Commodore 64 vs. Amstrad CPC - 8 games from 1985

Hello and welcome to the second episode of Commodore 64 versus Amstrad CPC.
In this video, 8 games released in 1985 are shown running on both machines so you can see how different (or similar) they were.
Thanks for watching and let me know in the comments section below who "wins".
And, of course, see you in the next RetroNoName episode

[@JasperTedVidalTale]

Amstrad cpc sometimes is slightly more colorful in this video

[@retrononame]

True, but in these 8 games, the C64 versions are more fluid and better in "playability" department. At least for me. With exception being Everyone's a Wally that is, again IMO, better on CPC.

[@JasperTedVidalTale]

@@retrononame Agreed 💯

[@kyma1999x]

yes amstrad palette is 27 colors vs 16 of commodore, and very saturated but this is not always an advantage. in some cases e.g. nature graphics like jungle, forest and so on, commodore colors are more mix friendly, pixel artists love c64 colors.

[@Edgel-in6bs]

A) generally a comfortable c64 win. Perhaps everyone's a wally looks marginally better on the cpc B) That was the worst dive ever on the CPC DT supertest :)

[@retrononame]

A) Agreed. C64 mostly wins in this episode. Wally is better on CPC though. At least for me. B) Yeah, I know. It was not a mistake to include this dive. ;)

[@brutusmuerto]

Beautiful! Thank you! You are a connoisseur, sir!

[@alisondale979]

I was fortunate to have both back in the day, CPC first then C64 very soon after. Pretty much all my gaming was on C64 and online activities like Multi User Dungeon and educational activities I found suited the CPC well. Enjoyed them both.

[@retrononame]

Agreed. Both very nice machines. Myself, I had a Speccy back in the 80s, but played a lot of C64 games at my cousins place.

[@JustWasted3HoursHere]

For Beach Head II you forgot to show that the C64 version has voice synthesis: "Hey, don't shoot ME!"

[@dennyhaynes3]

1. Commando, easy win for the C64 2. Nodes of Yesod, again win for the C64 3. DT Supertest, looks a draw to me 4. BeachHead 2, C64 win for me 5. Gyroscope, again a C64 win 6. Cauldron, definitely C64 version 7. Monty on the run, yet again the C64 wins 8. Everyone's a wally, I prefer the C64 but to be fair a draw in my eyes

[@retrononame]

For me, Supertest plays better on C64 and Wally is better on CPC. But that's only my opinion of course.

[@MartinJSUK]

Commando would win if it was the whole game, but I can't accept paying full price for 3/8 of the game. Wally a clear Amstrad win for me. Monty I personally prefer the Amstrad, but that's probably through having had a Spectrum back then. Otherwise agreed.

[@IsaacKuo]

Lack of fine hardware scrolling on the CPC is lamentable, but as I understand things ... the CPC did actually have undocumented fine hardware scroll capability. But it's something that demo coders discovered and it still required a lot of fiddly bits. Had the CPC been a lot more popular, maybe game coders of the era would have figured out these tricks. The C64 benefited greatly from the sheer size and profitability of the C64 market ... a lot of incentive for coders to figure out neat tricks to give their games a "wow" factor over the competition.

[@robsmall6466]

That's a misnomer RE Amstrad popularity. Ignore the game number total doing the rounds for the Amstrad online. It's completely wrong. The Amstrad had massive French support and strong Spanish support. This means there are games available on Amstrad that are not on C64 or ZX Spectrum. Some are C64 and Amstrad. Some are ZX Spectrum and Amstrad ( Spanish games predominantly ). A lot of the French games were Amstrad, ST, Amiga releases with no C64 or ZX Spectrum ports. The Amstrad did get games later but in Ikari Warriors case earlier and in the case of Prince of Persia ( that wasn't available at the time on C64 or ZX Spectrum )

[@MartinJSUK]

@@robsmall6466 what it means is that, when comparing games released on both Amstrad and C64, they're mostly UK titles where the C64 was bigger and the Amstrad got a lot of lazy Spectrum ports. The CPC is certainly better than comparing random games released for both systems would suggest. That said, Amstrad could have helped developers to unlock how to smoothly scroll the screen sooner.

[@hartoz]

I had both, overall, I preferred the Amstrad as I had a CPC6128. The C64 games were generally better than the Amstrad games, but that was mostly due to the Amstrad having so many lazy ported games from the Spectrum. Using the Amstrad to code with was way better than trying to program on the C64 (where you had too keep long lists of addrrsses written down for peeks and pokes), and the Amstrad also had native 80 column mode and multiple graphics modes compared to the Commodore's single mode.

[@MartinJSUK]

The C64 could use multiple resolutions on a single screen though. The C64 probably had a better games catalogue in the day, especially if you didn't speak French or Spanish (and have access to imports from them(, but both had their own strengths and weaknesses - the Amstrad processor is an advantage for 3D and often 2.5 (especially isometric), better palette overall too. C64 unquestionably wins on sound though. There are Amstrad games which show its scrolling was much better than people think. Also, C64 had faster tape loading but slow and expensive disk drives.

[@Edgel-in6bs]

Class video as ever!

[@retrononame]

Thank you very much!

[@kyma1999x]

again they look quite comparable, generally c64 has a little advantage e.g. in sound and scrolling handling making overall games smoother and well polished.

[@retrononame]

Agreed. Only the Wally game is, in my opinion, better on CPC.

[@alfadelta-d1d]

"a little avantage in sound" is really euphemistic to say! I had the C64 but never loved 8 bits home computers in general. Anyway, listening to SID again today, really I see how it makes a difference. I also noticed the sprites on CPC are better colored and a little bigger, while C64 version often use monocromatic and smaller sprites. May be is just a lazy conversion (expecially if original game comes from Spectrum) but may be CPC was better in this point...

[@kyma1999x]

@@alfadelta-d1d on sprites it depends on coding, c64 has hardware generated sprites with some kind of primitive snes mode7, it can scale sprites making them bigger or larger or smaller...amstrad had to do everything on software even screen scrolling while c64 has hardware assisted scrolling routines controllable even via basic. SID has enormous advantages on timbres, it can generate many noises, metallic tones, even some kinda distorted guitar like tones or screaming basses thanx to multiwave oscillators and analog filter, it has also ring modulation and osc sync.....but in most cases this makes not huge difference for me making a game a good game, I mean a nes or master system titles were superior in general even with less sound capabilities.

[@tofik5939]

👍👍

[@stewsretroreviews]

Better versions of those games mainly on the C64 here. But I'm sure there were a few other Amstrad games which were better than the 64

[@Nevidimka0]

👍👍👍👍👍👍👍

[@RETROMANIA50]

commodore est nettement meilleur !!

[@covidwasacon]

Yep, amstrad was rubbish

[@peachgrush]

Amstrad was not rubbish. It just wasn't much of a gaming computer. In terms of productivity, with its CP/M support and 640x200 video mode, and sometimes 128 KiB of memory, it was clearly better than C64, and even comparable to or better than C128. But when it came to games, no tile-based graphics with easy hardware scrolling and no sprite support meant a clear win for C64. And to add insult to injury, SID is so much better then AY-3-8912. (to make things clear - I myself owned a C64)

[@robsmall6466]

I'll rise to the bait. Different. Not rubbish. The C64, Amstrad, Spectrum and MSX ( among others ) all have different strengths and weaknesses

[@retrononame]

For me, all these 8 bit machines from the 80s have their their strengths and weaknesses. Although, it pains me a bit to say it (as I was a Spectrum kid back then), but I think the C64 did have "an edge" in gaming department over the others. But, also, other machines were far from rubbish in my opinion and had some classic games on them that were well worth playing.

[@MartinJSUK]

These videos always underrepresent the Amstrad, as most of its best games weren't on the C64. Check out some French games and some homebrew games to see what it could do (even scrolling). C64 wins on sound and music though.