaning Maniac Mansion, Last Ninja 2, Giana Sisters, Zak McKracken, and Turrican. I also love Archon and M.U.L.E. for being multiplayer classics / highlights on the system that my family, my friends, and pretty much everyone enjoyed. Seven Cities of Gold and Heart of Africa were both exploration/survival adventure/sims in my mind and I always liked a good mix of several interesting genres. These were definately fresh experiences back then but they haven't aged all that well. Some might find them to be too slow, too difficult, or too repetitive. Electronic Arts was a great company back then. They built their company on the basement of these great old games, but they let them rot. I would love to get a collection of EA's 8-bit and 16-bit history. Everyone is doing it, I see Atari, Midway, Sega, Namco, SNK, and Capcom putting out collections every couple of years, celebrating their history with polished ports of their old games on the newest Nintendos, Xboxes, and Playstations. We get ports and sequels to games like Wonder Boy, Bubble Bobble, Ghosts'n Goblins, Turrican, Giana Sisters, even Saboteur and Head Over Heels, but where exactly is EA? Even games like The Immortal are now published by a new company called Piko Interactive. And I don't count Boulder Dash, sorry. It's great but it's always been First Star Software, not Electronic Arts.
So many brilliant games! Your list was great, but I'd try to fit some other games in there like Adventure Construction Set, Realm of Impossibility, Arcticfox, Powerplay Hockey. And as great as Bard's Tale is, I think I liked Bard's Tale II the best. Anyway, all subjective.
I had adventure construction set in but then removed it as i had so many rpgs in and although i loved that game its a very niche genre . I think with the bards its totally down to nostalgia which one you like the best...technically number 3 is the best with the automapping.
Only EA game I can remember playing when I was a kid is Sky Fox. As a kid I liked it but looking back I don’t remember there being much to it, although it was pretty to look at it. Of course it could just be that I had no idea how to really play it, haven’t done so since.
It was actually nearly in, it was in the shortlist of 25 but then missed out, good game though...but gets a bit boring after a while in single player and as i never played it as a kid when i had friends i dont have the nostalgia feel
Back in the 80s, there was a series of disks called Kracker Jax, that had "parameters" on them to allow you to making working copies of original retail copies. One of the disks had a parameter for Marble Madness by Electronic Arts. That became known among me and my friends as the universal EA parameter because it worked on everything EA released after that. At least all the later games that I tried it on. There was a similar 'universal' parameter that worked on all Epyx games released after a certain date as well. :)
I used to love EA games, it's really sad what they've turned into. That was a great list and included lots of real gems, but unfortunately not my favourite EA game which is EOS (Earth Orbit Stations) I literally played it for 1000's of hours. Good times!
Nice list! It's hard to choose, with so many great EA titles. My favorite not on the list is Realm of Impossibility. It was a really unique two player experience, even if adding a second player greatly ramped up the difficulty. Unlike one player mode, both you and your buddy had to be pushing against the screen edge to advance to the next screen. This led to a lot of hilarious situations where you were pushing against the screen and yelling at your brother to catch up already as the enemies were getting closer and closer! While the sprite artwork is a straight port of the Atari 8-bit original, the animation makes it really compelling. The way the player characters waved when you stopped was particularly cute, so EVERYONE would try to end each level with a cool waving pose. I mean ... there's no point at all to it. It's just a few seconds of freely moving around you can do when you return to the (enemy-less) starting screen. But EVERYONE did it. You can see it in any gameplay video even now.
I played Lords of Conquest for many many hours as a kid. But nothing was as awesome as Mars Saga. Legitimately great game that no one knows about. Key to success is boosting your gambling skill until gambling becomes guaranteed income.
I bought Racing Destruction Set on tape or rather 2 double sided tapes. Whilst the game was indeed fantastic the loading that had to be done to select your cars, tracks etc was an absolute nightmare!
Nice to see more or less the first true survival horror game, Project Firestart get some love. As it was mostly overlooked despite good ratings when it came out.
Very cool list! I wish you found a spot for One on one basketball! But still liked it, and as yourself, I never even heard of Project Firestart! Gonna definitely play it as soon as I can! Thanks
Bard's Tale ate up months of my childhood but I could never finish the tower at the end :( Still today, having the collection I haven't finished it and really need to start mapping those blasted teleporters!
The only part of Bard's Tale that made no sense to me was the ability to discard or destroy an item early on which could keep you from completing the endgame. Ask me how I know.
Not sure with one is scummier, EA, or Activision Blizzard? And to think Activision started as company made by former Atari programmers upset at how higher ups treat them. Then under Kotick, they became very thing they fought against...
Spend a lot of time with Chuck Yeager's Advanced Flight Trainer. That's the one that always comes to mind when I think of classic EA. And, in my mind, Bard's Tale II was far superior to Bard's Tale I, but I loved them both. BT 1 is what got me into RPGs, both computer and pen & paper.
Skate or die brings back some memories, I would also include Ski or die (as I love wintersports) Never played Project Firestart myself either and looks a great game indeed.
Completely off topic but did you ever try phobia, especially two player simultaneous, hard as nails shooter but had an interesting mechanic in the game.
Yeah ive played it but you are right its hard as nails and even though i love a challenge i think it kills the experience for me. Its a shame though cos its a great idea concept.
I may be mistaken but neither Neuromancer or Dragon Wars were published by EA, Interplay parted ways the year prior, around time Battle Chess was released. This is also reason Dragon Wars is not called Bard's Tale IV. Just FYI, Happy New Year all. Notice no EOA (as they were known back then digital caligraphy lettering) logo or name on the two titles.
By the way, besides being all excellent games, the covers of EA titles were exceptional, I remember in particular Murder on the Zinderneuf, inspired by German expressionist cinema, Pinball Construction Set, which looked like the cover of a Kraftwerk album, Heart of Africa, Deathlord, which had a cover perfect for a Heavy Metal album, and many others...
The cover for Dragon Wars was actually done by Boris Vallejo. Yes, THE Boris Vallejo, fantasy artist extraordinaire. A lot of C64 games had eye catching cover art; since I'm on sword and sorcery here, I'll mention the cover for the C64 version of Rastan, by TIM FREAKING HILDEBRANDT, no less.
Archon is for me a contender for best game on the system (head to head with Wizball, Paradroid and Kennedy Approach) and certainly one of the best games ever made by EA. Wasteland is one of the greatest RPGs ever made, so dark and gritty it wouldn't be published today. Also the spiritual father of the Fallout series. Incredibly good and eats the SSI stuff for breakfast. Imho you are seriously underrating it here. I personally also like Seven Cities of Gold a lot (the sequel Heart of Africa a lot less). It's indeed kind of slow, but a still great. Games that that I've been somewhat missing are Axis assassin (the thing closest to Tempest on the C64) and Pinball Construction Set. Murder on the Zinderneuf had terrible graphics, but the gameplay was also quite good an innovative. The last Gladiator was also not very beautiful, but quit a blast to play, while i could never get into Boulderdash.
4:39 That map is the US with parts of Canada and Mexico. I don't know the game, are there more maps in it? The title screen shows a castle, a rider with an axe and a guy (knight/asian?) with a bow. Doesn't really go together...
I personally would have put Wasteland at the #1 spot, it's an awesome game. Regarding games you didn't mention, I also enjoyed Marble Madness and One-on-One back in the day.
Gronkh Olympics ? I only know Gronks Revenge 😊. Possible one of German Top streamers choose his name from this Gronk games ? Bards Tale was a nice game, a friend from me tell me that Eric Clapton was in Bards tale game cause he like this idea.
Hope you are feeling better buddy. Class video as always mate an back in the day EA use to be a go to for games, to think what they have become today haha. Well take it easy man and roll on the next one ☺️
Dunno if I was purposely avoiding EA games back in the day because I've only played a couple of these games. Noticed a good few are RPG type games which I wasn't a big fan of back the so maybe that was it? Some cool ones in this list, Project Firestart looks good, did you request Xy to play it one night? rings a bell....Nice one m8 :)
Ah back when EA were a software publisher....as opposed to an authoritarian dictatorship with more internal horror stories than Edgar Allan Poe. At least they smacked down Tim Langdell and his edge antics.
Remember, EA was just a distributor for most of the these games, and the original developers quite often were ripped off by EA with royalties being fiddled, etc. So love the games, but don't love EA, even back in the day....!
Anyone who'd score Archon this highly must not have played it to any great extent. The game has a show stopping flaw that IMO nearly renders it unplayable. The problem is the unicorn piece, and to similar extent the dark equivalent, the basilisk These pieces are so much faster than others in both movement and weapon fire that a skilled player using a hit & run tactic can literally wipe the enemy ranks clean using only these pieces. This renders single player totally unplayable and two player just comes down to unicorn vs basilisk in most cases.
A lot of games there that I never knew existed. Some of EA games were Crap ! Maybe I just avoided these after been bitten by the Crap Bug a few times. I was never into the adventures or strategy stuff back then.
So automapping is a feature that builds the map as you explore it, so once youve been there its easy to find your way around again... if that makes sense. So in the start ... no map, as you move around the map grows
Yeah i never liked the c64 conversion. I think its because i absolutely loved and hammered the arcade game and the c64 game just didnt live up to that. I find skate or die much better
As I tell people, this current day gaming industry shitshow isn't anything new. From the ashes of the North American Crash came the bedroom coder, or in todays parlance, Indies. I too remember the days when EA and Activision were held in much higher regard than now. It all comes down to that old trope of the hero living long enough to become the villain, and the cycle continues.
Loved the list. Unfortunaly ii never been a fan of RPGs even( modern). But those old on 3d for me are even worst as they lack Automap. For me mule, archon and boulder dash are the best of a truly great company (in the beggining of course). Tryed project firestart , but could not get INTO it. Ttoo much labirinthic and hard to know what to do Next.
Labyrintic? You mean mazelike? Not really. Tile-based games with repeated patterns and hundreds of samey-looking rooms were mazelike. Project Firestart had original graphics for every room, and it also had a realistic spaceship architecture/layout. It was the least mazelike. Sure, having just a map would have been a neat QoL feature, but it would take away the excitement of exploring. Making your own (mind) map was relatively easy here compared to other big adventure type games like Fist II, Firelord, Blackwyche, Cauldron, or even The Last Ninja series (which had some weird revolving map parts). Yeah, perspective switches can leave you confused for a moment, but it's not a big deal. The game has plenty of memorable moments, cutscenes, unique rooms (no room is used twice), numbered corridors and floors. And even back then, when you felt lost, you always had the option to put a save state whenever you wanted.
@@hoagieimpact9189 yes i mean mazelike.english is not my native language. I do understand that project firestart is a super important game. But the rooms were similar, and there is a lack of Direction to know what to do Next. I fell i was walking clueless by the ship.the game was ahead of time. But i prefer cinemátic experiêncies like karateka and Prince of Pérsia as their objectives are much more clear.
