Even though I’d been a gamer since the mid-70s starting off with one of the early Pong clones and then moving onto LCD and tabletop LED games like Astro Wars, my passion for gaming really exploded with my first computer, the Commodore Vic 20. I played pretty much every genre imaginable, collected most of the cartridge releases from Commodore (including all the Scott Adams text adventures) and anything else I could find. But one of the biggest parts of my collection back then was from Mastertronic.
As support for the Vic 20 wrapped up when the machine was discontinued, Mastertronic continued to publish games right up until the final commercial game was released in 1985. So it’s no wonder that they were so fondly remembered amongst Vic 20 owners. In the end they released a total of 18 titles (17 games plus The Games Designer) but which ones were the best? Here’s my all time Top 5 favourite Vic 20 releases…
5. Bullet
The only one in my Top 5 that’s a re-release. Originally called Robot Mouse and published by Galactic Software, David Darling delivered a superb fast action hybrid game based on the SEGA arcade hit Head On. Simple and intuitive controls, easy to pick up and play and while it’s quite simplistic visually compared to the others on this list, it doesn’t stop Bullet from being a must have game that’s incredibly hard to put down.
4. Rockman
Boulderdash was one of the most popular games of 1984 when it was released for the Atari and Commodore 64. It wasn’t long before Mark Srebalius (and I presume his brother) released this clone for the Vic 20 and what a technical masterpiece it proved to be. It wasn’t just the strength of the gameplay in Rockman that made it stand out though. What made this so special was the fact that it had great sound, superb graphics, managed to handle dozens of objects moving on screen all at once, and gave the player 20 highly detailed levels to tackle. And all of that was crammed into an unexpanded machine so all of this needed under 5k of memory!
3. Crazy Cavey
Despite the ridiculous name, Crazy Cavey proved to be a fantastic and challenging platformer. Bright, bold and colourful visuals dragged you straight into the game with enough gameplay elements to keep it fun to play. Despite only having four levels, each offered plenty of challenges with creatures to avoid, disolving platforms, and the obligatory objects you need to collect (in this case keys) before you can get to the exit which all combined to make a superb overall package.
2. Phantom Attack
Back to Mark Srebalius and it’s pure arcade action this time. Phantom Attack is a single screen old-school arcade shooter but once again, as with Rockman this is a technical masterpiece. This type of game depends on speed and getting the adrenaline pumping and it delivers in droves. There are dozens of fully animated phantoms on screen at all times, moving around at breakneck speed all the time, the screen is awash with colour with your laser fire and the phantoms themselves colour cycling making for a visual delight that would make Jeff Minter proud.
1. RIP
Saving the best until last, and it’s no surprise that it’s another game from Mark Srebalius. Again, another arcade shooter, but in this case RIP is set in a series of connecting rooms filled with all manner of creatures to shoot/avoid. You have to collect a challice that is in each of the 20 rooms and as you’d expect from his other games – the amount that is going on on each screen is remarkable. All of the creatures, bullets being fired and so on show no signs of slowing down no matter how busy each room is. There’s a degree of strategy to it though – the creatures will try to corner you and head towards you instead of following pre-determined pathways, but you can use this to your advantage, luring them in to shooting each other giving it depth not found in many other shooters of the time.
Add to that the randomised map layout and even the patterns on the tiles used for each room design, help to give this near unlimited replayability. Not just Mastertronic’s finest but one of the best games to ever grace the Vic 20.
Overall
It was tough narrowing it down to these five, but in the end these had the deepest gameplay, longevity and pushed the Vic 20 to their limits. One thing that did surprise me was that all five in this list ran on unexpanded Vic 20s. Whether this was a conscious decision by Mastertronic to focus on the base machines or not I don’t know, but by 1984 when Mastertronic released their first Vic game, the majority of owners would have had at least one, if not more memory expansion cards.
Regardless of the system requirements, if you’re after any Mastertronic games to add to your Vic 20 collection I’d definitely start with these five – you won’t be disappointed.
Do you have any favourites amongst these or are there others that would be in your Top 5? Let me know in the comments.
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