Commodore 64 Titles Join Wii's Virtual Console

TechDock writes "Gamasutra reports that several Commodore 64 games will be emulated on the Wii's virtual console." From the article: "Although no specific titles were named, the only indications so far are of titles from now defunct U.S. developer Epyx, maker of the likes of Impossible Mission and the Summer/Winter/World/California Games series. Best known for their work on the 8-bit Commodore 64 home computer, Epyx also designed the prototype Lynx console for Atari as well as several of its games." I'm thinking we need Ghostbusters, Defenders of the Crown, Maniac Mansion, and (of course) Boulder Dash.

M.U.L.E.

[jennis]

You can't leave this game off the wish-list of games to port.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M.U.L.E [wikipedia.org]

Each Announcement

[Anonymous Coward]

Every one of the virtual console announcements, on it's own, seems reasonably unimpressive but as time goes on I become more and more impressed with the system. When it was first announced as a NES/SNES/N64 emulator I thought that it was alright but nothing to write home about; after the Sega Master System/Genesis and Turbo-Graphics 16 announcment I was starting to get excited. With the C64 (and one would hope Colleco/Atari/Intellivision) announcments it seems like Nintendo is actually trying to bring the most retro-gaming together on one platform.

Viva Epyx!

[Xaroth]

On the one hand, I desparately want to say things like "Woohoo! Jumpman, here I come!". On the other hand, I'm totally sure that Nintendo is lurking around internet forums looking for which games to port. I can just imagine the conversation:

Nintendo Secret Ops Agent Alpha: "Oh! Some random person on the internet just said that Jumpman must be ported!"
Nintendo Project Lead: "That's great! We'll get right on it!"
Nintendo Secret Ops Agent Alpha: "...oh, wait. Someone else on the internet says that game sucks."
Nintendo Project Lead: "Nevermind, then. Cancel the programming team."

Re:M.U.L.E.

[revlayle]

I'm not so sure. Many C64 program *REQUIRE* the user to "switch disks" and then hit a key to continue (for multi-disc games). The various flavors of disk drive for the C64 has no auto detect routine to indicate to a program that a new disk has been inserted. While many emulator enthusists can deal with and manage switching disk images to emulate the switching disks operation, many causal users on something like a Wii may be confused or not understand why they have to do this.

Now, enterprising developers who want to release multi-disk games C64 can go into the original assembly and make it into an executable that requires no disk flips, or even provide an emulator-only opcode to automatically switch disk images that are attached to the games... IF they want to bother with that.
Fortunately, there are a LOT of C64 games not on disk or require on one disk side, as well as not necessarily require a write back to the disk (which is not really the problem tho). Just some of the cool ones are multi disk :)

Re:M.U.L.E.

[MarkAD88]

If they release Racing Destruction Set for the Wii I'm a dead man. That game nearly consumed my soul at the tender age of 14 and I can only imagine that the rerelease would suck me in just as well.

I'm sure if they release it on the Wii that my wife and children would simply abandon me.