c64 music & longplay: Rambo - First Blood Part II

Music: Martin Galway
Publisher: Ocean (1986)
Loader (0:02), Title (3:32), Ingame (6:53)
One of few Ocean games which had an unique loader music. I edited audio here separately and left out the three short melodies from text screens. I also had to cut the high score theme a bit short to keep the video under 11mins.
EDIT: This was one of my early sandbox videos and I did mistakes while processing the video. Even though this is an emulated recording this doesn't really look this crappy on emulator. Sorry about that, at least audio quality should be decent and music is the main reason I uploaded this video. I recommend listening the high quality music upload recorded from a real c64 by keketonttu and compare how accurate sound emulation is.

[@joutoope]

This was one of my C64 favourites as a small kid. The music was/is amazing.

[@matknox5954]

The music..oh my god, the music..

[@szubaark]

I was a kid back then... thanks to these videos i can always go back

[@CaptainCheq]

Shivers down my spine with the music.

[@rempseaheinamies9414]

Ah those precious memories that will never die.

[@CitroenC407]

For such a short game, it really was VERY difficult to beat. Even when you sussed it, it still proved a challenge to get through. One of the best C64 games :)

[@proteus404]

just listening to the music brings me back

[@nicknasty14]

Vintage 80s synthesizers, just classic!

[@revrondog]

Man, I haven't seen this in 25 years. Takes me waaaay back. Thanks

[@CopiousDoinksLLC]

"You must under no circumstances engage the enemy" _Next screen_ "Space bar selects weapons" ...Boy, am I glad I never read that shit as a kid, or I would have been confused as Hell.

[@Invisiblejihadi]

the high score table music is the most climatic piece of music I've ever heard

[@gary72carol61]

At 3:32 The high score table music, ahhh! masterpiece, loved all the music in this game. I was 13 years old when this came out. Agree with others, short but very hard game. I eventually entered the Rambo Green Beret league by completing this. Still have my trophey. (In my head)

[@lovenlightman]

gary72carol61 Could never finish it. C64 where very hard to finish. Sega and Nintendo where much easier

[@MichaelTaralloretrogameboyz]

OK 1 more comment - who here back in the day held up your single cassette recorder to the TV speaker to record the music and then play it back later? Like you were listening to some store bought music....ah nostalgia

[@Nelwyn]

I actually had my own rather silly lyrics to the main game music.

[@davidjolesz953]

@@Nelwyn I want to hear that

[@tangoteflon1050]

@@Nelwyn yes i want to hear em lyrics too^^

[@jupreindeer]

Back in the day, I'd load this game up just for that music. It still rocks beyond what even a SID should do to this day. Then...I'd play the game, lose and try again. Which means I never knew the game was over faster then an amusement ride as Disneyland.

[@Cybolic]

Thanks for suggesting the video by keketonttu! I hadn't realised the difference in wave drift / sync / phase that the real C64 had compared to the emulation - very nice for comparing!

[@cristianmaccari17]

Quanto ricordi!!! Ci trovavamo a casa di un amico dalle 4 a 10 persone a guardare in una tv a tubo catodico!! Che emozioni e quanto divertimento!!!

[@Adema71]

Man this takes me back to junior high school bigtime! thanks for posting this me and a few buddies back from school back in the 80's really got a kick out of it. Played this for hours.

[@lovenlightman]

Commodor 64 had great games with great music, Me and my friend loved this game. As usual very hard and great music. I Always died againts that gray plain. Commodore games where so hard to finish....

[@jkeelsnc]

Yep. The C64 era was a fun time. Go to the nearest friend with new games and copy! LOL

[@JustWasted3HoursHere]

@@jkeelsnc Yeah, me and my friend would wait for over an HOUR for a game to download from the local BBS (remember those?) over his blazing fast 300 baud modem, only to find out there was an error during transport and we had to download it again...Ughh. Or, we'd wait with anticipation and then we'd load the game and...it would suck monkey balls. Oh well. You win some, you lose some...

[@pob0r]

back then...

[@limegreensquid]

Haha, i loved the giant hearts in the character list! I played this game so much!

[@coombster1]

totaly loved this game back in the 80's bring back commodore

[@bitcoinbusker]

That SID chip can really deliver some killer tunes. Love it!

[@fuqupal]

I use to play this as a kid back in the 80's and thought it was pretty hard, but now, looking back 30 years later... could this shit suck anymore???

[@pietjebel9130]

+Fuqu Pal its really not that bad

[@DarthHater100]

This brings back memories. I always sucked at it, could never get past the first level I think. I recall something where you would free a hostage on an X shaped cross, then get in the helicopter, and the time would run out. . . been a long time though, I could have it wrong. Holy crap, almost 30 years ago. . .

[@cohena100]

This loader is my all time most favorite ever video/computer game. next comes the title music of Agony on the Amiga

[@SyphaOne]

This is when it all started for me, gamer since back then...

[@SweetT79]

That was a tough game man!! Got my C64 in 1986 the Hollywood Pack, never got far but loved it, great music, takes me back big time!

[@Thefamiliaguy]

Wow I could never beat most of the games I played back then.. You made it look so simple... I remember it being a cool game graphics and music.. just died so quickly with those little bullets coming from every direction and I never knew quite what I needed to do back then.. I never even got to the point of using the helicoptor. Amazing how short the games they made back then just were so hard to beat that it did not seem like such a short game. So young then. Probably could beat today.

[@Halligen1972]

A real Hero tune! Galway composed a perfect game soundtrack!

[@JustWasted3HoursHere]

I had no idea this game could be beat in 4 minutes! Fantastic music (so-so gameplay).

[@anthonycipolla4224]

listening to rambo music from the 1980's... my secret shame ;) sounds so damn good even today.

[@hotellmann]

@joutoope yes, it is really nice to hear this music from time to time:-)

[@psprog]

This was that game that had the most best music in one (I love my Hubbard, love my Daglish, but this has so much Galway quality in a single game!) - used to play/load it over and over back in the day on my C64. Fair play Ocean for using an amazing loading tune not the "ocean loader". I wonder why?

[@mobyboy]

gosh i loved the music

[@awsgames]

why in the hippity hopping heck is this music so good

[@arvizturotukorfurogep6235]

1. SID magic 2. Martin Galway 3. The staff at Ocean must have REALLY loved the movie to homage it with this aural extravaganza! I mean heck, even the loader music is dedicated just to this game instead of the usual Ocean Loaders!

[@JustWasted3HoursHere]

@@arvizturotukorfurogep6235 Truly. The game itself is about average, but the music is some of Martin's (and the 64's) best. I met Martin once. Very humble, soft spoken dude. A genius, too. He said that he would be given a task to write the music for such and such game and they would tell him how much space (memory) he had to work with. One time, he said he only had 250 or so BYTES available, but he did it anyway and it sounded great. Can't remember the game, though.

[@Adema71]

Damn im old i remember spending hours with my friends with this game. :( the music brings me back. Always loved it!

[@golob13]

Still love C64 music. I remember lauching Wizardry just to listen to the tune.

[@thesuperdog]

I did too !!! Loved Galway's style and eventually got through Wizardry using a Freeze Frame catridge. Several of its tunes were just beautiful

[@Cozthebrave]

Superb. I'm gonnae try and remake this tonight!

[@MichaelTaralloretrogameboyz]

OMG - back in the day when 3-4 mins was considered "longplay" and I still never finished any of these games. Probably because I had so many games to play thanks to those "sleepover-copy-parties" - "hey bring your 1541 over tonight, got some new games!" - I miss my 64 - still have it in the attic, I think I'll go hook it up. DAMN, no place to plug it in to my new TV - lol.

[@einokeino303]

+Michael Tarallo You can get adapters for new TV-models. I bought a cheap SCART adapter years ago for couple of bucks and it works great, but I don't have enough space in my living room to keep a C64 hooked up all the time. So much more convenient to use WinVICE for checking up games unless it's a special occasion ;)

[@Rheinmetall1]

I first got the adapter only to discover later that the computer wasn't working. :(

[@jkeelsnc]

Here in the US it was the same story. I had many games copied from friends in the neighborhood where I lived. It must have been this way all over the world. When the NES came out people asked why i didn't have one or wanted one. Well, it was the cost of the games first plus for the C64 I had all the games and more I wanted from copying disks. Nearly all of them were cracked (and sometimes NTSC fixed) games with the Cracktro (demo) screens. Fun times.

[@andyteri777]

I played this game all the time on my C64 !

F*ckin awesome! :) Sure it's in the TOP5 of C64 game music!

[@Wenugo1]

Dude! The high-score music is my favorite part! Cut off?!

[@TheFeinschnitt]

Hahahaha... YES! I'm young again too. Thank you for posting this. A Time where computer games where more Artwok than these days. No Bugs or whatsoever ...and of course i'am sentimental and not objective. I'am glad i grew up with this ... and not with the PS3 or xbox blablabla... pioneer times back then and i knew it /(strange). always remember where you came from.

[@chrisf1600]

Vietnam... I still have flashbacks (to this awesome game !)

[@neglesaks]

Thank you for this video, this is classic. :)

[@5wanseajak]

Great to hear that load screen music must be 25 years . Thanks

[@pjcnet]

What a classic game, I completed it so many times I couldn't begin to count (I'm showing my age). To think that I used to think the graphics in C64 games were excellent & that 64K of memory was a massive amount, well I suppose it was when the C64 was released in 1982. The music on the C64 from a 1982 SID sound chip was nothing short of amazing in it's day & Martin Galway was one of the best C64 music composers along with David Whittaker, but arguably the very best was Rob Hubbard.

[@thesuperdog]

They were all the best of their respective styles so no need to put them in order. Hubbards music routine was more efficient normally only 4k but Galway was normally close to 8k

[@pjcnet]

@AmidLightningWheels Yes, I noticed this too, some music was missing during the gunship stage where it continued playing the initial game music instead.

[@necronom]

It's VERY noticable in the first 4 seconds that you have Scale 2x switched on (or similar if you didn't use VICE). It does look a lot different to how a C64 looks. Maybe you just accidently put that on when you captured this particular video. If you go to VICE and switch the option on at the boot screen, you will see it matched yours exactly, and does look a lot different (curvy edges). Apart from that, it was a great video. I've never finished Rambo, and you played it very well. Well done.

[@keratoconus2821]

used to love this game -awesome

[@justiziabelle]

Everyone I knew who had a C64 also had this game (me included), can't really say that it was hard to come by in Germany.

[@TheDigitalPillars]

Commodore 64 has inspired so many memories.

[@ecabernet]

I used to cheat the chopper part. Have 2 joysticks, and pull them opposite way to gain super speed on the chopper.

[@DangerKennyB]

Only way I could ever do that part, lol

[@klaus_vans]

Yes I also remember there was that cheat with the helicopter! Wow so many memories this game, I was somehow addicted to it! 🤯

[@MrFreaky0815]

Respect man!

[@CaptainAvatar238]

so nice Ocean. when you made it to the helo you have to run and anticipate when the hind attacks and start shooting. continue going north as fast as you can :)

[@Nervontuxis]

omg xD these were the days. Priceless

[@wayne000111999]

Huh huh mitä matskua... ajatella, en oo aika moneen vuoteen pelannu tuota Rambo-peliä. Joskus 8-9 vuotiaana aloin pelata ja ei se montaa vuotta kestänyt se vaihe. Varmaan vasta 21-vuotiaana näin Rambo-elokuvat.Päivikin on jees, muuten.

[@TheLemminkainen]

Aika lailla meni samanlailla täällä. Muistan kun sain kuusnepani ja tämä oli eka peli jonka latasin. Lumoutuneena kuuntelin Oceanian loader musaa :)

[@lboymusic]

great tune

[@TheLeif1977]

most likely the game i played the most back in my c64 days, along with bubble bobble and the great gianna sisters.

[@rivermorrison8383]

This pisses me off. I spent hours as a kid trying to finish this game. I got to the "wall" and landed, but a bunch of endless Vietnamese came out and attacked till I died. I think it was a bug in the game where if you rescued the prisoners and bamboo man at the same time it wouldn't let you win.

[@khoms11]

6:10 awesome part ;)

[@enricomazzarellosimracing6502]

I had it on tape, was an amazing game, beside that it was working once every ten times, and it was super difficult

[@daveincognito]

@einokeino303 That explains why certain music didn't play when it should have. I was kind of looking forward to hearing the bit when you board the chopper and they warn you about the enemy chopper.

[@Terbie36]

Great theme.

[@bollen5884]

This music is harder than Stallone

[@jtpinnyc]

Oh my that pulse width modulation......

[@Dorkas12345]

legend...wait for it...ary

[@davie732]

I remember this, i was 8, good times!

[@selforganisation]

Wow, that loading times. Now a days we're annoyed when loading times are half a minute, and back then a game was loading over 3 minutes!

[@arty1675462]

EPIC!

[@xauthz]

TRUE EPICNESS played this game to death has a child...

[@carlpalomaki5781]

Very legendary..

[@TheBloodshower]

Carl Palomäki much chase

[@einokeino303]

I hear what you're saying, but this is not caused by emulator settings. I used a wrong filter (warp resize) while processing the video resolution in VirtualDub. There is another filter (resize) which doesn't cause rounding of the corners. I did make the same mistake with few more videos. I believe using the scale2x option in WinVice might produce similar effects, it seems to be an anti-aliasing effect. Thanks for the comment. Healthy criticism is always appreciated. I'm still learning...

[@keithlegg]

I started on a Vic 20. I had the c64 and Amiga from about 1983-1995. I played just about all of the games and this is probably the best music from any of them. The game was not very fun to play , but this gets my vote for best music.

[@davidclementsclements2586]

This time you get to win Rambo

[@albertomaluf3988]

this movie its just great

[@xboxmarshall1]

what a great game.found it real hard was only 10 though.

[@Downloader77]

most c64 games are emulated now for play on Windows

[@1970joules1970]

martin galway is a music legend

[@kevinjhonson5925]

This game was so friggen hard

[@whatamalike]

its so weird how some of oceans early games feel so much like pre-nes konami games...which is a fantastic thing in my opinion!

[@warlord1usw]

this was a gud game wish i still had my c64.

[@RJLeffmann]

The Morse code heard in the intro spells out the names of the developers.

[@russellj.s.257]

Always reminds me of Commando from both Capcom and Activision

[@Halligen1972]

Keep on shootin´! Graphics: 8/10 Gameplay: 7.5/10 Music/FX: 9.5/10 Playbility: 8.5/10

[@runsame]

Yeah! I wish they would develop a remake :-D

[@ActionDef]

Did you have to say this? Now I must play the game for hours just to find out if that is true :D

[@JustWasted3HoursHere]

Martin Galway is still the man!

[@JustWasted3HoursHere]

For US version of this song, change speed to 1.25 (5% over speed, but it's close).

[@nequals151]

I could never finish that last bit on my amstrad 64 green screen tape drive.... 20 years ago... Now... I know.... you have to shoot the hind down. I dunno how many years of my life I spent trying to finish that off...

[@jac4020]

I could never find that last LZ

[@veli-pekkakultanen2353]

Been there, done that. 13 years for Nokia. Let's see what we can build :-).

[@christopherscottb]

Did this game not have sound effects? Every vid I see just has music. (I remember this game, and remember the music, but I thought it had sound effects, too.)

[@einokeino303]

05:20. You have to choose between music and SFX

[@jac4020]

I could never land the chopper at the very end. Never found the LZ

[@pitchou1971]

Press RESTORE then RETURN, maintain those keys pressed when you are going back with the copter, to avoid to be pursuited by the gunship, your copter will fly faster.

[@He-Man_Master_of_the_Universe]

To get an illegal copy was easy yes but not the original game, this game was on a blacklist called INDEX.

[@andyteri777]

Load "Rambo" ,8,1 Return

[@norwayitalo]

when i loaded this with å casette player!?

[@leonskum.5682]

The cheat at the end with 2 joysticks!

[@aaronimpactnz]

Dat music