Tank Commander - Commodore VIC-20 - 1984

Tank Commander from 1984 is the fifth and final game on my list for the Commodore VIC-20.  I can’t quite remember why I bought it as I had a Spectrum by this time. I think I got it because the description reminded me of a board game I had called Tank Battle.  Again, there were vastly superior games around at this point for other computers but this is one of the better VIC titles.

The board game Tank Battle - well, it has a fuel dump, command centre, tanks and mines

Tank Commander is played out over a large semi-randomly generated play area.  The scrolling terrain consists of various elements such as mountains, rivers, trees and a road. In the game you control a tank and have to travel into enemy territory to destroy an oil depot, an (I think) communications station and a command bunker before moving to the next level.  The command bunker can only be destroyed from below.

Out to stop you are enemy tanks, mines and the occasional aircraft.  Enemy tanks are either black or white.  The black tanks will hunt you down while the white tanks are static and are normally placed next to bridges.  Mines are scattered around and are easy to avoid as are the bombs dropped by the aircraft.  Once past the tanks, the enemy installations are easily destroyed.

The graphics are pretty good for the VIC and the sound consists a constantly rumbling engine noise and some simple spot effects.  As I said this is neither the best game for the time nor indeed for the VIC-20 but I have a soft spot for it so it gets on the list.

Planes are quite easy to evade.

Skyhawk - Commodore VIC-20 - 1983

Skyhawk is decent shoot ‘em up for the VIC-20.  If it looks familiar it was because it was written by Steve Lee who programmed Falcon Patrol for the Commodore 64.  The display is similar to Defender in that you view a portion of a long, scrolling wraparound play area and have a radar image showing the positions of the enemy and your bases.  You fly a vertical take off/landing aircraft and your aim is to shoot down as many enemy aircraft as you can before your bases are destroyed.  The enemy planes fly in two at a time and seemingly drop bombs at random. You only have a finite amount of fuel and missiles available but these can be replenished by landing at one of your bases. The enemies can be shot down from behind or head-on.  It is very satisfying destroying them head-on and flying through their explosion.

The game has colourful graphics, fast scrolling and decent sound effects.  It also features inertia so you can’t just stop quickly to turn around or land.  Not a bad game for the humble VIC.

You can land at these bases to replenish fuel and missiles...

...if they're not destroyed first.

Although fictional, the houses could easily have been plucked from the Falkland Islands.

Jetpac - Commodore VIC-20 & Sinclair Spectrum - 1983

Lunar Jetman went on to star in a long running comic strip in Spectrum magazine, Crash!

Another one on the list from Ultimate Play The Game and their very first release. 

Jetpac is a single screen shoot ‘em up. It is a game I first had on the VIC-20 and by the time I got the Spectrum I had other games to play so didn't bother with it.

Your task on the first level is to assemble and then fuel a rocket.  There are a couple of pieces of the rocket on the platforms.  You can move over these to pick them up and they automatically drop onto the base of the rocket.  Fuel then drops onto the screen to be picked up and also dropped onto the rocket. When the rocket is fuelled up you can enter it to blast off to the next screen where you only need to pick up the fuel. Every fifth level you have to assemble and fuel a new rocket. Various alien enemies appear from the side of the screen and be blasted with a nice Defender style laser.  Each type of alien has its own movement pattern that differs from level to level.  Bonus objects such as gems and gold fall from the top of the screen and can be picked up for extra points.

I doubt I would have selected Jetpac for my list if it wasn’t for the VIC-20 version. There are plenty of better games on the Spectrum but not so many on the VIC. But which version is best?  With Ultimate developing the game you would think the Spectrum version would be better, but I prefer Jetpac on the older machine. The speed has been turned up a notch on the VIC which along with a smaller play area (due to the lower resolution) makes for some frantic gameplay.  Additionally the sound effects blow the rather weedy Spectrum efforts out of the water. 

The Spectrum version has much better graphics...

...but I prefer the faster pace of the VIC version

Amok! - Commodore VIC-20 - 1981

It’s Bezerk! On a 4k VIC-20! It’s great!  There’s nothing else to say!

Seriously, I don’t intend to include (many) arcade conversions on this list unless they are exceptional but this is a clone so I’ll let it pass.  It is actually a great game. 

 

Basically you fight your way through a series of rooms shooting robots as you go. There are only about half a dozen screen layouts but that’s not bad for only 4K.  Hell, a blank Word document would take up more space.  You start off fighting green robots, if you make it the next room you get cyan robots.  These are a little tougher but are worth more points.  After that you face red then black robots.  If you lose a life it’s back to the green ones. Like Berzerk!, Amok! features the electric walls, and robots that can take each other out.  It is missing Evil Otto which can be a blessing or a curse depending on your viewpoint.

Aside from the slightly flickering main sprite the graphics are well defined.  The sound is as basic as you’d expect and the controls are responsive.  Another cracking game for the VIC.

What a painful system font

You shoot robots.  What's not to like?

Blitz – Commodore VIC-20 - 1981

Gaming doesn't get simpler than this

First up is Blitz, one of the games I got with the VIC-20. This game has to have the simplest controls ever – the only key used is the space bar.  There were many clones of this on other computers, but most other computers have better games, not so much the VIC. 

Your aim is to flatten all the buildings in a randomly generated city by dropping bombs from a plane flying from left to right across the screen.  You don’t control the plane, so just concentrate on when the bombs are dropped.  The bombs will take out a set number of blocks of the building when they hit; taller buildings requiring more hits.  When the plane reaches the right side of the screen it appears back on left slightly lower.  The game ends when the plane either successfully lands on the flattened landscape or crashes into one of the buildings.

Why the plane can’t land at an airport or fly around the buildings, rather than destroying a city is beyond me.  Why didn’t I question ridiculous plots when I was young?  I must be getting cynical in my old age.

Anyway, the sound is basic, the graphics are basic and the controls (control rather) are basic but it does have that all important ‘one more go’ quality.  That’s enough to get it on my list.

'Yeah, I've flattened a city just so I can land my plane'

Oops