|  2004 - The Year in Review | | Posted by Csabo on 2004-12-31 |
Can you believe another year has gone by already? As the old saying goes, time flies. And now it's time for our yearly summary of the happenings of the Plus/4 World.
The emulation scene is still dominated by YAPE. VICE and Forever were also updated. We really can't complain in this department: cheers to all the emu writers and keep up the good work.
Websites come and go. 2004 saw the introduction of the official Fire website and www.commodore16.com, which we are grateful for - the more the merrier. On the European side, this have been declining though, the GOTU homepage has been down for ages, and www.c16doc.de appears to be abandonded.
The cover and software archive is doing well, we hit 5000 programs and collected tons of nice and rare stuff along the way. These type of news items dominated the year; big thanks to everyone once again who took the time and contributed. Also big thanks to the map-makers, we had quite a few added in the past 12 months.
Software. On one hand, it's quite amazing that there are still people who actually develop for the Plus/4... is what a non-scener would say. What we say however is: more, more, more! So let's have a little rundown on what came out in 2004.
- The prolific TLT team continues to pour out digi demos. We saw 3 stunning picture shows from Larry. ATI has surprised us with two demos this year and Skoro released Killer demo. That wraps it up for the demoscene, big respects to all democoders.
- In magazines, we have three remaining survivors: Club Info, Lone News and Mini News. Cheers to all the editors, remember, there are still people out there always waiting for the new issues.
- BalSys from SVS was this years big release in utilities. It's a solid, well-done program, but in all honesty it didn't seem to have found a real user base.
- In games we had Quadrillion, (Some would say game of the year!) which did very well in the 2004 MiniGame compo taking second place! We also had a number of C64 adventures converted this year.
That's something, isn't it? There's still life. But there's a decline. The total number of releases is down from last year's 67 to 49. Although last year we had the compo, which seemed to be a good thing; we should probably have more compos.
That wraps it up. The Plus/4 World crew wishes a very successful and peaceful new year to everyone! |
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| | Perfect Visions! | | Posted by Csabo on 2004-12-26 |
 In an unexpected move, ATI released a brand new demo on the Plus/4. Perfect Visions follows his traditions: it's a demo with exactly three parts :-) You can enjoy some very nice effects and listen to SLD's SID only remix of a Jam and Spoon song. We apologize for the delay - as you can see from the actual release, this should have been here pre-Christmas. Well, it's definitely not too late. Big respects to Ati! |
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| | Codemasters celebrate 18th birthday of BMX Simulator!! | | Posted by MIK on 2004-12-18 |
 Maybe a tad late but news of this has just landed in my mail box from Codemasters them selfs via a Christmas news letter. Here's what they had to say, "Released to mark Codemasters' 18th birthday back in September, get your hands on a downloadable copy of BMX Simulator, Codemasters' first ever game, published in 1986!". Checking out the provided link it is how ever the PC version running in at 1.60mb and by the looks of things uploaded 17th September 2004. I've yet to take a copy but can tell one and all now that you will have to be a member aka signed up with Codemasters to do so!
Also in the mail was word of Treasure Island Dizzy. Although not a genuine offical release on Plus/4 you know some of the best Dizzy games did land on our system thanks to none other TGMS. So with that in mind we'd like to feel we are part of this unique moment. Once again Codies had this to say, "As a Christmas treat we thought we would revive a classic Codemasters game, Treasure Island Dizzy. The Dizzy adventure is now available for you to play online.". By the looks of things this download is related to the CCS-C64 emulator and rolls in at 2.7mb? Ok enough said. As you can see offical freebies are up for grabs and the only way to get them are to hit the offical links which makes a change. ;-)
Dont forget you will have to be a member of the Codemasters homepage to take advantage of these give-aways. If not, then in the mean time you are more than welcome to head on over direct to thier info pages using the links below:
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| | New Release Alert! | | Posted by Csabo on 2004-12-13 |
| You hear those loud sirens and claxons? No? Don't have much of an imagination then, I suppose. We've sounded those just in case someone is missing the fact that there are new releases to be checked out. We've got a little care package from Luca, who got it from István Sánta, better known as HIFI/TLT. We have a tape version of Bloby SID Cheat, and two older (previously missing) proggies: rock out to the sounds of Boing Boom Tschak while watching the demo Machinehead and listen to Sid Inside 2. The new stuff is: Omega 04, this omega is not the well know gfx-man from EVS, but the Hungarian band. Finally we have New Year 2005, an early new years greeting from the ever-so-productive TLT team. Cheers to the heroes of Plus/4, and may they never stop coding! |
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| | 7 Cover Replacements | | Posted by Csabo on 2004-12-12 |
| Crown continues to scan his software collection, so that we can enjoy full-size, high-quality covers for our beloved C16 games. Today we've uploaded these Baby Berks, Death Race 16, Green Beret, Gwnn, Lawn Tennis and Major Blink. That makes six, the 7th one is for Jet Set Willy, the back cover which was previously missing is now there. Our stats show that we are almost at 76% completed. Remember to perform a search for the term WANTED: Cover to see if you have anything YOU could contribute. Big thanks to Crown once again. Enjoy! |
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| | New Storm Map! | | Posted by Csabo on 2004-12-11 |
| We (the members of the Plus/4 community) know right away that this news item has nothing to do with weather - what's new is a game map for Storm. It's our 11th new map this year, this one's courtesy of Litwr. It's a touched up scan, which contains ALL the rooms of the original ones - even the ones that simply don't exist in the C16 version. For those who want to sit down and play through this unique game, finding Corinne will be much easier with the aid of this map. Big thanks to Vladimir for this. Enjoy! |
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| | Super Happy Databases! | | Posted by Csabo on 2004-12-07 |
  We have two new cover scans for you today. They are Superbase +4 and Superfile 16, two database programs. (So you see, they are super, they are databases, and when asked they won't tell you that they are unhappy, so there.) Superbase +4 still needs an original version, and the cover is courtesy of Rüdiger. The second one already has a tape image, and it's from Lando's collection. Both of them would need some kind of description of features, feel free to add them if you have the time (and the editing rights). Also Csabo converted 7 adventure games, find them under New Uploads. Enjoy! |
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| | New Cover Scans Uploaded | | Posted by Csabo on 2004-12-06 |
  Guess how many new cover scans we've added today... If you guessed two billion, then you are way off, and you should probably lay off the funny stuff. About six is more like it, for 4 games, starting with IFR (Flight Simulator). It's a rare and pretty much generally unheard of flight simulator for the C16, published by Academy Software. While not much can be said about the graphics, the controls and the actual simulation seem to be pretty complex and therefore more on the authentic side. Never fear, it comes with a 20 page manual. We also have some covers for Stud Poker and Stud Poker/Stud Jack. Finally there's the curious pink(!) Skramble cover. Well that about covers it, this stuff was kindly contributed by Plus4Vampyre. Enjoy! |
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| | Cover Scans and a Map! | | Posted by Csabo on 2004-12-04 |
     
December is here. We start off this month with yet another addition of cover scans. Plus4Vampyre sent us the following ones: Baby Berks (an alternative cover with H.E.X. sticker), Galaxy (German Kingsoft release), Jack Attack (US release), LG-Simulator, Quizmix and finally another Tom Thumb cover scan, a relatively rare one which does not have VC-20 on it. Sidius also sent us a few nice ones: full size World Cup replacement, Beach Head (Americana release) and an alternative Petch cover. Last but not least - as the title of this news item says - we have a new map, also from Sidius: it's for Commando. Thanks for the goodies, guys! Enjoy. |
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