Ive found a wealth of games for the vic were exclusive to Britain. I am currently converting them to ntsc. Around 300 titles! I was very excited to see these releases were published by arma with the j style tape inlays! So soon we will have about 300 more vic games to while away time on...
As much as I love the well-rounded sound from the SID chip on the C64...especially for the music, there is something about the charm of the sound chip in the old VIC that brings me back to my childhood. I guess it's because the VIC always sounded like you were in an arcade hall with the sharp sound effects that it emitted. It also had a similar vibe to the sound chip in the VCS/2600 which also brings back a lot of memories for me
Some of these are really impressive for the Vic-20's specs. But you can also tell this is gaming's early days. It's mostly home arcade ports, with simplified variants for the heaviest. Donkey Kong probably being the most obvious where cutting back is concerned. Although, I'm REALLY impressed what they did for Dig-Dug!
The good 'ol Vic-20 was my first computer (way back when I was a young teenager) and I have much fondness for it. It was a nice shot of nostalgia watching this vid, though of course each person who had a Vic-20 would have their own choice of favorites (and about half of the games shown in this vid I wasn't familiar with). Anyways, keep up the good work. :)
Thanks for watching. Glad you enjoyed it. I recently did a video with 100 Vic-20 clips if you want to check it out. ua-cam.com/video/i6bp4P3q6YY/v-deo.html
Cool, I wish I had some of those games growing up. I remember Mole Attack, a text game called Mission Impossible, and some game where you had to lay bubble traps to capture aliens or something. Once one was trapt in a bubble, you had so much time to go back and kill it. I don't remember the name of it. The box looked so cool, but I was very disappointed when I played it.
vic was my first machine. saved all summer to buy it for $69 just as the C64 was taking off. used it for a year or so before I finally got a C64. My favorite games for the Vic-20 were the scott adams text adventures.. Pirate's Cove, etc, but I was more interested in programming than playing games.
I loved those! I couldn't get past the bear in Adventureland, and got so frustrated I typed "screw bear". The game said "the bear was so startled it fell off the ledge". It wasn't until years later I learned the parser only read the first two letters of the words, and the real solution was "scream bear". Still, my solution worked, and at 11 years old, the concept of screwing a bear until it fell off the ledge was the funniest thing I'd ever seen. Good times.
I love the wee Vic. That bombastic sound and gloriously colourful display, you never forget your first love! I've always felt the machine is kinda hidden in plain sight. Lots of people know of it but nobody talks about it much. I don't think the full potential of the Vic has every been shown. I can only imagine what could be produced if it was given the same attention by homebrewers that the C64, Speccy and VCS has. :)
When I was at school we laughed at someone for having a VIC20. He should have laughed at us, as the games were as good as anything else out there I think, now I have seen some of better games. The sound effects are meaty and pumping often, which add to the game. The pixelated graphics are colourful and some Atari 2600-800 and BBC games look like that often, too.
Good to see Jelly Monsters there, and not Pack Man, which could have been much better on the VIC. And you got Gorf and Jet-Pack in there ;) All in all a decent list, a bit different from the norm. No Perls of Willy though :(
Yeah, Pac-Man was disappointing, although AtariSoft kind of made up for it with their port of Ms. Pac-Man. Pac-Man wasn't that great on the C64 either for that matter.
Not sure about Pitfall on the VIC-20. The Atari 2600 version is so much better. I'm surprised Battlezone, Raid On Fort Knox and Radar Rat Race didn't make it on your list.
True. However, there must be a better port of Pitfall available, even with the VIC-20's graphical limitations. Another game I can think of that makes the VIC-20 look bad is Atarisoft's Pole Position.
i only have a very few cartridges, the rest of what have is on tape, some of them the pad needs to be reattached to the spring, not hard, just have not finished checking them all.
Always thought the VIc-20 was a slightly better games machine than the Atari 2600, afterall 1978 vs 1981, and also has much better version of Pac-man, but after viewing the other games, I changed my opinion.
I do remember having one, can't really remember why and when though. But it was actually a couple of years after my C64 been purchased. So I can not really judge it that much... It was in the 80's and I did not know much about the VIC-20, just that it was inferior to my C64. Anyway I know there are a lot of Spectrum 48k vs C64 but it should have been 48k vs VIC-20 really. Sure the 48K was faster and had more RAM and higher resolution but the games produced was sort of similar or?
@@JustWasted3HoursHere good point! I did this video a few years ago so will have to take a look. I would have used online lists as well in order to compile the top 25.
Wait. What version of Donkey Kong is that? That doesn’t look like the official one, unless my memory has completely atrophied. The official one looked much better and was perhaps the best Vic 20 port.
How does this hyperspin thing work. I am using VICE as an emulator and have to fiddle with settings all the time. I am doing it wrong? I feel kinda old timey wimey. Donkey Kong must be the best version of all time, you can use the hammer on the ladder and take it to the next floor? Far out, man, far out! Great Video and great choices btw!
Almost Deadpan thanks! You can download the starter pack for Hyperspin from their website. I think that includes Rocketlauncher which is used to set up each wheel ie Vic20. I’m still learning as I go but that should help you. You can get a lot of rom sets from the TOSEC site.
Almost Deadpan i dd the setup, i played all the games, recorded the videos, and saved the games as vst files, already configured withe the right bank switching, and yes i played every singles game
ua-cam.com/video/i6bp4P3q6YY/v-deo.html For 100 Vic 20 video clips.
Pretty sure that what is called matrix here was called gridrunner when i had it in the uk.
No. We had grid runner too here - matrix was the sequel.
Ive found a wealth of games for the vic were exclusive to Britain. I am currently converting them to ntsc. Around 300 titles! I was very excited to see these releases were published by arma with the j style tape inlays! So soon we will have about 300 more vic games to while away time on...
I'm not sure what is more impressive, the grade A blockbusters of today, or cramming these little gems into just 3.5kb of RAM.
Carts could get 8k
Vic was my first computer/system. I think my most-played games were Shamus, Miner 2049er, Star Trek, and Buck Rogers. Good times.
As much as I love the well-rounded sound from the SID chip on the C64...especially for the music, there is something about the charm of the sound chip in the old VIC that brings me back to my childhood. I guess it's because the VIC always sounded like you were in an arcade hall with the sharp sound effects that it emitted. It also had a similar vibe to the sound chip in the VCS/2600 which also brings back a lot of memories for me
Some of these are really impressive for the Vic-20's specs. But you can also tell this is gaming's early days. It's mostly home arcade ports, with simplified variants for the heaviest. Donkey Kong probably being the most obvious where cutting back is concerned. Although, I'm REALLY impressed what they did for Dig-Dug!
Thanks for watching and I appreciate your comments. I agree!
The good 'ol Vic-20 was my first computer (way back when I was a young teenager) and I have much fondness for it. It was a nice shot of nostalgia watching this vid, though of course each person who had a Vic-20 would have their own choice of favorites (and about half of the games shown in this vid I wasn't familiar with). Anyways, keep up the good work. :)
Thanks for watching. Glad you enjoyed it. I recently did a video with 100 Vic-20 clips if you want to check it out. ua-cam.com/video/i6bp4P3q6YY/v-deo.html
Cool, I wish I had some of those games growing up. I remember Mole Attack, a text game called Mission Impossible, and some game where you had to lay bubble traps to capture aliens or something. Once one was trapt in a bubble, you had so much time to go back and kill it. I don't remember the name of it. The box looked so cool, but I was very disappointed when I played it.
Thanks for watching and commenting. Yes, I remember the art work used to lure you in, only to be disappointed!
vic was my first machine. saved all summer to buy it for $69 just as the C64 was taking off. used it for a year or so before I finally got a C64. My favorite games for the Vic-20 were the scott adams text adventures.. Pirate's Cove, etc, but I was more interested in programming than playing games.
I loved those! I couldn't get past the bear in Adventureland, and got so frustrated I typed "screw bear". The game said "the bear was so startled it fell off the ledge". It wasn't until years later I learned the parser only read the first two letters of the words, and the real solution was "scream bear". Still, my solution worked, and at 11 years old, the concept of screwing a bear until it fell off the ledge was the funniest thing I'd ever seen. Good times.
@@deraykrause4517 haha awesome story, glad to hear that.
@@janX9 I don't know how much fun kids these days have, but I'm pretty sure we had way more than they do. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Sword of Fargoal! Man, the hours I spent with that one back in the day!
Thanks for watching
I love the wee Vic. That bombastic sound and gloriously colourful display, you never forget your first love! I've always felt the machine is kinda hidden in plain sight. Lots of people know of it but nobody talks about it much. I don't think the full potential of the Vic has every been shown. I can only imagine what could be produced if it was given the same attention by homebrewers that the C64, Speccy and VCS has. :)
The graphics of the games, Looks like graphics of the sprites from the ZX spectrum
there are more good looking games for it than i thought.
I had a second hand vic20 back in the early 80s and I had no idea these games were available for it.
Thanks for watching. I didn't know some of them until I researched it!
I really dig the UI. Would be cool if this UI was used in some sort of VIC20 compilation game or VIC20 maxi
Thanks for watching. That would be cool.
My favorite Vic 20 games (that I grew up with) were Scorpion, Sidewinder, Kongo Kong and Escape from Mount Drash.
Thanks for watching and commenting
Got Avenger when I (well, my parents) bought my Vic 20 in 1980. It was a really good Space Invaders clone, actually.
They should have made a collection of vic-20 games for PlayStation.
When I was at school we laughed at someone for having a VIC20. He should have laughed at us, as the games were as good as anything else out there I think, now I have seen some of better games. The sound effects are meaty and pumping often, which add to the game. The pixelated graphics are colourful and some Atari 2600-800 and BBC games look like that often, too.
Thanks for watching! I agree.
Good to see Jelly Monsters there, and not Pack Man, which could have been much better on the VIC. And you got Gorf and Jet-Pack in there ;) All in all a decent list, a bit different from the norm.
No Perls of Willy though :(
Yeah, Pac-Man was disappointing, although AtariSoft kind of made up for it with their port of Ms. Pac-Man. Pac-Man wasn't that great on the C64 either for that matter.
Our first computer so good Loading lol
Not sure about Pitfall on the VIC-20. The Atari 2600 version is so much better. I'm surprised Battlezone, Raid On Fort Knox and Radar Rat Race didn't make it on your list.
Well, you're comparing a console that can do sprites to a computer that only used UDGs
True. However, there must be a better port of Pitfall available, even with the VIC-20's graphical limitations. Another game I can think of that makes the VIC-20 look bad is Atarisoft's Pole Position.
@@dbranconnier1977 and Q-Bert. Possibly the worst Vic-20 port of all time 😂
Very nice My First game Avenger 😊😍
this list is missing defender, which was awesome
What about Duck Shoot 😊
i only have a very few cartridges, the rest of what have is on tape, some of them the pad needs to be reattached to the spring, not hard, just have not finished checking them all.
Thanks for watching. Great system
Always thought the VIc-20 was a slightly better games machine than the Atari 2600, afterall 1978 vs 1981, and also has much better version of Pac-man, but after viewing the other games, I changed my opinion.
Froggee is better than Frogger, and Exterminator is better than Centipede. You also missed Serpentine.
I do remember having one, can't really remember why and when though. But it was actually a couple of years after my C64 been purchased. So I can not really judge it that much...
It was in the 80's and I did not know much about the VIC-20, just that it was inferior to my C64.
Anyway I know there are a lot of Spectrum 48k vs C64 but it should have been 48k vs VIC-20 really. Sure the 48K was faster and had more RAM and higher resolution but the games produced was sort of similar or?
Called the VC 20 in Germany because VIC sounds like fuck in German.
VIC sounds like fick more than VIC sounds like dick here?
I did not know the VIC-20 had a their own Pitfall! Version, and my god it looks awful!
Thanks for watching! It’s not the best!
Pole position looks awful it only uses half of the screen.
So Wariowares is a total ripoff of Game Theory ....
"Pitfall" was pretty terrible for the VIC-20. Was it an officially licensed version? I didn't see Activision's name on it.
I agree! Not sure if it was licensed or not, hopefully not which would explain how bad it was.
@@mattflin5171How did it end up in your top 25? 😛
@@JustWasted3HoursHere good point! I did this video a few years ago so will have to take a look. I would have used online lists as well in order to compile the top 25.
Wait. What version of Donkey Kong is that? That doesn’t look like the official one, unless my memory has completely atrophied. The official one looked much better and was perhaps the best Vic 20 port.
You're right - thats definitely not the Nintendo version, which I used to have on cartridge and which was way way better than the version here
nice to see my hyperspin setup for the vic i did a number of years ago.
Hi John, is there any way to get a hold of those cart images you created?
How does this hyperspin thing work. I am using VICE as an emulator and have to fiddle with settings all the time. I am doing it wrong? I feel kinda old timey wimey. Donkey Kong must be the best version of all time, you can use the hammer on the ladder and take it to the next floor? Far out, man, far out! Great Video and great choices btw!
Almost Deadpan thanks! You can download the starter pack for Hyperspin from their website. I think that includes Rocketlauncher which is used to set up each wheel ie Vic20. I’m still learning as I go but that should help you. You can get a lot of rom sets from the TOSEC site.
@@mattflin5171 thanx for the information! :)
Almost Deadpan i dd the setup, i played all the games, recorded the videos, and saved the games as vst files, already configured withe the right bank switching, and yes i played every singles game
i have noticed SwordOfFargoal and KeyQuest, others just have done better on other platforms
Hi Matt, would you mind sharing the cartridge art for the games?
You can probably find it on arcadepunks.
Is this running on the original Xbox? Crap, I need to find this package.
did you find it, its mine
@@johnwells558 I regret to say that I did not.
Yikes... this might actually be the WORST PORT of DK ever. At least the 2600 version superficially resembled the arcade game.
they replaced pauline a drinking bird