C64 Ghostbusters on The Computer Chronicles

Activision's David Crane gives a demo of Ghostbusters the video game for the Commodore 64 during the GAMES episode of the Computer Chronicles which aired on January 21, 1985.

[@Cml725]

Reminds me of my childhood. I beat this game a few times. "Something I loved from my childhood." :-) miss the 80s!

[@MrRambo4]

I still have it on my original Commodore 128D :) and i play it all the time ;)

[@Cml725]

Bronyboy30 awesome!

[@cormano64]

I love how exicted the journalists get when Crane starts describing aspects of the game.

[@matteo.ceriotti]

Of all the amazing games they squeezed in 64Kb of ram, this is the most amazing.

[@staypuft8282]

Brings back wonderful childhood memories seeing this game, and what a brilliant game it was. My favourite on the Commodore 64 without a doubt.

[@MasterGamerful]

I would LOVE to watch this show now in days! :D

[@GaijinBiker]

"Can you turn the sound down?" LOL

[@codeoptimizationware2803]

@GaijinBiker: Hehehe he said that when he switched over from the graphical action game to the Zork guy about Text-Adventure games hehehehehe

[@bmbpdk]

being born in 1981, and my first computer was a c64, i completely love these shows! Everytime they show a game i think: "LOL i remember that"

[@SteveMorrow8859]

So true. Advanced computer applications have now made embedding audio a cinch. However back then it was quite a feat. I recall once where I had an Atari program that played bits of the Michael Jackson song "I'm Bad" and Robert Palmer's "Simply Irresistable". It was the beginning of phoneme technology. Also David Crane's games required special compression for the assembly to make room for the multiplayer graphics. Keep in mind this was only 4k ram and 6k rom memory. Not much room for manuever.

[@OldAussieAds]

@Psychlist1972 Confirmed. The first time I heard a game speak in the mid 80s (Impossible Mission on the C64) it blew my mind!!!

[@crackawood]

Stay a while. Stay Foreverrrrr!

[@DanielWesleyKCK]

What a phenomenal game. I still play it once in a while... makes me feel like I'm 7 years old again.

[@fullcontrol1000]

Not sure why the negative comments, in 1984 this game made David Crane very rich indeed and the game was number 1 for months over the Xmas period.

[@readordiefanatic]

MORE THAN ONE SCREEN!? HOLY SHIT!

[@OldAussieAds]

@lemonrind From memory, the gripes the Nerd had with the game were platform specific. Like pressing a button (rather than using the d-pad) to make the three men proceed forwards up the stairs in the building. I played the C64 and SEGA Master System versions and can confirm they didn't suck.

[@Falador321]

5:40 wow he was right on that prediction. Games today do have amazing stories that can rival those of novels. Games like Mass Effect, Half-Life, Halo (early halo games) all have pretty good stories and they develop.

[@brooklynbred1460]

My C64 is in my basement beneath the staircase. When this game dropped i never pictured myself as a 55 year old home owner in the suburbs of upstate Hudson Valley NY

[@jeffstack4217]

You need to pull it out from that staircase and give it the love it deserves!

[@briancherry8088]

Could make this a drinking game - drink every time Le Bling says "Sophisticated"

[@MrShadowknight2000]

Love this show

[@FREEZE64UK]

Brilliant! Thanks for that :)

[@FordGranada75]

Back then that was not digitized speech. It was built up of phonems generated through the C64's SID-Chip. The phonems were not flexible enough to build sentences (the SAM reciter did so), but they were optimized to give the best possible voice. The phonems sounded better and used much less memory than the best available digitized speech could have done.Don't forget that the C64 is way too slow to unpack something compressed in real time. And imagine uncompressed audio stored in 64k of RAM ...

[@codeoptimizationware2803]

@Julia Engel: That right. That's not digitized speech in that computer game but _synthesized_ speech, not like a digital record of some real life, real world sound or someone's voice but sound/speech made wholly by the computer itself, without reference to any such actual recorded voice or real world sound-effect.

[@crackawood]

You're actually both wrong and the propagation of this falsehood is an affront to the amazing work of Forrest Mozer. Another travesty is the inability of Mozer to remember the original voice actor for Impossible Mission, who was one of his employees at ESS. These games use actual digitized speech (unlike SAM's more robotic-sounding synthesized speech) inasmuch as an mp3 is digitized music, though the area may be a little more gray as the compression is 100:1 instead of an mp3's 9:1. Another thing worth noting is ESS was manually encoding the speech, which was extremely time consuming, whereas LAME will automatically encode music without human intervention. I was 13 in 1984 and an active member of the c64 codebusting scene of the time and remember being amazed at a 10 second snippet being passed around of Michael Jackson's 'Billie Jean' (even though I would have preferred Black Sabbath). I have a feeling ESS employees were involved but didn't claim so because of copyright infringement. pineight.com/mw/?title=Mozer_compression

[@sundhaug92]

Gotta love the SX-64

[@brooklynbred1460]

Who else misses the 80s? The world was a better place

[@semco72057]

I loved the C-64 games and have 2 of the original C-64 computers and when I bought one used from one guy I also got the software he had also, which was plenty. There is this one helicopter game where you fly around and destroy targets. The sound was fantastic, and so was the graphics. I also had Geos which was probably the first system which works like the Apple II with everything on the screen with trash can.

[@JesusisJesus]

This game had a cheat code I remember on the C64 version, You enter your name as Wade Farrell and the code of 911 (as in the Porsche) and you would get some obscene amount of money, and I always wondered why this was done or what the link was. Can anybody please explain this to me?

[@ladysybaris]

Name data and cash balance data were encoded into the account number itself. Retro Recipes channel has a video on this process.

[@chocoblender]

6:05, an adult looking forward to playing video-games...imposable!!!

[@ZaGoudou]

"A video...GAME, cartridge-type thing primarily" 🤣🤣🤣

[@OldAussieAds]

David Crane... What a haircut!

[@sundhaug92]

Gotta love the SX64

[@TopKat17]

the c64 version did not have stairs

[@nico3641]

I had this game for C64

[@beingatliberty]

its crazy to think the evil of activision started with pitfall ?

[@OldAussieAds]

@DragonZord90 I'm not sure what Einstein over here was expecting.

[@CogLife]

I used to play this alot, my brother had it for his Amstrad. does anyone rmember the amstrad?

[@thecrossrip]

"Video... game... uh, cartridge type thing primarily..."

[@OptimusNiaa]

The host refers to Pitfall! as a "video...game...cartridge type thing primarily." The dismissiveness not being hidden well at all. Then he asks if David thought computer games wouldn't be like video games and interest in them wouldn't die. Bro, not that you could know, but NES is about to enter the chat.

[@nzoomed]

now they make movies out of games!

[@Savoy1984]

Is it easy to forgot just how groundbreaking this was, I couldn't believe hearing speech coming out of a home computer. It actually not a bad game either, yeah sure it's easy to make fun of and it's probably not perfect but it's good points more than out weigh the bad ones.

[@ejf0255]

Wow... LoL. Flashback. Cool post

[@MyRetroLife]

Hey guys! Do you mind if I use a portion of this for an upcoming video on the game I'm working on? I will be sure to credit you!

[@laladoopsy]

This was before Activision was evil :(

[@codeoptimizationware2803]

@Potty Bib Productions: Hm, whatever about evil, but in any case, in those days they were game-makers whereas today and for some years past by now they're game-publishers: They don't actually make any games themselves anymore but publish games made by other companies/software houses.

[@FireMrshlBill]

I loved that game, so much better than the NES version. I wish my C64 didn't die.

[@codeoptimizationware2803]

@FireMrshlBill: No worries: That's what emulators are for hehehehe

[@TheStellardust]

5:37 damn right!

[@Chubzdoomer]

A game isn't "shit" just because he says so.

[@16mmDJ]

SX-64 0_____0

[@SwedishEmpire1700]

it didnt? i was sure all versions had the same stairs.

[@sgtpepper1138]

@troyfilm haha, read your comment right as he said this...funny stuff

[@crazyjack66]

wow... the very same game was in the NES and Master system... AND Atari... couldn't they come up with something better? tough I have to admit, this looks really good for it's time

[@codeoptimizationware2803]

@Julio Saenz: Dude, this title is a C64 Classic, hitting all the right spots, the synthesized voice (without requiring extra, expensive speech synthesis hardware attachments) being a true (and mind-blowing) technological advancement, all the while the gameplay was and is excellent above all. Nevermind the crap NES version of this title-- the C64 version is primo hehehehehehe

[@SwedishEmpire1700]

which pretty weird for me since ive played both the NES and C64 versions... oh well, you cant remember them all.

[@djsmithy]

See how fast he got to the Marshmellow man? Didnt you have to fight him at the very end of the game with the c64 version? If thats true I guess he must have used cheats, or some "demo" version of the game, that shows it early in the game.

[@codeoptimizationware2803]

@8-Bit Beast: kzbin.info/www/bejne/e52tf4SunLCNhtk

[@Lucifronz]

Probably a presentation demo meant for showing off the game specifically. They ran out of time, but he most likely intended to talk about that fight as well.

[@fruit_smoovie]

well, the AVGN ranted about it. He might think it's shit. everyone has opinions

[@Caio569]

LOL, that looks like Peter Griffin's voice from family guy..

[@StargazerFS128]

UBER GEEKOSAURUSES PERSONIFIED

[@azmanntoz]

he seems to be very proud of that badly digitized speech. Maybe thats his own voice?

[@codeoptimizationware2803]

@azmanntoz: No, _you_ are wrong as that's not even digitized speech as you're calling it. In fact it's _synthesized_ speech: sounds from the computer itself that programmers had to make by hand. Why don't you get some rudimentary computer-tech knowledge and facts before rudely popping off not knowing what you're saying, n00bie.

[@azmanntoz]

Code Optimization Ware Thanks. You are correct it is not my area of expertise however since you were a bit rude I did some research and found an interview from 2014 where David Crane himself says: “Midway through development, I decided it was important to add digitized speech to the game,”...so whilst I admit that I am a noob, I’m not wrong enough for you to call me out and then insult me. If the creator of the game uses the same terminology as me you should probably check your own facts.

[@JerseySlugga85]

i thought the exact same thing with that cheesy music lol

[@techstormster]

0:34 you were most known for pitfall i guess which is a video; game um cartridge type thing primarily WOW, I guess you could call pitfall a video; game type thing but then you would be categorizing things in places where they belong now wouldn't it.

[@mrfuzzer1]

@cormano64 Yes he was, i almost feel sorry for him on two levels first that he couldnt play and also because when he finally got to play it, it sucked. Hehe. No but seriously i really hated that game at least on the nes. But maybe it was better on the computer i dont know.

[@Alex_Miller1980]

gawshbawshtersh !!!

[@keatonkeaton999]

Look Around You

[@laffer35]

Did you see this clip - watch?v=95L0gRRxs6k The creator of the game talking about it when it was brand new :D

[@killik2099]

Ghostbusters on c64 sucked ass, I played it like a fool when I was a kid and thought I was just rubbish at it, but it was the game!

[@bryantgyt]

Old airplanes sucked, old cars sucked...it's called progress. Without the old games you'd never have the new ones.

[@SwedishEmpire1700]

this game wasnt that good, hard as hell and the last part with the 80+ stairs was pure hell.

[@jkadoodle]

"Now let me ask you David, why does this game suck so hard?"

[@yoytuvieja]

ajajajajajaajajajjajajajajajajajjajajaja

[@aubba]

this guy design this shit??? XD someone tell the AVGN XD

[@codeoptimizationware2803]

@Frankxx87: Aw, he knows already, knows what you couldn't glean when you wrote that comment hehehehe

[@kargaroc386]

3:29 = THE REASON WHY IT SUCKS SO HARD.

[@numbers9to0]

I ever wondered... until i saw an walktrouh of Ghostbusters on youtube. The game is just a piece of shit! As bad as E. T. on 2600. Just sucks.

[@OSuKaRuTV1]

There is one of the worst games i played on my life. (sorry)

[@LUCKO2022]

Fuck you. Go back to playing on a Shibox One since those games are about your speed.

[@OSuKaRuTV1]

snake2006 Im not a Shibox guy. Maybe is more accurate to describe me as a Paystation guy ;D (Really i am a PC guy) Have you seen the AVGN review? I played this several times on a AMSTRAD CPC. and, never be able to beat it. Mabe is my lack of ability. But my brothers (My older brothers) Sweat shit to pass it and i only heard one of them passed it once. And No. I dont think is lack of ability. is lack of patience. 4 stages, car as big as the screen in the driving stage, exhaustingly long stair stage (yeah. i get to the stair stage, but not passed through it) The same music that becomes tedious after a time and touring through the mapping again and again 90% of the time with occasionally busting ghost and, if lucky, the ZUUL sign apears once of a while. :P (Thats my experience)

[@LUCKO2022]

OSuKaRu TV The C64 version doesn't have the stair stage. You base everything off a AVGN review and yes I have seen it. But unlike you, I have played the game, and I love the C64 version. In the C64 version you get past Marshmellow Man and the the games goes to Zuul and that end the game where you win. Simple as that.

[@OSuKaRuTV1]

snake2006 Read further my response. I said i played it on an AMSTRAD CPC computer all along my childhood.

[@LUCKO2022]

OSuKaRu TV We aren't talking about that version. The whole video was about the Commodore 64 version. Learn the difference.

[@ianhitman]

i love how this jobber is speaking with pride about the worst parts of the game like he's doing something innovative. We didnt want the ghostbusters fucking around balancing the books and trying to start a business up. we wanted Bill Murray shooting slimer.

[@TheLastStand001]

Yeah you got that in the form of mediocre 2D platformers that everyone hated