deadmeow Posted January 12, 2007 Share Posted January 12, 2007 (edited) We all know the Atari 8 bits and Commodore 64 computers were all designed very well to play games, and the C64 has improved sound over earlier machines. I loved Castle Wolfenstein on Apple II. Last week I finally played a PC-MSDOS version of it. It was maybe as good as the Apple II version, which I have always though is the best. So that got me thinking. What games actually are better on Apple II or old PC's versus machines built with gaming in mind? The one small advantage Apple II and PC's had was 2 button joysticks. Here is my very short list Castle Wolfenstein (graphics better,plays better 2 button joystick)Apple/PC Beyond Castle Wolfenstein(same)Apple/PC Lode Runner (Apple 2looks better, 2 button joystick)Apple Karateka(Looks better Apple? 2 Button Joystick)Apple Edited January 12, 2007 by deadmeow Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesD Posted January 13, 2007 Share Posted January 13, 2007 Seems to me a lot of graphics adventures took advantage of the higher res Apple II graphics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ze_ro Posted January 13, 2007 Share Posted January 13, 2007 It also didn't help when companies ported their games from the Apple II to the C64, and didn't bother changing the color pallete... like Conan for example. --Zero 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goochman Posted January 18, 2007 Share Posted January 18, 2007 Apple Panic, aka Space Panic - 2 buttons Otherwise most Apple II games weren't as good IMHO Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dusk2600 Posted January 18, 2007 Share Posted January 18, 2007 ALL AHAHAHAHA Kidding... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shadow460 Posted January 18, 2007 Share Posted January 18, 2007 I know some people are going to disagree, but here are a couple: Choplifter! Miner 2049er Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+remowilliams Posted January 19, 2007 Share Posted January 19, 2007 Well, the AII certainly had more games, but out of the games that existed for both platforms you'd be hard pressed to find ones that were 'better' on the AII vs the A8s. Better more colorful graphics, sound and smooth animation is hard to beat. That being said - I'll second Choplifter as better on the AII. That game needs analog controls and dual button capability to really shine, and it's one of my all time faves. Then again, Choplifter on my 5200 is as good as it gets! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacecadet Posted January 19, 2007 Share Posted January 19, 2007 Flight Simulator, if you're including DOS-based PC's (as the original post said). The Apple II version wasn't any better than the Atari/X64 versions, but the PC version ran a lot smoother. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+FujiSkunk Posted February 3, 2007 Share Posted February 3, 2007 (edited) A new entry: Xevious Sure, the Apple II edition is a bit on the slow side, and the system's limited capabilities make for some pretty funky-looking graphics, but the game itself is there, with all the play mechanics faithfully reproduced. Compare that to the C-64 edition, which can best be described as half-finished (nothing on the ground fires at you except tanks, which only appear rarely; ground explosions often don't line up with what's being destroyed; no hidden bases or extra lives to discover), and the Atari 8-bit edition, which is only half-finished. Edited February 3, 2007 by skunkworx Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Technosis Posted February 3, 2007 Share Posted February 3, 2007 I loved Castle Wolfenstein on Apple II. Last week I finally played a PC-MSDOS version of it. It was maybe as good as the Apple II version, which I have always though is the best. Yeah, I'll give the nod to the Apple II version of Castle Wolfenstein. BTW, back in the 8-bit computer era I knew of only one guy who had an Apple II computer, compared to scores of C64 and Atari users. The Apple II was quite expensive back then. So I never did get to play many Apple II games, unlike the C64. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Video Posted February 4, 2007 Share Posted February 4, 2007 Your jokeing right? Actually, just like any system, all you have to do to find games that were better for that system, is to find games that were made 'ground up' for that system, and IF it was ported, was just a 'quick buck' port (useually using wrong sound addresses and colors so the game, while functioning, wasn't very desirable) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr.Amiga500 Posted April 22, 2007 Share Posted April 22, 2007 (edited) BurgerTime is better on the Apple II. Of course, I'm comparing emulations of it (on Amiga) and I don't even know if I found all available versions to compare properly. That's actually the only reason I use the Apple II emulator. Edited April 22, 2007 by Mr.Amiga500 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edweird13 Posted April 22, 2007 Share Posted April 22, 2007 I know some people are going to disagree, but here are a couple: Choplifter! Miner 2049er I agree I have tried these on other systems but they "didnt feel right". I guess its because I played those on an Apple from the start. Playing them on any other system wasnt the same Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Great Hierophant Posted April 22, 2007 Share Posted April 22, 2007 The Ultima games are better for the Apple II than for any other system, especially the musical ones. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurt_Woloch Posted April 22, 2007 Share Posted April 22, 2007 BurgerTime is better on the Apple II. Of course, I'm comparing emulations of it (on Amiga) and I don't even know if I found all available versions to compare properly. That's actually the only reason I use the Apple II emulator. I'd agree with Burger Time. I didn't try the Apple II version, but from a FAQ I read, it has the same 12 (!) levels that the PC version has. In comparison, there wasn't a version of Burger time for the Atari800, and the one for the C-64 by Interceptor Software sucked badly. This, however, may have changed a bit with Burger Time 1997 for the C-64 and Beef Drop for the Atari 800. But how do you emulate Burger Time on an Amiga 500? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr.Amiga500 Posted April 23, 2007 Share Posted April 23, 2007 (edited) But how do you emulate Burger Time on an Amiga 500? There's a pretty good Apple II emulator for Amiga, called Apple2000e. I even emulate MacOS 8.1 on my Amiga 500 (using ShapeShifter) and play Mac games. Edited April 23, 2007 by Mr.Amiga500 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
telengard Posted April 23, 2007 Share Posted April 23, 2007 We all know the Atari 8 bits and Commodore 64 computers were all designed very well to play games, and the C64 has improved sound over earlier machines. I loved Castle Wolfenstein on Apple II. Last week I finally played a PC-MSDOS version of it. It was maybe as good as the Apple II version, which I have always though is the best. So that got me thinking. What games actually are better on Apple II or old PC's versus machines built with gaming in mind? The one small advantage Apple II and PC's had was 2 button joysticks. Here is my very short list Castle Wolfenstein (graphics better,plays better 2 button joystick)Apple/PC Beyond Castle Wolfenstein(same)Apple/PC Lode Runner (Apple 2looks better, 2 button joystick)Apple Karateka(Looks better Apple? 2 Button Joystick)Apple I prefer One On One and Choplifter on the A2. Probably because that is the first system I played them on not so much because they are better. I agree about Loderunner, the 2 buttons enhance gameplay for me. ~telengard Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
supercat Posted April 23, 2007 Share Posted April 23, 2007 The Apple II could do some things with graphics and colors that the A8 and C64 could not, at least when using tricks that were known "back in the day". Although the C64 and A8 were generally superior, there were a few games that made good use of the Apple's ability to use different palettes on 7x1-pixel clusters as well as its ability to use full resolution on white objects provided they were at least two pixels wide. Indeed, in some cases the Apple ][ could fake double resolution, something neither the A8 nor C64 could do. And of course, the Apple //c and Apple //e with extended 80 column card could do the 16-artifact-color double resolution mode the A8 and C64 couldn't touch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
potatohead Posted April 23, 2007 Share Posted April 23, 2007 I liked Robotron better on the Apple. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidcalgary29 Posted April 24, 2007 Share Posted April 24, 2007 Infocom games, of course. I also must admit that I enjoyed Hard Hat Mack much more on my school's Apple II than I did on my A8...strange. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
liveinabin Posted April 25, 2007 Share Posted April 25, 2007 Well, the useable memory on the C64 was pretty lame. That was probably a factor. I learnt recently that a lot of Spectrum 48k games had to be downgraded to fit into the Commodore 64. That's just odd Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurt_Woloch Posted April 25, 2007 Share Posted April 25, 2007 Well, the useable memory on the C64 was pretty lame. That was probably a factor. I learnt recently that a lot of Spectrum 48k games had to be downgraded to fit into the Commodore 64. That's just odd What are you talking about here? As far as I know (and I *have* a C-64!), you can use the full 64K on the C-64. Some areas in the memory map, however, can be switched to contain other things than RAM... and the video chip "sees" things differently than the CPU. What seems to be true is that the C-64 has got less memory available for BASIC than the Spectrum, due to its different memory organization (here basically 24K of memory get unusable because they contain the ROM's, the I/O area or are squashed between the two ROMS (the Cxxx memory area). However, I've seen many disk programs written in Assembler using more than 48 K of memory in one shot... you can load a program from disk which reaches from $0800 to $CFFF directly from the built-in BASIC, which is 50K of memory... more than the Spectrum has. An exception to this would be an 128K Spectrum, but that one should be compared to the C128 rather than to the C64. But for the 48K Spectrum, to my understanding... only the memory size for BASIC is smaller than on the C-64... for assembler programs it isn't because on the C-64 you can switch all the ROM areas to contain RAM instead, which you can't on the Spectrum. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr.Amiga500 Posted April 26, 2007 Share Posted April 26, 2007 I remember writing a BASIC program on the C64 (...for a highschool computer project) and I ran out of memory at around 38K. I only needed about 45K. I remember being disgusted because it was supposed to be a 64K computer. The way I managed to get around that limitation was to have a "load" and "run" statement in "invisible text" (same colour as background) and tell the user to "press return" so that it would load and run the next part of the program. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurt_Woloch Posted April 26, 2007 Share Posted April 26, 2007 Yes, I agree that BASIC does have this limitation. But you can hide other stuff underneath the BASIC ROM, for instance, I wrote Crab Grab in BASIC (which then got compiled), and used Chris Hülsbeck's Soundmonitor for music, which is stored in the area of $A000-$CFFF which is unusable for BASIC. Basically, what happens is that the interrupt vector is redirected to a routine in the $C000 area which switches the $A000-$BFFF area over from BASIC to RAM and then calls the music routine which is stored between $C000 and $CFFF and reads the music data from the $A000-$BFFF area. When the routine's done, that area is switched back to BASIC and the normal interrupt routine gets jumped to (I think it was at $EA31, if I remember right). Besides, since I'm answering to a post that got posted using an Amiga 500, I seem to remember that AmigaBasic has got much worse limitations for code space when compared to the amount of RAM an Amiga really has - and the 512K expansion didn't help there! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuckwalla Posted April 26, 2007 Share Posted April 26, 2007 (edited) I used the Apple IIe in High school, mostly during lunch to play games and at a friend's house from time to time, and remember that Choplifter and Hard Hat Mack were fantastic versions. Telengard was superior on the C64 and still play it today using CCS64... Edited April 26, 2007 by chuckwalla Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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