Uploaded May 2022 | Updated September 2026, 48 minutes ago
Dynamite Dux C64 by Activision/Core Design, played from tape.
I have a weird personal history with this game - I originally saw a review of it in the Aussie magazine "MegaComp" (which later became MegaZone), and I desperately wanted it, but I never found a copy back then. What I did find, years later, was the arcade game, which I played a lot of. Being the type of arcade game that it is - pretty much "Golden Axe with Ducks" (it's even a System16 game), I figured the c64 version was probably crap, and looking up the Zzap review that gave it 57% seemed to disagree with this.
I feel like Zzap called this one wrong (as I do with Golden Axe!). Anyone who says that Golden Axe and similar 2.5d-ish street beat-em-ups can't be done well on the c64 needs to play this, and then re-evaluate that view. Because sure, this has blocky expanded sprites, and kind of rubbish sound effects, but it plays like an absolute belter. I was honestly shocked by just how good this conversion is.
This is how Golden Axe, Double Dragon, and Final Fight should have been.
The tape version is a bit wonky - it does the whole levels on side 2 thing, but it also has level 1 on side 1, so it loads that, and then you have to wait for it to skip it the first time you hit level 2 (all the green-black bars are searching for tape). Then at level 3, it wanted me to rewind the tape for some reason, and do that again... at which point my capture device crapped out by I also didn't really want to wait longer for loading, and I feel like this is a pretty good taste of the game in any case.
In short, even on tape, I'd strongly recommend checking this one out!
Dynamite Dux C64 by Activision/Core Design, played from tape.
I have a weird personal history with this game - I originally saw a review of it in the Aussie magazine "MegaComp" (which later became MegaZone), and I desperately wanted it, but I never found a copy back then. What I did find, years later, was the arcade game, which I played a lot of. Being the type of arcade game that it is - pretty much "Golden Axe with Ducks" (it's even a System16 game), I figured the c64 version was probably crap, and looking up the Zzap review that gave it 57% seemed to disagree with this.
I feel like Zzap called this one wrong (as I do with Golden Axe!). Anyone who says that Golden Axe and similar 2.5d-ish street beat-em-ups can't be done well on the c64 needs to play this, and then re-evaluate that view. Because sure, this has blocky expanded sprites, and kind of rubbish sound effects, but it plays like an absolute belter. I was honestly shocked by just how good this conversion is.
This is how Golden Axe, Double Dragon, and Final Fight should have been.
The tape version is a bit wonky - it does the whole levels on side 2 thing, but it also has level 1 on side 1, so it loads that, and then you have to wait for it to skip it the first time you hit level 2 (all the green-black bars are searching for tape). Then at level 3, it wanted me to rewind the tape for some reason, and do that again... at which point my capture device crapped out by I also didn't really want to wait longer for loading, and I feel like this is a pretty good taste of the game in any case.
In short, even on tape, I'd strongly recommend checking this one out!
