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The Color Computer games review page
THE LATEST April 15, 2023: Added a review of Z-89, Steve Bjork’s port of Zaxxon for the CoCo3. It got much love back then since titles for the machine were scarce, especially by 1989 as its market lifespan was quickly winding down, and of course he became a CoCo programming legend for his licensed Zaxxon port for the original CoCo six years earlier. But the newer version still suffers from being slow and sparse compared to the arcade version, which is less excusable given the CoCo3’s better specs. That said, it still merits a "B" grade. April 9, 2023: Since it’s Easter, the word resurrection seems fitting as I’ve added the first few new reviews after many years. They’re more or less titles that caught my eye while scrolling through the Color Computer Archive’s collection of browser-playable games. Among them are conversions of titles from other platforms I became a fan of at some point (mostly when emulators became a thing) such as Jeff Minter’s "Gridrunner" and one of Avalon Hill’s earliest titles "Nukewar." I’m also looking at some far more ambitious modern-era projects including replicas of 80s arcade classics using the actual coin-op code, as happened with Donkey Kong back in 2007 in one of the last updates I did before abandoning the site. Let’s just say that with at least one of them I need to think about again acquiring some kind of game controller(s) so I can properly appreciate what appears to be dead-on efforts. March 26, 2023: 19 years after my last update, I’m looking at a major overhaul and update of this website as retrogaming continues to have a long and thriving life. Right now there’s still just the 148 game reviews as my last update on 05/07/04. But I’ve also been playing overlooked and new titles since — especially since they’re now easily found and playable online at the frequently updated Color Computer Archive — so hopefully my reviews ot those will be updated soon. Thanks to L. Curtis Boyle, who’s also still around after all these years keeping his games database going along with other projects like a weekly podcast, for getting in touch and asking what’s up with my site. Welcome to my page paying tribute to the computer that handled everything from my junior high programming experiments to my final college term papers. But let's not kid anybody - most of my adolescent time on this machine was spent playing games. Thanks to the magic of emulation the chance to relive those memories on all kinds of platforms is alive and very well. And as the cliche goes, opinions are like, uh, belly buttons - everyone has one. Except among all the game review databases I've seen on the Web, none of them cover the Color Computer, although Curtis Boyle's site (see box at right) does offer some invaluable content. So I'm exercising my right to toss these thoughts out for anyone crazy enough to be interested in reading them, along with an invitation to submit your own reviews or second opinions for posting. Anyone expecting an unabashed lovefest from me may be disappointed - the CoCo had some pretty serious shortcomings and I always felt it spent its lifespan playing second fiddle to the Ataris, Commodores, Apples and other leading machines of the 80s (yes, you can be a passionate fan of a machine and still objectively see its warts). And plenty of the games sold were flat-out awful, just like any other platform. But one of the great joys, then and now, was seeing some of the amazing things people managed to squeeze out of the machine's abilities. The reviews are split into two long pages, A-M and N-Z (the single long page was starting to crash my Web editor, so I changed it). The reason is I prefer the "load once" option as a reader instead of having to click for every game. Those wanting more options may get their wish in the near future since my other main purpose in creating this page is to learn something about online database programming, which means I'm putting the game titles, genres, grades, etc. into a database table I hope to post once I figure out how (if I'm going to spend this much time on game-related stuff I figure I might as well do something productive at the same time to alleviate those "hey, I'm a grown-up now" guilt pangs). Enjoy and let the flaming "you don't know what you're talking about" posts begin. |