Thanks for taking the time to watch the video! Check out my Instagram: instagram.com/gregsgameroom/ Every Konami NES Game: ua-cam.com/video/AO1qrfzyDtI/v-deo.html Nintendo NES vs. Atari 7800: ua-cam.com/video/OtB1vwTntcs/v-deo.html Playing Unreleased NES Games! ua-cam.com/video/OTm0vb-gHhA/v-deo.html
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. :/
@@markrotondella4689 wow, didn't even know that, so it's not even a hardware limitation? That makes it worse! On the Commodore 64 maybe not so much but during the Amiga years it really made a lot of games worse, games were starting to use more and more buttons and having literally just one button for everything wasn't cutting it anymore and my friends were all getting mega drives etc
I think it's sh.tty, just like that thing in your pfp. That probably isn't the first time you heard that. Since you wanna complain to the annoying c64 commando music. Its probably the first time you heard it cause NO ONE talks about the c64.
I find most Americans didn't grow up with C64 Sid Chip music, so are biased towards NES style music. Europeans and Brits far prefer C64 music generally as we grew up with that and I personally think it's often objectively better. But it's a matter of taste.
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.
The nes is and was better in every way. Numbers don't lie, nor is it complex, it's pretty simple, nes has better games, a better style, better colors, should i keep going? I'll stop at GAMES cause that's what matters.
@@ramrodbldm9876wrong. The sound is totally inferior. The variety of games is inferior. Yes, some genres are better on nes but some are way better on c64
It actually has some advantages over the NES despite only having 3 voices instead of 5. On the NES, each voice is stuck with a certain waveform, while on the C64 each voice is independently programmable. So, if the programmer puts enough effort in, the C64 can have much better sound. If the programmer takes the lazy approach and just uses "set and forget" for each voice the NES will win simply because it has more voices. The SID was crazy advanced for its time, when the C64 came out every other computer basically just had a beeper speaker at that point.
@@StormsparkPegasus I find most Americans didn't grow up with C64 Sid Chip music, so are biased towards NES style music. Europeans and Brits far prefer C64 music generally as we grew up with that and I personally think it's often objectively better. But it's a matter of taste.
@@GregsGameRoom I doubt it's the EMULATOR, it's more likely your copy. Emulators are perfect now. I assume you were using Vice, Frodo is the second most popular. They basically are perfect at this point, right down to the bugs on the original machine.
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 😂👍
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.
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!
Also the C64 sprite hardware is superior, with multiplexing its 8 sprites per line, same as the NES, but the sprites are over twice the size of NES sprites and there's a feature that allows you to blow them up to an even larger size. This is why NES games have so much more sprite flicker, the sprites are so thin they have to constantly build their player and enemies out of multiple sprites joined next to each other, on C64 1 sprite does the same work.
Highres it is 2 colors to 8x8 square and medium res 4 colors to 8x8 square. Also spites can overlay (or underlay) for difficult parts. Fullscreen overlays are possible too for stills. Graphics were not the limitation in C64. If someone want to port newer game to Commodore 64, game developer perspective storage space in floppies was often biggest limitation. It was only 160k per disk side. Highly linear and long game (14 hours or more) could be put to 7 floppies and that is 2240k, but if someone wants to port Monkey Island to Commodore 64 that would be unnacceptable to swapping disks every screen so should be fit to two floppies so game would be then only 640k. Largest Commodore 64 games in 80's was fit to two floppies. Amount of disks in games exploded in early 90's when games were targetted to CD. Rise of the Robots had 16 floppies... Largest licensed NES cartridge, somewhere early 90's was 768k. Probably 80's they don't even had chips to make that big cartridges so they were much more limited.
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
@@GregsGameRoomSame here. I owned NES for only a year as i didn't use it. I still own SNES, N64, etc. I bought my first gaming PC in 1994 and used PC and AMIGA at the same time during whole 1990's. I kept buying gaming PC's last 20+ years too. My new gaming console is also a PC. "Lenovo Legion Go" PC handheld which launched in early november 2023 running on Windows 11. ;) I still prefer the freedom of computers as i grew up with it, and i'm not a big fan of locked eco systems. I do own many consoles from all gens, but they are all dust collectors.
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.
(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
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.
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.
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!.
Zelda and Super Mario were mega low-fi as well. Anything prior to 1988 on the NES looks terrible.Then all of a sudden programmers got the hang of the machine, and ROMs became cheaper, enter the NES 2.0 (>1990). SMB 3.0 was kind of the kickstart into the new era, but the real stars were games like Double Dragon 2, Probotector, Shatterhand, Bionic Commando, Kabuki Quantum Fighter and not to forget Kirby's Adventure. They outperformed most SNES games.
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!
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.
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.
I noticed you have a lot of emulation issues in a bunch of videos, i wonder what emulators/settings you are using because i tested each game you mentioned having issues myself and they run fine on my end.
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.
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.
No, the NES was nothing in 1985, only ±100.000 units sold in the US. Get your dates right. The NES sales finally got serious in 1987 (5M) and peaked in holiday season 1988 (9M) in the US, in the EU even later: the best year was 1991 for the NES (4M). Also all great games on the NES are 1990 and later, with the best from 1992-1993. Peak C64 must have been more around 1985, but it still had a pretty hard time competing the then 6 year old 800. But it was a helluvalot cheaper than the Atari at launch. People are often quite a bit off when it comes to their own experience dating, after they read launch dates on Wikipedia.
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.
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.
There is indeed a Super Mario Bros. for the C64 and it's damn close. You should check it out. Great Giana Sisters had to be pulled due to lawsuit threats.
Ghost and Goblins on the C64 had the best version of music and I didn't have the training version, didn't get too far. Gyrus was also the first one I played on the C64 loved them both.
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.
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.
Basicly Commodore 64 hardware design combined to storage limitations in games with skilled pixel artists meant pixel graphics that was in 368x272 resolution with very large unused margins and in center 320x200 area having mix of 320x200 and 160x200 pixels. Typical case if done correctly, distant objects and some game character and essential details were 320x200, and rest was 160x200. Cutscenes, intros, titles, menus etc. and many other situations allowed to use those large margins having more pixels in content while other platforms required to reserve pixels for margins, also was possible to add sprites to border area and overlay sprites to make some higher resolution 368x200 widescreen graphics. However, border areas were used rarely.
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.
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.
The NES also saw a massive increase of game quality over its lifespan. It did SO well in the end (1992-1993) that most games that were released then next to the same name games for the SNES, were actually better. If you compare say Shatterhand with Zelda 1, it looks like there is another console generations in between.
9:49 Greg that's C64 Sid chip music lol it's warbly naturally. We loved it in Europe. And it influenced a lot of European Dance music. Americans seem to prefer NES style music. The C64 has some great Sid Tunes.
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....
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!
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.
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.
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 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.
Your C64 specs are not correct. The resolution is up to 320x240, and it is not limited to 4 colors. Heck,, just the Activision logo on Pitfall has more than 4 colors.
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.
A big problem of the C64 was that Commodore did not do quality control of software. Most titles had "beginner faults", like no controls setup, missing instructions, no memory clean up after quit, no quit at all, no music on/off switch, no highscore/game state save. On the NES everything was polished and bug-free.
@@lovemadeinjapan you have a point, however NES set the standard. Up to when the C64 came out it really was the wild West of videogames. At the time No One had quality control. :)
@@lovemadeinjapan true, but did you see how well it did? That may have not been the best example. I do see your point but in Test markets at the time tending it was better to have as much of the market as possible. After the 'console' crash out was important to change that. The C64 had already treaded those waters and it was Too late to change what was already out. I hope you understand I'm not trying to be argumentive. I've Lived through those times (pushing 50)
This was not even fair. The console that beats the SNES against the diahrea coloured machine that outputs 16 flavours of dhiarea over composite with jailbars and colour bleed....
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.
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.
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..
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!
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 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 😀
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.
They were actually quite pricey. We had a P2000, and Philips offered a 10 guilder/month subscription (about 5€) that let you download unlimited software for free over the telephone line. That was cheap! A C64 cassette was like 75 guilders, a NES cartridge could go up to 150 guilders.
I stoped watching when I heard that Commando music on C64 is "to loud"!? C64's Commando music is Rob Hubbard's masterpiece, and showcase for brilliance of C64's sound chip-SID! Maybe best piece of 8 bit music ever!
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.
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.
there exists a bug fix version of that game today, that plays much better than that crap its got released back in the day. Its was not final version that glichted, but level 3 as im remember.
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" :(
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.
Name those custom hardware NES games.... Other than a bit of save memory. The carts did have massive storage though. Kirby was the biggest here with 768kB, where the C64 would need tons of reloads from multiple tapes or disks for a game of that size.
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.
you can do the same with all other ports of that game. Most ports could uses 2 joysticks. include Amiga. You do need to enable that setting in the game of course.
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!
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 ua-cam.com/video/vjI76JIFCuA/v-deo.html and compare it to C64 ua-cam.com/video/CWmqoEdjKR4/v-deo.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 ua-cam.com/video/XrCK38adwsA/v-deo.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 :)
‘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.
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
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Every Konami NES Game: ua-cam.com/video/AO1qrfzyDtI/v-deo.html
Nintendo NES vs. Atari 7800: ua-cam.com/video/OtB1vwTntcs/v-deo.html
Playing Unreleased NES Games! ua-cam.com/video/OTm0vb-gHhA/v-deo.html
Commando music on C64 >>>>>>>>>>>>> Commando music on NES. It's a Rob Hubbard classic
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. :/
Good point. An iffy game might be more worth playing if it's "free."
None of my friends had a C64 so I bought all my games.
A few years prior I would share Atari 2600 cartridges with pals though!
Yeah, the one button thing annoyed me so much back then and still does when I think about it now. Up is not jump! 😤
@@phaikyouser9499 especially when there was zero reason for it - the atari had a 12 button keypad controller :P
@@markrotondella4689 wow, didn't even know that, so it's not even a hardware limitation? That makes it worse! On the Commodore 64 maybe not so much but during the Amiga years it really made a lot of games worse, games were starting to use more and more buttons and having literally just one button for everything wasn't cutting it anymore and my friends were all getting mega drives etc
This is the first time I've heard someone say "meh" to the C64 Commando music.
I think it's sh.tty, just like that thing in your pfp. That probably isn't the first time you heard that. Since you wanna complain to the annoying c64 commando music.
Its probably the first time you heard it cause NO ONE talks about the c64.
Meh...
@@ramrodbldm9876 Congratulation. This is the dumbest thing I heard all year.
I find most Americans didn't grow up with C64 Sid Chip music, so are biased towards NES style music. Europeans and Brits far prefer C64 music generally as we grew up with that and I personally think it's often objectively better. But it's a matter of taste.
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.
The nes is and was better in every way. Numbers don't lie, nor is it complex, it's pretty simple, nes has better games, a better style, better colors, should i keep going? I'll stop at GAMES cause that's what matters.
@@ramrodbldm9876 False. I said why. If you're going to respond to my comment then respond to my statement.
@@ramrodbldm9876wrong. The sound is totally inferior. The variety of games is inferior. Yes, some genres are better on nes but some are way better on c64
That Commodore 64 sound chip is so unique. My grandma had one when I was a kid and those sounds really take me back
Definitely has a distinct sound.
The SID chip is wonderful.
It actually has some advantages over the NES despite only having 3 voices instead of 5. On the NES, each voice is stuck with a certain waveform, while on the C64 each voice is independently programmable. So, if the programmer puts enough effort in, the C64 can have much better sound. If the programmer takes the lazy approach and just uses "set and forget" for each voice the NES will win simply because it has more voices. The SID was crazy advanced for its time, when the C64 came out every other computer basically just had a beeper speaker at that point.
@@StormsparkPegasus I find most Americans didn't grow up with C64 Sid Chip music, so are biased towards NES style music. Europeans and Brits far prefer C64 music generally as we grew up with that and I personally think it's often objectively better. But it's a matter of taste.
I had the Commodore game of Ghostbusters. The car glitching must be an emulator thing. It definitely looked good on the original disk.
Yeah, not sure why the emulator didn’t like the car!
im have newer seen issue like that. could been a bad version.
@@GregsGameRoom I doubt it's the EMULATOR, it's more likely your copy. Emulators are perfect now. I assume you were using Vice, Frodo is the second most popular. They basically are perfect at this point, right down to the bugs on the original machine.
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 😂👍
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.
There’s definitely enough pins to add another button.
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!
Yeah had to distill the specs down a bit for the video.
Also the C64 sprite hardware is superior, with multiplexing its 8 sprites per line, same as the NES, but the sprites are over twice the size of NES sprites and there's a feature that allows you to blow them up to an even larger size. This is why NES games have so much more sprite flicker, the sprites are so thin they have to constantly build their player and enemies out of multiple sprites joined next to each other, on C64 1 sprite does the same work.
Highres it is 2 colors to 8x8 square and medium res 4 colors to 8x8 square. Also spites can overlay (or underlay) for difficult parts. Fullscreen overlays are possible too for stills.
Graphics were not the limitation in C64.
If someone want to port newer game to Commodore 64, game developer perspective storage space in floppies was often biggest limitation. It was only 160k per disk side. Highly linear and long game (14 hours or more) could be put to 7 floppies and that is 2240k, but if someone wants to port Monkey Island to Commodore 64 that would be unnacceptable to swapping disks every screen so should be fit to two floppies so game would be then only 640k. Largest Commodore 64 games in 80's was fit to two floppies.
Amount of disks in games exploded in early 90's when games were targetted to CD. Rise of the Robots had 16 floppies...
Largest licensed NES cartridge, somewhere early 90's was 768k. Probably 80's they don't even had chips to make that big cartridges so they were much more limited.
@@gruntaxeman3740 171k actually per disk.
@@giant000
One disk side. Two diskette is 171 x 4 disk sides.
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
It’s a masterpiece for sure but it’s also grating on my ears!
100% it's a classic track and yes it's ear-piercing thanks to the SID chip wave form generator.
I preferred Commodore 64, and i later jumped on AMIGA. 1980's were a home computer thing at least here. Consoles were a rarity.
I fell off consoles for a number of years.
@@GregsGameRoomSame here. I owned NES for only a year as i didn't use it. I still own SNES, N64, etc. I bought my first gaming PC in 1994 and used PC and AMIGA at the same time during whole 1990's. I kept buying gaming PC's last 20+ years too.
My new gaming console is also a PC. "Lenovo Legion Go" PC handheld which launched in early november 2023 running on Windows 11. ;) I still prefer the freedom of computers as i grew up with it, and i'm not a big fan of locked eco systems. I do own many consoles from all gens, but they are all dust collectors.
There's a Commando Deluxe homebrew game on the Commodore 64 that's worth checking out. It restores the missing levels.
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.
Oh interesting. Yeah never saw one…
(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
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.
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.
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!.
Zelda and Super Mario were mega low-fi as well. Anything prior to 1988 on the NES looks terrible.Then all of a sudden programmers got the hang of the machine, and ROMs became cheaper, enter the NES 2.0 (>1990). SMB 3.0 was kind of the kickstart into the new era, but the real stars were games like Double Dragon 2, Probotector, Shatterhand, Bionic Commando, Kabuki Quantum Fighter and not to forget Kirby's Adventure. They outperformed most SNES games.
I used to have the C64 Ghosts & Goblins tune as my ringtone. Had it when I was a kid and played it a ton
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 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!
About Choplifter, the Master System version is excellent 👍😉
Yep, just bought it at Free Play Florida this year. It's my first MS cartridge!
Congratulations, so! 😉✨👍@@GregsGameRoom
That was my favorite game on SMS.
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.
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.
Excellent video and comparison. 👍
I noticed you have a lot of emulation issues in a bunch of videos, i wonder what emulators/settings you are using because i tested each game you mentioned having issues myself and they run fine on my end.
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.
Thanks! Enjoy the holidays!
@@GregsGameRoom
Cheers, you too!
@@GregsGameRoom
Thank you.
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.
Marble Madness made a few joysticks fly around the room.
C64 was great in 1982. The Atari 800 was great in 1979 and the NES was great in 1985.
No, the NES was nothing in 1985, only ±100.000 units sold in the US. Get your dates right. The NES sales finally got serious in 1987 (5M) and peaked in holiday season 1988 (9M) in the US, in the EU even later: the best year was 1991 for the NES (4M). Also all great games on the NES are 1990 and later, with the best from 1992-1993. Peak C64 must have been more around 1985, but it still had a pretty hard time competing the then 6 year old 800. But it was a helluvalot cheaper than the Atari at launch.
People are often quite a bit off when it comes to their own experience dating, after they read launch dates on Wikipedia.
I was surprised you didn't cover Castlevania or Ultima. Great video though. GG!
Not into RPGs and I don’t think I could get Castlevania to work.
@@GregsGameRoom ah gotcha that makes sense
Too many "must be an emulator issue" to take your video seriously.
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.
Probably PAL versions. The filenames don't specify.
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.
The last version of elevator action. I played on C64 was spot on to how it should be, nothing like the one pictured in this video, Liked 👍
There is indeed a Super Mario Bros. for the C64 and it's damn close. You should check it out. Great Giana Sisters had to be pulled due to lawsuit threats.
Ghost and Goblins on the C64 had the best version of music and I didn't have the training version, didn't get too far. Gyrus was also the first one I played on the C64 loved them both.
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.
The Great Giana Sisters was a stand alone game there was nothing else like it.
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.
Basicly Commodore 64 hardware design combined to storage limitations in games with skilled pixel artists meant pixel graphics that was in 368x272 resolution with very large unused margins and in center 320x200 area having mix of 320x200 and 160x200 pixels. Typical case if done correctly, distant objects and some game character and essential details were 320x200, and rest was 160x200.
Cutscenes, intros, titles, menus etc. and many other situations allowed to use those large margins having more pixels in content while other platforms required to reserve pixels for margins, also was possible to add sprites to border area and overlay sprites to make some higher resolution 368x200 widescreen graphics. However, border areas were used rarely.
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.
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.
The NES also saw a massive increase of game quality over its lifespan. It did SO well in the end (1992-1993) that most games that were released then next to the same name games for the SNES, were actually better. If you compare say Shatterhand with Zelda 1, it looks like there is another console generations in between.
you have to be lower on the screen to hit the tanks on Choplifter
Wasn't The last Ninja 2 released on both the Commodore and Nintendo?
9:49 Greg that's C64 Sid chip music lol it's warbly naturally. We loved it in Europe. And it influenced a lot of European Dance music. Americans seem to prefer NES style music. The C64 has some great Sid Tunes.
Not this American
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....
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!
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.
Also I think the comparison between a 1982 C64 Choplifter and a reprogrammed 1986 NES Choplifter is not really fair. :D
Would have liked to see a Maniac Mansion comparison, to mix it up a bit
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.
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 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.
Your C64 specs are not correct. The resolution is up to 320x240, and it is not limited to 4 colors. Heck,, just the Activision logo on Pitfall has more than 4 colors.
Hi Greg. Do you have a big selection of Commodore 64 games
17:54 not even the perfect sega Genesis port? Oh my
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.
Of course. A lot more you can do with a computer.
A big problem of the C64 was that Commodore did not do quality control of software. Most titles had "beginner faults", like no controls setup, missing instructions, no memory clean up after quit, no quit at all, no music on/off switch, no highscore/game state save. On the NES everything was polished and bug-free.
@@lovemadeinjapan you have a point, however NES set the standard. Up to when the C64 came out it really was the wild West of videogames.
At the time No One had quality control. :)
@@FIDreams Philips had very strict quality control in 1981, including over homebrews that were distributed on their dial up Videotext download server.
@@lovemadeinjapan true, but did you see how well it did?
That may have not been the best example.
I do see your point but in Test markets at the time tending it was better to have as much of the market as possible.
After the 'console' crash out was important to change that. The C64 had already treaded those waters and it was Too late to change what was already out.
I hope you understand I'm not trying to be argumentive. I've Lived through those times (pushing 50)
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?
This was not even fair. The console that beats the SNES against the diahrea coloured machine that outputs 16 flavours of dhiarea over composite with jailbars and colour bleed....
Wait until this dude finds out slower loading c64 tapes
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.
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.
In C64 Choplifter, you can shoot the tanks if you go closer to the ground.
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.
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..
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!
Mission Elevator for C64 plays like how Elevator Action should (you can duck)
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.
The first time I played Gauntlet and Ghostbusters was on the C64 and it is the only ones I like.
If you think the disks are slow loading try using the tape drive!
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 😀
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.
It's been around since 1983. Practically every system had a port. Surprised it has eluded you all this time!
did you know that the team colors of each team in blades of steels NES matches that cities football team.
Makes sense...
@@GregsGameRoom just some weird thing i found out years ago 😆 even the Canadian teams line up with their CFL colors
you just stayed in the same room on the nes smash tv instead of going in other rooms lol
But the Commodore games were free. 😊
They were actually quite pricey. We had a P2000, and Philips offered a 10 guilder/month subscription (about 5€) that let you download unlimited software for free over the telephone line. That was cheap! A C64 cassette was like 75 guilders, a NES cartridge could go up to 150 guilders.
11:50 Don't let 'em catch ya with your pants down, Greg!
I stoped watching when I heard that Commando music on C64 is "to loud"!? C64's Commando music is Rob Hubbard's masterpiece, and showcase for brilliance of C64's sound chip-SID! Maybe best piece of 8 bit music ever!
Play a single PC Engine HuCard, and you're cured from SID-Stockholm-sInDrome.
Greg’s Game Room has done it again!
Robocop was so hard on the c64 and Amiga.
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.
in Europe most people played C64 games on cassette. So they were copied and shared and pretty cheap. Although slow loading.
Ballblazer on the Atari 7800 is probably the best.
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.
there exists a bug fix version of that game today, that plays much better than that crap its got released back in the day. Its was not final version that glichted, but level 3 as im remember.
@@SpaceFractal-g2o Yeh you're right!
Had both of the then, loved both of the them 😊 still playing (but on emulators unfortunately😅)
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" :(
Sometimes the commodore 64 reminds me in some games the Atari 2600.
I had some other version of donkey Kong for c64 that had all levels and looked good and didn’t run slow
While they both can play games, it's important to realize that the C64 can also MAKE games too, so C64 wins!
Commodore version of ghostbusters was great and among the best ever for commodore.
It looks playable, at least.
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.
Name those custom hardware NES games.... Other than a bit of save memory. The carts did have massive storage though. Kirby was the biggest here with 768kB, where the C64 would need tons of reloads from multiple tapes or disks for a game of that size.
@@lovemadeinjapan you’ve just proven my point. Thank you.
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.
you can do the same with all other ports of that game. Most ports could uses 2 joysticks. include Amiga. You do need to enable that setting in the game of course.
@@SpaceFractal-g2o I stand by my overall criticism of the C64 version. Its missing a huge chunk of the game.
remember summer and winter games?
Yes, until the joystick died.
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.
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
ua-cam.com/video/vjI76JIFCuA/v-deo.html
and compare it to C64
ua-cam.com/video/CWmqoEdjKR4/v-deo.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
ua-cam.com/video/XrCK38adwsA/v-deo.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
:)
‘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.
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
Where Last Ninja 2?
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
The Commotari 2600 Evolution will be better 🙂
Bubble Bobble?