Cruis'n and C64 games on Virtual Console

By Tom Bramwell Published 28 March, 2008

Three! Do not adjust your Internet.

Nintendo has launched the promised Commodore 64 channel for Virtual Console with two initial games, and has also released a new N64 title via the Wii's suddenly exciting shop.

The first two C64 games are the previously-announced Uridium and International Karate, and both cost 500 Wii Points (GBP 3.50 / EUR 5 approx).

Meanwhile, N64 fans can relive the joys of Cruis'n, hopefully making up for Midway's godawful attempt to reinvent the game for Wii with a boxed release recently. As with other N64 titles, Cruis'n costs 1000 Wii Points (GBP 7 / EUR 10 approx).

As old-days C64-heads know, Uridium is a vintage shoot-'em-up by a man called Andrew Braybrook, while International Karate is Archer MacLean's contribution to the early-days beat-'em-up genre.

But don't take our word for it, or rather do, as we will be rounding up the week's Virtual Console releases later today. In the meantime, why not surf around our reviews of 50 excellent C64 games in the Retro channel?

Nintendo has said that the C64 channel will receive "regular updates" following the release of these two, so expect more in the weeks and months to come.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (35) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Mindstorm #1 4 years ago

    These are the first news that make me interested in the WII in a very long time. The irony of it...

  • Tyronne #2 4 years ago

    £3.50 for just two c64 games!...now if it was a collection of about 5/10 games for that price maybe, but £3.50 for just two is way too expensive for what it is.

    If I wish to play old c64 stuff on the telly (which I have done in the past) I will just hook up the pc and use that and get countless old gems on the big screen for nothing.

  • the_dudefather #3 4 years ago

    Cruis'n....Cruis'n

    PLEASE DON'T SPOIL US NINTENDO, THIS IS CLEARLY TOO MUCH LOVE

  • DanWhitehead #4 4 years ago

    £3.50 for just two c64 games!...now if it was a collection of about 5/10 games for that price maybe, but £3.50 for just two is way too expensive for what it is.

    That's £3.50 each, not for the pair.

  • OnlyMe #5 4 years ago

    So it's just called Cruis'n for N64? I only ever heard of Cruis'n on the Wii, or Cruis'n USA/World on N64.

  • ange| #6 4 years ago

    So instead of Last Ninja 2 for 1.99 we get this rubbish

  • Darren #7 4 years ago

    Nintendo sure know how to rip people off... £7 for that piece of garbage called Cruis'n (they should be paying US to play it IMO!) and £3.50 for 20 year old Commodore 64 games?!?!? :o

  • convercide #8 4 years ago

    There were THREE Cruis'n games in total.

    And all of them were cack.

  • Beano #9 4 years ago

    Wii VC is a complete rip-off... I like the idea and amount of content, but their pricing is way off!

  • ange| #10 4 years ago

    also the download sizes of the c64 games should be less then a single meg including emulator and frontend. 3.50 for a download that would instantly complete as soon as you selected it.

  • Blerk #11 4 years ago

    £3.50 for C64 games? Jesus H Corbett! They weren't much more than that when they were new!

  • Redeye #12 4 years ago

    Uridium and IK? Hmmm... *contemplates grabbing some Wii points*

  • DanWhitehead #13 4 years ago

    £3.50 for C64 games? Jesus H Corbett! They weren't much more than that when they were new!

    While I'm no fan of the VC price structure, this isn't remotely true. New C64 games used to retail for around £7.95, which would make them about £16 today, if you take inflation into account. Now, I'm certainly not saying that these games are worth that much in today's market, but let's not forget that the £1.99 budget pricing that typified the end of the 8-bit era was more like an Everything Must Go blow-out sale rather than the norm.

  • Blerk #14 4 years ago

    Games were £4.95 or £5.95 when I started buying 'em. ;-)

    Regardless of wonky inflation claims, these are still stupidly expensive. They'd have sold far more at 99pee each.

  • krudster #15 4 years ago

    Despite the price, these will still sell shitloads.

  • Darren #16 4 years ago

    @DanWhitehead - What's inflation got to do with Commodore 64 game prices? They're OLD games, 20+ years old in fact, so they should be dirt cheap plus there's no packaging or advertising to add to the cost. There are free C64 emulators on the PC and many of the games can be downloaded for free (in the public domain) so there's no excuse for Nintendo charging £3.50 each for them on the Wii, that's outrageous IMO.

    For £3.49, you can buy PSone games and they offer far more gameplay, longevity and have more sophisticated visuals than any C64 title. At most, C64 games should be 99p each and no more given their age. In fact, the whole VC range is overpriced IMO with N64 games (from the same generation as the PS remember), costing twice as much as PS games on the PSN. Halve the prices, Nintendo, and then you'll have me buying the games again... assuming you sort out the ridiculous 512 MB storage limit!

  • Ravenger #17 4 years ago

    Too expensive - especially when you can get a C64 joystick with 30 games built in for a fiver. I wouldn't have a problem with the price if I knew the original authors got a decent royalty, but I bet they don't get a penny.

  • monkie_king #18 4 years ago

    C64 cassette games were £9.99, generally, and disks were £14.99. A lot of games were multi-load, and severely compromised on cassette (though not either of these two). Accounting for inflation since the mid-late 80s, that's in the region of £25-30 quid in today's money.

  • bdgr #19 4 years ago

    @ Dan Whitehead

    New C64 games ranged from budget titles that were £1.99 or £2.99 - these were either old games released on budget, or brand new games. There were others that were about a tenner, but the majority of people with a c64 were kids that bought the budget games with their pocket miney, and got the £10 odd games for birthdays etc.

    £3.50 is a bit rich in all honesty.

  • DanWhitehead #20 4 years ago

    What's inflation got to do with Commodore 64 game prices?

    I was just pointing out the fallacy that 8bit games cost around £3.50 when they were released. International Karate was £6.95, for instance. Inflation is used to show that even if they'd cost exactly £3.50 in 1985, that wouldn't be the same as £3.50 now.

    I wasn't saying these figures should dictate their relative value today.

  • mingster #21 4 years ago

    £3.50 for c64 games is a complete rip off...
    boycott with your wallets.

  • Tyronne #22 4 years ago

    Even when they were both rereleased on the firebird/mastronic budget range they were just £1.99.

    £3.50 each is just a joke.

  • DanWhitehead #23 4 years ago

    £3.50 for c64 games is a complete rip off...

    See, this is the mentality that annoys me. I'm as big a critic of Nintendo's flat platform-based price structure as anybody, since I don't believe the value of a game is dictated by when it was released, or on what platform.

    Uridium is an absolute classic. It's a fantastic game, and a seminal piece of British software history. It is absolutely worth £3.50 of anybody's money. As is Legend of Zelda. As is Super Mario Bros. You'd spend more than that buying a sandwich for lunch. Saying "it's old, therefore it should cost a quid" is ludicrous. When classic films get released on DVD, they don't say "Oh, everyone's seen Casablanca already, and you can find it on VHS in a charity shop, so we'll only charge 50p for it".

    Are there games that don't warrant their asking price on the VC? Certainly. But that's because they're poor games, not because they're old.

  • KraftWerk #24 4 years ago

    International Karate! My favourite game of all time!

    One thing though, who profits from selling these games on VC, the original creators?

  • Darren #25 4 years ago

    @DanWhitehead - It's all about perceived value for money and I doubt many people would agree that paying £3.50 for a single C64 game is good value when, as someone mentioned earlier, you can pick up a joystick with 30 (that's three-zero) games built in for a fiver!!! That's a piece of hardware and 30X more games for £1.50 more. Nintendo are just ripping off their customers IMO and unlike the 360's XBLA you can't even try these VC games before you buy them.

  • moggsy #26 4 years ago

    @ DanWhitehead

    If they'd have gone to the trouble of enhancing the C64 games ala a lot of the Xbox Live Arcade games (Jetpac being an excellent example) then the £3.50 cost would be justified. But they haven't so it isn't.

    They don't even provide you with demos to allow you to weigh up whether you'd like the game or not.

    What's more there's not even any guarantee that these games will work over the component lead. The only game I've purchased so far doesn't - with my TV at least (which has never turned it's nose up at any other source and I've thrown plenty at it).
    Edited by 1 at 28/03/08 @ 11:04

  • redneon Verified Programmer, SUMO Digital #27 4 years ago

    IK was a great game but there's no way in this world I'd pay £3.50 for it!

    What the hell are Nintendo playing at? C64 games should be £1.50 TOPS!

  • DanWhitehead #28 4 years ago

    It's all about perceived value for money and I doubt many people would agree that paying £3.50 for a single C64 game is good value when, as someone mentioned earlier, you can pick up a joystick with 30 (that's three-zero) games built in for a fiver!!! That's a piece of hardware and 30X more games for £1.50 more.

    So that makes the market value of a C64 game roughly 16p, which is clearly ludicrous. Games shouldn't exist on a sliding scale of value, with their worth diminishing with each year that passes.

    I just think that we, as gamers, have developed a very strange relationship with our past and how we value it. If I can get an absolutely fantastic game for a few quid, then I'm not going to quibble over whether or not I can get X number of other games from the same platform for X price. They're not apples, they're distinct entertainment products and - as with all things - prices are dictated by what the market will stand, not by perceived value based on age.

    Could VC prices be reduced? Definitely. In fact there are many things that could be improved on the VC, and I've said as much over and over in the round ups.

    I just get frustrated by the blanket statement that C64 games aren't worth £3.50 just because they're C64 games. It's as if the actual games don't matter. You're paying for the game, yes, but also the convenience and legality of owning it. Quibbling over a quid, rather than being pleased by the fact that Uridium is now available to be legally downloaded and played on a big telly...that just doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

    Nintendo are just ripping off their customers IMO and unlike the 360's XBLA you can't even try these VC games before you buy them.

    VC demos are definitely much needed, though I suspect the logistics of it are what has prevented it from happening, given the different platforms on offer. The best way to do it would be a time-limited download that can be made permanent by paying.

  • canIdoyabombsforya #29 4 years ago

    The games are worth nothing, but youre paying for the luxury and convenience of owning them on your Wii system, which lets face it, is better than faffing around with 500 roms on the PC, long boot up times, crashes, configuring controllers and getting about 5 minutes fun through being spoilt for choice.

    The best C64 game installed on a Wii has got to be worth a pint and half of beer?
    Edited by 1 at 28/03/08 @ 11:22

  • Darren #30 4 years ago

    @DanWhitehead - It doesn't matter how you spin it, the fact is that most people so far on here think the £3.50 asking price for C64 games is way too expensive even for the classics like Uridium and Impossible Mission. Given their small sizes, Nintendo should have allowed people to pick and choose 5 or 10 titles for £3.50 IMO because that is all most of those games are worth these days. You can play better versions of most C64 and Spectrum games with improved visuals for free on the PC, for example, Head Over Heels, Lunar Jetman and Chuckie Egg. If I can buy PS games from a decade later for the same price as Nintendo are asking C64 games then, yes, they ARE overpriced!

  • erp #31 4 years ago

    Quibbling over a quid, rather than being pleased by the fact that Uridium is now available to be legally downloaded and played on a big telly...that just doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

    I see where you're coming from Dan, but as others have also pointed out there's quite a lot of doubt over where - or rather who - the money from our "legal download" is actually going to.

    If it's to the actual game creators, then fantastic. But if it's to some corporation who just happens to own the "rights" to the game - likely through multiple company buyouts and mergers - then I'm not exactly going to lose much sleep by downloading from elsewhere and playing on an emulator instead.

  • monkie_king #32 4 years ago

    Dan, on the inflation thing, I was just pointing out that the actual, real-world price of C64 games was even higher than the historic RRP suggests, I was backing up your earlier point. For comparison, albums were about six quid at the time, if i recall correctly. Also, budget titles were, by and large, complete crap, and a list of counterexamples won't invalidate that assertion.

    But yes, the VC price has nothing to do with their original cost. The transaction is based on the convenience of obtaining and playing a given C64 game of your choice. What is that worth to you? To me, £3.50 is peanuts to be able to play IK+ on the Wii, for instance. If someone's not going to buy at that price, it seems unlikely they'd buy at any price at all. I'm not interested in Uridium, so I wouldn't buy it for 50p either. I don't think most people moaning about the price are genuinely interested in buying either of these games, or they would quibble over such a small sum.

  • scarabium #33 4 years ago

    Having spoken to a friend who works with the developer of one of these games I get the impression that he won't see a penny from it. I'd be glad to be proven wrong though.

    Hence I won't be downloading it just for some fat cat to get depressingly richer at the expense of someone elses hard work.

    I'll save my points for Wiiware.

  • Ravenger #34 4 years ago

    There's only two C64 games I would consider buying for £3.50, Archon and M.U.L.E., and that's only because they're multiplayer games that need to be played on the telly rather than in front of a PC.

    As someone who once worked on the C64, I'd be very annoyed if my work turned up on the VC and I didn't get any royalties.

  • GinerMonkey #35 4 years ago

    For the first time in 20 years my name is on the title screen of a game and not just in the instruction manual... sweet! :)))))