When it comes to retro games, the 80’s is where it was at for me. I probably spent most of my childhood playing on the Commodore 64 and the Intellivision.
Many games became instant favorites in both systems. My love for Donkey Kong, Burger time and Rags to Riches (a C64 game) were top of my list. But there was a small category of games that always Piqued my interest, games that could talk.
Today that is really no big deal, we have games that look and feel like full blown HD movies. And that is fine, but not for me. I my day if you had a game that talked, you thought it was the best thing since pong!
I didn’t have many at that time, and most of them were C64 games (Obviously due to the better technology and sound chip). That being said, my first real experience with talking games was with the Intellivison… and I don’t mean the growling voice from the Major league Baseball that mimicked the words “Your out!”. They couldn’t fool me on that one, that sound was used in other games like Advanced D&D (Another all time Fav!), you know the one… when you get killed by anything in the game. If you don’t then I suggest you hit YouTube.
The real money was in the Intellivoice, a module you connected to your Intellivision that had a small assortment of games to use with it. My favourite of the bunch (and still to this day) was Bomb Squad, a game where you had to diffuse a series of bombs. To this day I have never played any games like it, and I doubt I ever will. There were a few other games that I had as well that worked with the system, but not really my cup of tea. Every once in a while I still hook up my Intellivoice and take Bomb Squad for a spin down memory road, although I don’t recall being so crappy at it!
The Intellivoice was great and all, but there was still that unshakable feeling that I needed an external device to make it talk. That is where the C64 comes in… enter Ghostbusters and Impossible Mission, true classics and the pinnacle of the C64. You want to know what made those games extra special, yeah they talked. Sure the technology was not perfect, and the entire screen would freeze when the voice over happened but it was cool! I still remember the reaction on some kids faces when I brought my copy of Ghostbusters to school to play on our lone C64…(yeah that’s right, in those days you would be lucky to have a single computer in school).
Impossible Mission was a total favorite of mine, I must have played that game the most. Those words still ring through my head from time to time “Another visitor, stay a while… stay forever”, something the Atari 7800 version could only dream of. Then there was the unforgettable “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH” when you fell in a hole. Again sorry Atari, you just fell short and I am not even going to mention the Atari bug that made the game impossible to complete. oops, just did.
Those were just a few examples, and I am sure many C64 fans will have their own favorites. Its just those memories that I keep when it comes to retro gaming.