What's not to love?
By PaulEMoz

Plug and play TV games units are the current fad, and, sucker that I am, I’ve owned quite a few. Namco TV Games, Activision, Atari paddles… they’ve all spent their fair share of time plugged into the back of the telly. But the one that appealed to me most, the one I just had to have from the moment it was announced, was the Commodore 64 Direct-To-TV.

The Commodore 64 Direct-To-TV is something that could only have been borne out of love, and a touch of madness. I happen to feel that same love, and so, piqued with curiosity, I rushed out to buy this the moment I knew it was on the shelves.

The queue couldn’t wait for the shop to open so they could get their C64 DTV.

It stuck out like a sore thumb from the moment I entered the shop. These other units were all very well, but with the exception of the Atari ones, they lacked authenticity. The Commodore 64 unit was based on the all-time classic Kempston joystick, and when I saw it sitting there, trapped inside its gaudy red packaging, I felt a little tingling inside.

Once I got it home, gaudy though the packaging may be, I still opened it carefully because that’s just what you do. And it felt so good to be holding a proper joystick again. Of course, I soon realised the “thirty games” claim was a bit of a stretch (can you really count the Flying Disk from California Games as one separate game?), but hey, there were some classics on the thing!

You’re free, my beauty… freeeeeeeee!

I don’t care that there are really only about twenty games on there and not thirty. It’s got Paradroid and Impossible Mission. I’d have paid for this if those were the only games on there. Being able to sit in front of the telly playing these again, rather than hunched at a PC monitor… it’s one of life’s greater joys. And because I’m in the US, my version has International Karate. I should really buy another one of these, because I know that before long this game will be the death of my current stick.

The initial design wasn’t going to plan.

But it’s not just the games and the almost-perfect design that make me grin like a loon. It’s the fact that they’ve packed in some other stuff in the hard-to-find recesses (at least on the US version they have). With this being basically a homebrew project, and having everything contained on a dedicated chip, they’ve bunged in some stuff that only a true lover of the C64 could appreciate fully. I mean, you can even enter the C64’s awful BASIC, pull up an onscreen keyboard, and pretend you’re in Dixons all over again!

Get ready... hit enter... RUUUUUUUUUUUUN!

I love the Commodore 64 Direct-To-TV unit because… well, because I love the Commodore 64. Still. It’s been twenty years since I first owned one, and the fire still burns deep inside. When I moved to America, I had to get rid of all of my Commodore 64 stuff. It left a pain that is hard to dull, a pain that only gamers can understand. The Commodore 64 Direct-To-TV has been like a shot of morphine to my partially-wounded gaming heart. Emulators are all very well, but this is tactile. I don’t have to download it, I can hold it, and this is real. This is what I did twenty years ago. It feels just as good today.

November 2005

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