Vintage Photos - Lot 6 (213-216)

Vintage Photos - Lot 6 (213-216)

Commodore User (February 1990)

Commodore User (February 1990)

Dig Dug (1982)

Dig Dug (1982)

Dig Dug is an arcade game that was released by Namco in 1982. It was one of the immensely popular games during the golden age of arcade gaming. It was originally described as a "strategic digging game" and was pretty unique for the time and remains so today.

_Arcade

As the title character, you spend your time digging through the earth in order to defeat various enemies. This can be done in one of two ways. First, you can inflate them with a bike pump. It works as a sort of spear gun so this attack has a short range. Once impaled, You can inflate them until they explode or if left partially inflated (perhaps because you had to flee from another enemy) they will float harmlessly for a brief time. You can't move around during the inflation process so sometimes you have to cut and run. The other way you can kill enemies is by digging under a rock which would cause it to fall on any enemy following you. The longer a round lasts, the faster the enemies will move. Enemy speed also increases (as do the number of enemies) as the levels increase.

_{Atari 2600}

Dig Dug was hugely popular and has seen literally dozens of ports over the years. Initial ports included early video game systems like the Atari 2600 Intellivision as well as 8-bit computers like the Commodore 64 and Apple II. However, every generation of video games systems has seen a re-release of some kind of this game.

_{Commodore 64}

More recent releases of Dig Dug, which are mostly emulations or near arcade perfect ports with added features, include Namco Museum Vol 3 (1996 for the PlayStation), Namco Museum / Namco Museum 64 (1999 for the Nintendo 64, Dreamcast and Game Boy Advance), Namco Museum 50th Anniversary (2005 for the GameCube, PlayStation 2 and Xbox), Namco Museum Remix (2007 for the Nintendo Wii), Namco Museum Essentials (2009 for the PlayStation 3) and Namco Museum Switch (2017 for the Nintendo Switch), and as a bonus in Pac-Man Party. It was also released as part of the Xbox Live Arcade series for the Xbox 360 and on Steam for Windows. There's probably a few I've missed.

_{Atari 8-bit}

There were also a few sequels that came along (including Dig Dug II) but these were not nearly as popular or as good. If you want to give Dig Dug a try than any of the releases above from 1996 or later are fine. The early home ports are good as well but they aren't going to give you an arcade perfect experience. The 8-bit computer versions or the later NES version are generally going to be better than the other 1980s console versions.

International Soccer (Commodore 64)

In the early days of a new hardware platform, 1st part software support is often critical. The Commodore 64 was no different. Of course, the true mark of a successful platform can often me measured in terms of 3rd party support. For a time, it seemed that the Commodore 64 had more third party developers than there are stars in the sky. However, in the early days this wasn't necessarily the case and for the first few years of the Commodore 64's life, Commodore published a number of titles, including games and productivity software. One of these was International Soccer.

International Soccer, as you might imagine, is a soccer game. In fact, for its time, it was an excellent soccer game. Game play was pretty straightforward. Each player (or AI) has a team of seven players. You control whichever player currently has control of or is closest to the ball. When you have the ball, you can run in any direction or pass the ball by pressing the fire button. Corner kicks and throw-ins exist but no penalties because there's no way to commit them. If you are playing against the AI, there are 9 different difficulty levels. A game consists of two halves at a few minutes each.

Sports games often don't hold up the best over time but simple sports games that were good are an exception. International Soccer is sort of the Tecmo Bowl of Soccer. It's definitely worth checking out if you are a Commodore 64 fan, a soccer fan, or a fan of 8-bit sports games.

International Soccer is exclusive to the Commodore 64 and has not been rereleased. If you want to give it a try, you'll have to track down an original or use emulation. The good news is that it is cartridge based so no long load times and it's probably more robust that a disk in terms of longevity. Check out eBay if you are looking for an original copy.