The Worst Commodore 64 Arcade Ports Ever Made! (From Bad to Worse) 

Great to see you back! I like how you've got the arcade versions showing at the same time as the port so we can see the comparison.

I laughed at the break thru comment "my many days in Spain - came back white" haha. I had similar experience, but in the bar next door they had Chelnov - Atomic Runner

That's brilliant! I remember being brought in at the end of the development of C64 Guerrilla War. By that time Imagine was basically just Ocean and we got a copy of the arcade game in the office at Sentient Software but the only thing I did was to rewrite the sprite multiplexing stuff to stop everything from flickering. Otherwise it would have been more crap than it was 😂

Yeah, that C64 version of Karnov looks just like the Speccy version that I owned back in the day. It even has the same distinctive thick black outlines around the sprites, which was an impressive trick to avoid the "attribute clash" that the Speccy hardware was prone to, but totally unnecessary on the C64.

Having moved on from the C64 in '88 when I see your 'best of' vids I'm always a little fed up that I missed so many great games but when I see lists like this I'm glad I didn't hang around. Some stinkers here for sure! Only one I remember is Dragon's Lair which I soon gave up on but c'mon! what was we expecting? lol. Liking your new style m8, nice touch having the games play side by side, dig the demo style outro too, nice one :)

This was always the case with me as a kid with a C64, we'd come back from holiday and get the cassette version and tears ensues

Like the original arcade version at the side!

Awesome Video, liked the format and some good humour thrown in. Cheers

One of my favorite arcade games (Tumblepop) got ported to the Gameboy. I cried a bit.

Love that you did comparisons next to each other. Thanks for another enjoyable video. Best wishes.

Plenty of other bad arcade ports on C64....Final Fight, Golden Axe, Quartet, Altered Beast & Return of the Jedi. Plenty for another list

After this video , I will not sleep this night! :D

Wow thats brilliant how you've got the arcade footage to the left, just perfect! Oh boy these games remind me so much of the let downs.. over and over. But Double Dragon was the biggest letdown of all because it was my favourite game at the time. Still, I wouldnt trade those C64 days for anything : ) Great video mate!

I got duped into buying US Ikari Warriors. Saw the arcade screens on the box and was sold.

Double dragon was my nightmare. :/

Really like the format....good work as always.

Is that the C64GS version of Double Dragon you played there? I know there's two completely different ports out there.

I usually am not super keen on this kind of video but all said and done i feel well satisfied after watching this a pleasant surprise bro OSG FTW 💪

Oooh another OSG video about the c64! Thanks for your work! Haven’t watched it yet, and I wonder where Street Fighter 2 falls.

Another great video, I fully agree with the game selection but, hey OSG, where is your C64 top 20 BEST arcade game video?I am sure you made it but I can't ménage to find!

Great video, and a good public service announcement! I somehow unintentionally managed to avoid all these clunkers in my youth.

Look at the production values on that! Side by side comparisons with the arcade cab and then smooth as butter transitions! Move over George Lucas! Great video mate :)

Great video. 👍 I got stung by Breakthru 😭

Awesome as always mate, bought far too many of these I bought 😂😂

Good stuff - love the side by side comparison. Gosh I remember how ripped off I felt when paying full whack for Chase HQ back in the day - perhaps my biggest gaming disappointment.

I think Chase HQ gave me tinnitus! 🤣 WEEOO WEEOO WEEOO WEEOO I still ask myself why the hell did I buy it back then...

The Double Dragon (5:33) manual even apologizes up front for the split sprites, citing technical reasons.

Amazing video! I'm waiting to see the Amiga version of it!

Oh dear lord the horror i had a lot of these games but in my defense i was young i didn't know any better lol. Other than the nasty flashbacks this was a great video as always so as always buddy tkae it easy and roll on the next video. Am now going to try and take my mind of these games haha.

Imagine if this set of 20 games got released in late ‘88 or ‘89 as a glossy compilation for £14.99 (or maybe even £12.99) and they called it ‘The 20 Worst Arcade ports on the C64’. I bet it would still have sold by the lorry load! I have a weird fascination for Chase HQ on the 64, I know it’s rubbish but I still enjoyed it. Also to echo what others have said; I love the Arcade comparison on the left with the 64 footage on the right of the screen. You’ve even lined up the footage on both for a direct level comparison. That is superb, and well worth doing. Perfectly executed here.

At the time, Double Dragon was also my favorite game, and when I got it on C64 I was SOOO disappointed. Punching and kicking the enemies didn't feel right and you couldn't even climb the ladders, which was so cool to do in the arcade version. Later, I bought an Amiga, mainly for this game, and while it was a definite improvement, I was still a little disappointed. The game needs a controller with 3 buttons and must have all cool weapons intact - whips, steel drums etc. Only when I much, much later played the arcade version on a an emulator did I feel fully satisfied. But it was 10-15 years too late.

Shocking addition of the mighty Dragon's Lair!

it's always sad to see an Arcade game poorly ported, just so companies could make a quick buck, nowadays that stuff doesnt fly but back then, this crime was perpetrated all too often.

Love the new format! Pretty sure I've not played any of this dreck - but I might have forgotten the odd demo - defo never bought any of them though. Shame the conversions were so poor because some of them were class in the arcades.

There were so many Shite games on the 8 bit era, mostly down to the high turn over rate of titles. Games were released FAST and consequently without much care and attention. I remember seeing a video about US Gold version of Outrun. It was coded by a kid over a weekend. And he made a mistake that he only found the night before he had to turn in the code and was up all night before school trying to fix it. Same with Oceans 1986 WC game. Apparently the guy who was supppsed to be working on it 'missed the memo' and when asked how he was getting along said 'what game?' 2 weeks before launch. So they bought another developers Euro '84 game and rebadged it for Mexico '86. Great games take time. Nostalgia Paige's version of Super Mario took almost a decade. If you took even 5 years to develop a game back in the 80's your company would be bankrupt. Cheap and Cheerful was the business model. Many of the best games of the era were made by kids in their bedroom and sold to publishers. In house development was usually fast and messy.

Another great video OSG, thanks! Dear lord Super Hang On looks horrible and all in all, very good list. Btw, did anyone else check their FB messenger..?

OutRun was a disaster, another proper let down by US Gold. Only thing that was good about it when you opened the double tape case, there was an original soundtrack tape inside to play on an external tape player.

Sadly, the graphics and quality of arcade games from 84 onwards far surpassed the capabilities of the 8 bit. I remember watching a demo of APB after spending a fortune on it in Blackpool. Severely disappointed with the result...

Kid Niki is another horrific Data East port done by Quicksilver (as is Ikari Warriors). They also did Victory Road (Ikari II) which is completely wretched but slightly better than Ikari I. Paperboy is one people seem to dislike but I think it plays pretty well. Congo Bongo is a very early example of a garbage port (it came out on cartridge so memory is limited). Later there was a disk version that was great. Jackal has a good/decent US version and a much worse UK version.

My primary school buddy would happily play both C64 Double Dragon and Guerrilla War happily for hours, he was a strange lad ha ha 😂

This is a great, terrible list :) I've been keeping a list of C64 games that got two different versions, and I didn't know about Afterburner or Ikari Warriors, so thanks for highlighting those!

First one that springs to mind is C64 Chase HQ, looking forward to how high on the list it'll be! 😂 e: must say, one of the worst things about C64 Chase HQ is the sound. So grating! Also I may possibly be blind but I think i fell off the patreon list!

Great video, though surprised that final fight didn't make the cut. That is right up there for the title of worst port ever in my eyes.

My biggest letdowns with arcade ports on c64 were Double Dragon (but then i love part 2) and Golden Axe, both Double Dragon 1 and Golden Axe were personal favs in the Arcade and awful on c64

Plenty of great driving games on the C64 with speed and yet Ocean couldn’t get my favourite arcade game Chase HQ right. Gutted. Surprised there is no Final Fight but probably better we forget that one 😂

I can actually live with the visual compromises of Street Fighter on C64 as I think they found the best approach but the control is really where it fails most. Don't get me wrong, I've tried many terrible Famicom pirate fighters, but it IS possible to do proper 8-bit fighting game action as Street Fighter Alpha on GBC actually works. Just shows that control programming is a whole type of skill in itself that many arcade porters failed at. ;)

I actually appreciate the effort given on making a C64 port of Dragon's lair. The arcade version was so advanced that to fit everything onto a C64 disk wouldnt have been practical. Scaling it to fit the C64 on a graphics scale sure must have some challenge. I prefer the loose sequel Escape from Singe's castle, mostly because of the soundtrack

This was an interesting road down the crap games of the time. I'd love to see a video on video games that had more then one implementation on the same computer. Now that you pointed out that there were UK and US versions of the same game with one being crap I wonder how there were and just how much they differ.

Chase HQ on the C64 was awful ! I did a Spectrum VS C64 VS video, can guess which system won? Great video matey 😉

That C64 version of _Chase H.Q._ looks like a Spectrum port, to a certain extent, especially with the drop in speed compared to the actual Speccy version.

Nice video !!!

No mention of Rastan? Wow. The original C64 port was unfinishable, thanks to a jump rendered impossible by a software bug. The cover art by Tim Hildebrandt--yes, THAT Tim Hildebrandt, half of the duo that designed the original "Star Wars" movie poster--was the only good thing about it.

Hmmm, Afterburner was pretty good. I’m not sure if it was the same version as in your video though. Maybe you could do comparison video for the games that had 2 versions? Best of luck!

I remember buying Dragon's Lair when it was re-released on Elite's "Encore" budget range. 10 minutes plus only for the game to crash whilst loading. WH Smiths replaced it multiple times but it must have been a bad batch so in the end I got a refund of my £2.99

I've been waiting for the # 1 and could have sworn it would be hard drivin

I was lucky to have played the better versions of Afterburner, Bionic Commando, and Ikari Warrios, and they were all great games.

There was a rule we had back in the day and that was "what did the zzap mag say?" if it passed them it past with us. Mind you sometimes they were late on some reviews and i bought one of them in your selection super hangon, the other being jailbreak which I'm surprised isn't there.

Great vidéo. But I really think that gryzor deserve a place in this top 20.

To be honest, the North American version of Street Fight isn't too bad, it's not great, but at least it's playable Same for Afterburner and Space Harrier

Good video

I literally played early Shoot 'em up Construction Kit games that were better than US Ikari Warriors

Dragon's Lair is an odd one. I think the arcade game just gets a pass because of what you see on the screen. I don't think conversion is _bad_ per se, but that it was building on uneven foundations. What surprises me is how Software Projects were able to do so much better with the follow-up.

As a young gamer back in the eighties I'll forever associate U.S Gold and Domark with garbage games that should be avoided. Titus released some real stinkers too. Codemasters were also always eager to disappoint.

I loved the C64 version of Afterburner back in the day 🤷🏻‍♂️

I actually enjoyed Eswat back in the day. I’m thankful that I picked it over Line of Fire, which funnily enough didn’t have in-game screenshots - only something with maps - so I never knew what it was :) But Cisco Heat… I have never felt so let down. Horrible gameplay in every way AND I managed to complete it in one sitting.

I'm so glad they didn't try to do a conversion of Mortal Kombat. Jesus, that would have been just as bad if not worse than SF2. LOL

You should add Rygar. How disappointed I was...

Double Dragon on the 64 broke my heart. I wasn't expecting anything special but that was a sick joke.

Considering the limitations, I didn't think Dragon's Lair was that bad. Hard? Hell yes! But I can appreciate what they were trying to accomplish. Hard Drivin' should not even have been attempted for the C64. There was no way that was going to look good unless it was being made specifically for people who had the SuperCPU add-on (20mhz processor).

You want to look at the modern conversion of Dragon's Lair to the TI99/4A, a machine that was inferior to the Commodore 64 for gaming (I had both). The conversion is incredibly playable exactly like the laser disk game arcade, it's kind of cheating however since back in the day it wouldn't have been feasible to stick so much memory on a cartridge which is the only way it was possible without actually having a laser disk.

It has to be said that the arcades represented the top technology of the time, not even on the Amiga or the 16-bit consoles like Megadrive or Super Famicom was it possible to have decent conversions.

Regarding Street Fighter II, it's a technical achievement, but yeah, it was never going to work.

I would add on the list Final Fight too 😁

Yup, some absolute stinkers there...bought and regretted some of them including the slideshow that was Hard Drivin. Could have done with this video back in the 80s.....along with the internet and RU-vid

i never player streetfighter2 in arcades, i did see it though - that looks a pretty decent effort on the c64 to be fair - at least as good as could be expected

One thing we can all agree on is that they are all awful but discussions will go on for years as to what was crappier. Good video though.

Enduro Racer deserved a mention

I never understood why the C64, Amiga and Atari ST only had a one button controllers they could have made the same as the sega port but had 3 and 6 button controllers instead of having to reach for the keyboard, I believe they would have lasted longer than they did .

You forgot Kid Niki from Data East (developed by Quicksilver), I don't think it ever made it outside the U.S., horrible conversion of the Apple 2 version with no scrolling, no sound (two sound effects), awful graphics...check it out just to see how bad it is.

In fairness, I was under the impression Domark didn't release Hard Drivin on the 64 at full price because of it was pants. I got it on a compilation. Chase HQ was the biggest let down for me, after the absolute triumph that is the Spectrum version. I also thought -all- of the Renegade series were terrible on the 64

So many bad conversations you can ad to the list many of which makes you wonder why they bothered when it was way too optimistic for the machine. Super Monaco Grand prix, Final fight etc

I got Double Dragon on C64 for xmas one year... so dissapointed!

Chase hq was one I brought and soo disappointed. Operation Thunderbolt was another. Previews looked great but I think ocean scrapped that version and had to rush another version out Also back in the days alot of titles showed the arcade or the amiga screen shots.it should of been a red flag to us to say this is likely to be rubbish lol

Somebody should do a vid on those ripoff type-in game books. Beautiful covers with a wopping 20+ exciting games to type into your machine - all for anything between £10 -£20 You spend 3 days typing away and after ironing out the errors a drab looking effort appears on screen. And talking of typing errors: many of such basic listing's came with errors anyway.

Wow... every single entry on this List looks as if they were still in Alpha Development & one night after the Devs went home for the evening, some asshole Exec snuck into the Office & force executed the Order to Full Release them to Ship out that very night before the Devs could even come into work the next morning to continue Development, just cause the scumbag Exec KNEW he could use his Executive Powers to frame the Devs & get away with it... including all the Money from it... O_0 ... Seriously, I wouldn't put it past Execs to be capable of such greed...

I've seen beter games made with SEUCK than the US versions of Ikari Warriors and Bionic Commando. Hell I'm quite positively convinced that Ikari Warriors US actually was made with SEUCK. LOL

The Final Fight port was horrendous.

5:35 what about the ocean version of Double Dragon?

I'm glad I didn't have to experience most of those stinkers but I bought Shadow Warriors (Ninja Gaiden) and what an incredible disappointment it was. People say Double Dragon III or TMHT 2 are bad on the C64 (and I disagree) but compared to that abomination they are gold. Thankfully it was the budget re-release!

PTSD galore for me :D

Amstrad one would be good!

Aw. I loved Dragons Lair on the c64. Eswat looked accurate. Karnov, ChaseHQ and Hard Drivin are obvious straight-across Spectrum ports. Strangely, ChaseHQ is considered one of the top games for that system. I had street fighter, the US version, and thought it played well, if not the same as the arcade. Double Dragon and Ikari Warriors were very poor.

hard driving was so bad it never got a proper release

OMG so 4D sports driving was an arcade game! (arcades were absolutely not a thing at all in germany so I don't know many arcade games actually and those only from youtube)

Some who are too young to remember might see this and think the C64 sucked. But the sheer amount of content that was released for it during it's official lifespan, and beyond up to today, there was still plenty of subjectively good to great titles to keep us amused, especially at pocket money prices. Not to mention tape piracy itself, but that's another basket of goats.

did you forget Quartet :D

There was two versions of street fighter on the c64 tape, the us one wasn’t too bad at all.

Here are a few of DIShonorable mentions: (keep in mind that a lot of these are more meh or disappointing than "bad" per se) Juno First: great (and criminally underrated) game in the arcade, but the C64 version is meh at best (and the "music" that plays during the title screen is one of the WORST "tunes" that I ever heard coming out of the sid chip. How could they fuck up such a SIMPLE shooter game makes me scratch my head. If you want to play a home port of this game, the Atari 2600/VCS homebrew port is the best one to play. Bosconian: Another decent arcade game (released as Bosconian '87 on the C64, Amstrad, and Spectrum by Mastertronic) Awful port. The Spectrum version is brilliant though, but avoid the C64 and CPC versions, and somehow the C64 version actually plays worse than the CPC version as well. Final Fight...another example of a game that had no business being ported to the C64 or any other 8-bit computer for that matter Golden Axe: While the music was brilliant (I actually like it more than the original arcade, it was just another mediocre port that had no business being converted. This one wasn't so much bad as it was disappointing. Jailbreak: in this case though, it was a shit port of a rather crap arcade game to being with Legend of Kage: See Jailbreak (I do like the title music though) Rygar: A rather disappointing port IMHO. I'm not a MASSIVE fan of the original arcade, but they could have done a better port than THAT Defender: OK controversial I know, but after playing the brilliant GUARDIAN, the official port of Defender is a huge letdown...at least in my opinion

Theres other bad games but it's hard to argue with any of these. Hard driving plays like an adventure!

I love hearing people play and shred old crap games. It's my drug of choice.