The VICE Emulator
It has been awhile since I tried a Commodore 64 emulator. I ran across the VICE Emulator which seems to be a pretty solid implementation. You unzip it to a folder on your harddrive and then you can run any of the x??.exe emulators. They have the C-64, the C-128, the old Vic 20, the Plus 4, a CBM2, and a Pet. It does a great job with the sound and it allows you to emulate a joystick using either the keyboard or a regular Windows recognized joystick (in my case a Logitech dual action controller). After downloading VICE, I went to c64.com and downloaded Raid On Bungeling Bay. The single file image of the disk on my hard drive, I just pointed the VICE emulator to open the disk image. Then typing in the C-64 the classic LOAD”*”,8,1 and then RUN and I was off. Just be sure you remember where characters like * and the ” are on the C-64 keyboard. I had very little trouble reaching for a Shift-2 to get the ” character but the * I kept mashing keys on the right hand side until it appeared. Unfortunately, VICE is so realistic that you have to wait the normal amount of time as it loads and loads and loads… Oh well… we wanted it accurate right?
All this came about because I finally did obtain one of those hand-held C-64 game machines off of eBay. I have to give it a major thumbs down. If you are a huge Jumpman Jr. fan, then maybe it’s worth it. Pitstop II was always mildly entertaining although not very fun with just 1 player. Summer and Winter Games are sort of neat (at least for a couple of events), but generally it made me realize just how bad some of the C-64 games really were. But it also made me think of games like Raid On Bungeling Bay that I actually liked (although 5 minutes in, I remembered just how hard a game it was). The only thing they did right with the C-64 hand-held unit was they basically stole the Competition Pro joystick design (by far the best joystick ever made) so that part of it is solid.