The 20 Best Commodore 64 Microprose Games Ever Made!

[@fulgenzio1973]

Wow, what memories, back in the days of 8 and 16 bit, Microprose was a guarantee of quality. I remember spending hours on PSF and Stunt Car Racer, the former for 64 and the latter on Amiga. The manuals of the strategic games were super-detailed volumes of exceptional interest, since they talked about topics not strictly related to video games (good times, when you could find maps, manuals, etc. inside the packaging).

[@oldstylegaming]

Yeah you defo got your monies worth on most of these games as far as manuals went

[@bobs3302]

You've been busy! MicroProse was my favorite developer hands down. Spent hundreds of hours playing Gunship, Pirates, Airborne Ranger and Red Storm Rising. Gunship was my favorite but I loved them all.

[@kenibnanak5554]

Back in the 80s I spent a lot of hours learning and playing, Strike Eagle, Silent Service, AH64 Gunship, Conflict in Vietnam, Flight Simulator II, Sargon, Battle Chess, etc. on my C64. City Sim was also challenging.

[@nanuJoe1967]

Microprose.. the gaming producers that gave you a history lesson as well as tatical gameplay!.. I learnt more from their manuals then i did from school! Got most of there big boxes releases still on 64 and amiga and pc. Railroad Tycoon was my fav on amiga.

[@knightdriver3592]

Pirates! is one of the best games I have played on any platform. It had so much variety and depth and such a unique sense of adventure. Sid Meier is brilliant.

[@oldstylegaming]

true that mate

[@SirHilaryManfat]

Yeah, shame on Zzap64 giving it such a poor review. I was big into the whole pirate mythology when I was a kid, and would have played that game to death if it wasn't for Zzap's review putting me off it. I even remember another game called Pirates of the Barbary Coast on the C64, which was rated even lower. It sucked to be a pirate fan back in those days!

[@theyamo7219]

And to think that most of the game (at least the C64 version) was actually coded in BASIC

[@gamingtonight1526]

I owned 17 of these 20 games. Never bought the early arcade games, but loved the strategy/simulation games, which Microprose were number one at! On the Vietnam game, though, you should remember it was the first game based on a war that had only really ended a decade before. This meant there was lots of media angst about whether the game should be allowed to be published. But then games magazines, radio and TV got Vietnam Vets to at least read the manual, and they all agreed it covered the war accurately and fairly, and approved of it. Then the hoopla quietened down. Nevertheless, it was very brave for Microprose to do this game, knowing there would be issues, and I liked them all the more for it. Microprose was my go-to publisher from the 1985 Silent Service on C64 to Grand Prix World 4 in 2000. Now I am back to buying all the games from the "new" Microprose, great games like High Fleet, Carrier Command 2, etc!!!

[@marcraygun6290]

Had gunship on my cpc and loved it , my favourite bit being completing a mission then having to nurse heavily damaged gunship home

[@anthonymaddaford8474]

Silent service kept me interested far more than it should! friend had gunship too which I loved. And microprose soccer ofc. Great memories

[@m0nde]

Thank you so much for doing this video. F-15 Strike Eagle, Gunship, and Silent Service were the first simulation games I ever played and still remember how amazing they were. Once I got my hands on the manuals they were even better! And, of course, Civilization (later on DOS and the Amiga) & Pirates were life changing.

[@oldstylegaming]

ive heard that pirates on PC is good too Sid... the Amiga version wasnt great though I didnt think. Thanks for watching mate

[@twankistevenson3884]

Nice to see Airborne Ranger get a nod

[@oldstylegaming]

Its a great game

[@talideon]

8:08 - Sensible Soccer is really just the 16-bit version of MicroProse Soccer 2 under a different name.

[@Lucasrainford]

Never realised there was so many Microprose games on the C64! Not familar with a lot of em and missed the later ones. Rick Dangerous II and Stunt Car Racer look class! I played F-15 Strike Eagle loads on the Atari 800 and I don't know if my memory is clouded by nostalgia but I'm sure it looked better on the old Atari....Great list :)

[@oldstylegaming]

Hard bloody list to make this like

[@Lucasrainford]

@@oldstylegaming Ya mon

[@busyjt]

Ah silent service. Wonderful game. I played it on the Speccy. Pirates and Gunship are great too but Silent Service brings back the strongest feelings of nostalgia.

[@oldstylegaming]

I love that everyone has different favourites, its what makes retro gaming special

[@bmgrooh]

Great compilation. To those who do not know this type of computer, realize this was programming within 64.000 single bites. Whenever you nowadays edit one single word in a short program like notepad, only that file alone is way, way larger than a file on the c64 that produces gameshows like this. It is really AMAZING !!!

[@patsfan4life]

There was significantly less than 64k available for the programmers to actually use in real-time due to the OS

[@bmgrooh]

@@patsfan4life Right: Starting at 2048 ending at 40960 and some parts in 49152 till 53248

[@patsfan4life]

@@bmgrooh what's that, about 42kb of addressable RAM all told? So any game (or portion of a game that loaded from disk) had to be less than approx 42k? A big improvement over a 2k-4k Atari 2600 cart 😎

[@bmgrooh]

@@patsfan4life Yup.

[@RetroHenni]

Thanks again, OSG. Had Solo Flight on a game collection back in the days. It felt kinda stop motion movie when flying around and trying to land. Then I saw F18 Interceptor on Amiga at a friends place and was blown away how fast and smooth flight simulators can be 😂

[@andyhodgson7692]

It always amazes me how fast they got Stunt Car Racer to be on the C64. Games like this are often snail paced on the C64.

[@robvegas9354]

Greats video as always OSG. so many memories. I used to love the ship battles in pirates and dropping off the supplies in airborne ranger, always a buzz when you got to the plane. Good times. Apache was the Jam!!!! super duper long instruction manual but really cool to play!!!

[@milthyswinbuckle5158]

Stunt Car Racer is one of my all time favourite games, though I never had it for my C64 back in the day (played it on my Amiga). However, through emulation I have played and enjoyed the C64 version... And I've gotta say that I agree with you 100% that it's brilliant. I can only assume that the guy who made that comment you mention here, must have been smoking and drinking some crazy shit at the time!!!.... Also loved Microprose Soccer. Had some tremendous battles in two player mode, especially while playing on the Indoor 5-aside pitch.... Also, as ever, another fantastic vid.

[@jordans4827]

Excellent video. I'm from the states, and grew up in the late 80s. Microprose and C64 were basically non-existant here (for the general gamer), so it is awesome to learn about all of it! Thanks! You have a passion for this work.

[@bigstackD]

Great upload my friend👊🏻😁🍻

[@retrodevdroid3670]

I used to love Stunt Car Racer. Out of all the racing games on the C64, this is probably also the one I played most. Or maybe Test Drive.

[@theyamo7219]

Stunt Car Racer was Hard Drivin' done right

[@ncf1]

I never went near the strategy/sim genres back in the day, guys like you I looked up to as gods! They were way over my head. With your comprehensive knowledge spanning genres you really should be in Zzap! 64, like immediately in my opinion!

[@oldstylegaming]

proper misspent youth thats what I have. The amount of hours I sunk into games was ridiculous....i actually tell my kids off now for spending no where near the amount of time i spent on the computer lol

[@ncf1]

@@oldstylegaming its a powerful addiction isnt it? damn havent stopped gaming since school days either.. even cost me my final year in school! but you were on a different level, getting stuck into sims and such, well its good at least youre being rewarded for it all nowadays! ;) And entertaining us all in the process.

[@oldstylegaming]

thanks mate :-) im sure that we all have a good game in us though

[@TheLevitatingChin]

Sid is indeed a marster

[@immersivegamer7640]

Top content mate, thank you for bringing these gems to our attention! Honestly, I owned a C64 enjoyed it thoroughly - but some of these games absolutely never even appeared on my radar. Banging job!

[@8_Bit]

Great list! I didn't know much about Micro Style, it seems maybe their games (like Rainbow Warrior and Xenophobe) weren't released here in North America so I was surprised to see those games on this list. And it's funny about Floyd of the Jungle, I had no idea that was originally made by Sid himself too! I've got great memories of playing F-15 Strike Eagle, you're exactly right that was many people's first introduction to combat flight sim, and a great one it was. Pirates! is of course right where it belongs :)

[@oldstylegaming]

Love pirates ...even my 11 year old likes it

[@chrissyboy7047]

Another excellent video mate. My favourite has to be Gunship. I used to play it all the time. I remember it even came with a cardboard keyboard overlay which labelled all of the controls. Made it much easier to understand

[@richardm6332]

Great video. Well worth the effort. Airborne Danger was a fantastic game and Microprose Soccer was so much fun with banana shots and sliding tackles in the rain.

[@AudieHolland]

The first Microprose game we bought was Gunship. It was the disk version but at that point in time, didn't feature the cool intro sequence. Still, incredibly immersive gameplay. And like proper simulators, real life tactics actually worked! Stay low, about 50 feet and sneak up on those pesky AAA batteries! I got so addicted to this game that I played it into the late hours, and the mission turned into a disaster. Destroyed enemy infantry (I thought). Message blinks up: 'Cease Fire, Friendly Troops Have Been Hit.' Couldn't find the enemy, returned to base. Debriefing was quite harsh: 'The primary target was untouched. The secondary target was untouched. Other targets received light damage and the enemy was overjoyed by your cooperation.' Still got my Medal of Honor on one most difficult mission in Europe, against the Warsaw Pact forces. After running out of all my 16 Hellfire missiles, still faced many T-74 tanks, their machineguns blasting me but fortunately not hurting me. Turned around and flew home in a hail of fire. Managed to land safely and got my medal!

[@reinhard3209]

Great video, thanks OSG!! 👍🙏 My favourite games are Stunt Car Racer and of course Microprose Soccer, which i still play regularly.

[@jda4887]

Awesome video thanks a lot for this one especially (i've spent countless hours on microprose titles and Elite too.) The keyboards layouts and manuals were all in english which was an incentive for me to learn the linguo).

[@johnlancaster563]

such good videos; great content; love the commentary; please keep making more

[@talideon]

12:30 - nah, they scored the genuinely awful tape version. If only the 1541 and its clones weren't horribly expensive here in Rightpondia back then...

[@Sheeptimusprime]

Another great video. Gunship was one of my favourite games on the C64 and I didn’t think they could improve it, and then I got Gunship 2000 for the Amiga.

[@SirHilaryManfat]

Great video as usual. I bought Solo Flight back in the day (first edition), and was completely engrossed. So much so, that I'm constantly disappointed that Microsoft's Flight Sim series doesn't have a mail run mission element, which was such a brilliant and rewarding concept for flight sims at the time. Stunt Car Racer was another classic that I played to death on the Amiga, and is easily in my top 5 Amiga games of all time.

[@ralang999]

What an excellent retrospective! I remember buying Airborne Ranger hoping for Commando/Ikari style run n gun action but getting something SO much more substantial!

[@Cyberbrickmaster1986]

Microprose made a lot of simulation type games on the C64... Also, I wasn't aware that you were bald. But maybe that's because I'm only a fairly recent subscriber.

[@jamesanthony8438]

My favorites in no particular order were: Airborne Ranger F-15 Strike Eagle Gunship Pirates! MiG Alley Ace Silent Service Red Storm Rising Project Stealth Fighter Got "Gunship 2000" and the "Islands & Ice" suppliment disc after moving up to a PC compatible. "Darklands" was a lot of fun, but also prone to crashing often. "Grand Prix" was probably the best racing game I had on that system. "Covert Action" was a great spy game, sort of like "Airborne Ranger," but with car tracking, network hacking and sneaking about indoors. I really miss MicroProse's games.

[@quint3570]

Airborne ranger was my fave microprose game on c64

[@gord5337]

Pirates, Gunship, Silent Service and Decision in the Desert were staples for me on my commodore. Played a lot of SSI as well and for some reason spent hours on random worlds for Seven Cities of Gold. When the gang was over it was M.U.L.E. Good times. This makes me want to take it out and play it again. Cheers

[@michaelhill6453]

Outstanding! I've played and loved all of these and agree that Pirates is the cream of the crop. I still play it today and prefer it to the "enhanced" version that followed on the 16-bit and PCs. Pure class. I'm also with you on Silent Service, nail-biting stuff.

[@talideon]

2:52 - I don't own any Sid Meier games for the C64, but I've always wondered how many others beside "Pirates!" were written mostly in BASIC.

[@oldstylegaming]

I think he was the master of giving us a game that we had to invest our time in to get the most out of them, if you had looked at the screen shots for most of his games you probably wouldnt have ever bought them but the gameplay is immense on all of his games

[@talideon]

@@oldstylegaming You can write lots of great games with glue code in an interpreted language. I mean, most modern game engines rely on Lua (and less often Python) heavily for anything performance sensitive. I think he took the right tack by using BASIC, as it was well suited to many of his games, but it did have the downsides of a lack of code density. I sometimes wonder if Pirates! and other Sid Meier games might've been received a bit better over on this side if the Atlantic had they been more compact.

[@gamingtonight1526]

@@talideon No Microprose sim/strategy game was 100% basic.

[@talideon]

@@gamingtonight1526 Not 100%, but a substantial amount of Pirates!, at least, was written in BASIC.

[@stratos477]

Great great C64 games I played em all for hours and hours being a child of the 80’s . Apache Gunship was my fave followed by Silent Service & Pirates! .. the Pirates! 2005 remake was also outstanding

[@MacMelmac]

I loved Red Storm Rising and Stealth Fighter. Played them for many hours, best time was at night with only the light from the TV

[@lurkerrekrul]

F-15 Strike Eagle - It's possible to fly off the map and your marker will continue moving over parts of the console. If you then fly over the text (at least the bottom text, I never tried the top), the letters will show up on the ground as triangular targets and you can bomb them. As I recall, the text won't be affected, but it will register as a successful hit. :)

[@BigJuffer]

Nice list and some great memories of being bored watching my mate play some of these, not because they were boring to play but were crap to watch. I was certain stunt car racer would be #1 - shows what a gimp I am ;)

[@eskey691]

The top 3 games i played so so much and loved them along with gunship ofc man that was pure class. Great list as always buddy and may i welcome your new pup as well as he looks like a pure killer. Only kidding he looks like a lovely dog, keep up the great work and roll on the next video

[@Simon0]

I liked Rick dangerous 1. Pretty sure I played and liked 2 also but I can't completely remember. Stunt car racer is awesome. I never mastered drawbridge. Nice video I missed most of these back in the day

[@Grunchy005]

Kennedy Approach was my favourite, by far. After 1988 I only worked on University studies, once I graduated I got me a PlayStation! Then I really got to enjoy some better action games 😄

[@TheViceman]

Great video once again. Must say there was many games I've never heard about in the first ten, but the top ten were all very familiar. You know, these videos could be little longer :)

[@thedad7313]

O Gunship, how I loved you. But on tape, man, the multi-load times. From arming your chopper to take off, took 46 minutes! Loved that game tho.

Nice list! For me, Rick Dangerous II and Stunt Car Racer would share the no.1 spot. I still have my hair, so I guess it's a benefit to be a rather calm person 😉. Never played Pirates

[@ClassicTrialsChannel]

Microprose were my favourite games developers on the c64, amiga and pc

[@theyamo7219]

For me it was a tossup between Microprose and early days EA. EA might be shitty corporate swine now, but back in the day they put out some fine games. Both games from the Archon series, MULE, Mail Order Monsters, and my personal favorite: Project Firestart

[@leeannewillson7342]

used to spend hours on Pirates and had to agree with the higher marks , was at least a 85-90 for me in day

[@TheStumptube]

Pirates! really is a masterpiece. One of the best games ever made, regardless of era.

[@tuckerhauser]

Silent service and gunship 2 of my favourite games on the Amiga

[@pelimies1818]

..and just like in real football, the player missed the empty goal at 3 meters mark..

[@fatherjack636]

I was never a simulation or war game fan so many games passed me by. Didn’t like Xenophobe in the arcade anyway. Now Microprose Soccer and Stunt Car Racer were immense and up there with my favourite C64 games.

[@MrJessejamesharris]

I totally agree, pirates was the best game, still play it today

[@OdaVenom]

Oh, The Airborne Ranger! I actually played this game when I was a kid, but forgot it's name, searched for it about a decade or so ago, but found nothing because of that. Whoa... what can I say... _What_ _have_ _I_ _become,_ _my_ _sweetest_ _friend?_ _Everything_ _I_ _played_ _looks_ _like_ _crap_ _in_ _the_ _end..._

[@crazyivan030983]

I played Micro Soccer and Stunt Car Racer all the time :)

[@PedroFerreira-sx2gd]

Loved the list. Would rank Micropose Soccer até leAst in 4th. Regatding the simulation games. Yes they were amazing for their time, but honestly the Gameplay didn t age só well.i think simulatoin is tge only genre that is always improving, because the goal is to be the more realístic possble and that can only BE made with newer and Better technology. Not a fan of simulation but games like Microsoft flight simulator are amazing.

[@thefurthestmanfromhome1148]

Friend of mine at school bought nothing but Microprose games, so I got to try things like Red Storm Rising, Pirates, Gunship etc, which i would otherwise of missed out on Airborne Ranger was just bloody amazing. C64 Xenophobe is a bit meh, you really need to play it on the Lynx, where the basic gameplay has been expanded apon.

[@pelimies1818]

Yeah, Sid is the best. But Braben is my favourite too. Cheers from Putin’s neighbour, Finland!

[@johnebbs3819]

Another great vid.

[@maxheadroom22and26]

Nr. 1: Microprose Soccer (best. soccergame. by far. on C64). Nr. 2: Stunt Car Racer (great racing game). ...huge gap... Nr. 3: Airborne Ranger (never got far, but it was something different). Never played, but look interesting: Rick Dangerous II and Floyd of the Jungle. May be ok: Rainbow Warrior and Xenophobe. Just don't care for the strategy and sim games. I know Silent Service, Gunship and Pirates from a friend, not my cup of tea. Although i maybe should give Pirates a try... And Kennedy Approach seems to be interesting, maybe...

[@retrogee7906]

brill vids keep em coming .........

[@michaelriley8966]

These are great videos thx

[@remistuczynski2768]

Spot on!

[@ITGuyinaction]

😏👍👍🖐️ Wow! I'm big fan of retro games!

[@hansbambach4854]

Loved silent service

[@videogamebookreviews]

I liked Pirates immediately when a few of us played it in a shop, but for some reason I didn't buy it. I suppose there are always games which you think you should have played more :-/

[@jamesavery3559]

great games thank's

[@oldstylegaming]

hey James hope all is well :-)

[@jamesavery3559]

@@oldstylegaming all good here...how are you?

[@oldstylegaming]

@@jamesavery3559 good mate, just plodding along

[@jamesavery3559]

@@oldstylegaming well at least your still getting view's and comment's, my channel is down to 4 or 5 view's if i'm lucky.

[@grek6667]

Stunt Car Racer !!!!! Best Game ever

[@gullpayne]

Cool games 👍

[@RedFoxRoaming]

I'm sure Stunt Car Racer's frame rate was slower than that on the C64. I guess you are playing on an emulator

[@DopeteK]

Looks like about twenty adverts on this. It's a good job I use VancedTube or I'd be forced to watch them... Edit: Just checked it out on normal KZbin and it turns out it was twenty odd chapter marks. Had to watch two adverts first though. Be sure to install VancedTube anyway...

[@philipatkinson843]

Could you do a video on Commodore 64 games where the sequel game was not as good as the original? I was a huge fan of Star Rank Boxing but did not enjoy Star Rank Boxing 2. I'm sure there are other titles out there like that.

[@oldstylegaming]

Ill definitely do that video mate thanks for the suggestion

[@CondemnedToBeMe]

👍👍👍

[@paulbennett2284]

What no Acrojet?

[@oldstylegaming]

just missed out mate it was on the short list though but I had 3 strong Flight Sims in the list already so put Xenophobe in instead

[@paulbennett2284]

@@oldstylegaming I suppose you could lump it in with Solo Flight. How about an Amiga version of the list?

[@oldstylegaming]

@@paulbennett2284 ill defo be doing that mate

[@chloedevereaux1801]

sid myer is best known for the crappy civ series not pirates..........

[@oo0Spyder0oo]

How come the solo flight game has (c) 1998? On the title screen?

[@oldstylegaming]

hmmmm ive never noticed that before

[@chloedevereaux1801]

f15 eagle flying at mach 6 ..... lolololololol that's hypersonic... mach 1.8 - 2 yes.