I always thought that as well, and was similarly jealous. But in doing these port comparisons, I’ve found that the C64 often got a really bad port. See my Bomb Jack post the other day, for example.
If you can look past the visuals and sound, the Spectrum ports often capture the feel of the arcade the best of all. It’s probably about 45-45-10 (C64-Speccy-Amstrad), with the Amstrad getting some rare gems like Renegade.
A lot of the time, the C64 and Spectrum/Amstrad ports were done by different companies, in isolation. You’d often see the C64 go its own way, changing up levels and gameplay. While the Amstrad port was usually a lazy port of the Spectrum. You can often see the colour limitations of the Spectrum ported across wholesale to the Amstrad as well.
In the case of Commando, the Spectrum and Amstrad teams had some overlap and the games share some of the same DNA (see the title screen, for example), while the C64 was distinct. It doesn’t feel like a lazy Spectrum > Amstrad port though, so it has that going for it. The C64, as usual, feels like its own thing.
Ferries and other ocean-going vessels seem to be a rich source of arcade memories… I remember lurking around the sit down Galaxians cabinet on the Bowness to Ambleside ferry on more than one occasion.
Over on the Atari 8-bit platforms, we have “Gacek”, a kind of unbranded version of Bomb Jack. It’s really good, and really pushes the old Atari’s to their limits. Varied sprites and colourful backdrops, and a range of music throughout the levels. It feels really good to play as well.
There are oddities though - like the way it plays the theme from Gradius/Nemesis on the high score table. And the way it doesn’t mention Bomb Jack at all (understandable, given its homebrew nature). So it’s not so much Bomb Jack as Bomb Jack-ish. But it’s still very good!
The venerable Colecovision also got a homebrew version, this time staying truer to the original. It’s also very good, and looks way better than a 1982 console has any right to. Control is fluid and fast, and the music is catchy and not annoying.
The bomb sprites are a bit large however, and the game tends to be a bit on the easy side, given there are fewer enemies on screen. But it’s still a tremendous achievement.
It can be made to work in largely the same way. You just need to install the extra plugin (and associated extra component). I have a similar number of profiles as you and I haven’t had to change how I work.
The article comments reference Multi-Account Containers, but I’m not sure I could make them work. I need different bookmarks for each profile, and I like the separation of a new window.
I recently switched from Chrome to Firefox as part of an ongoing de-Google effort… and, honestly, I found it fairly easy. The two things I missed and found solutions for were:
Profiles - I just use the built in profiles with the Profile Switcher extension
Casting to Chromecast - I use the fx_cast extension and actually find it more reliable than Chrome’s casting!
Other than those, I’ve found it to be a very comfortable, familiar experience.
I use it for work. Other than having to think for a second to find weirdly hidden menu items, it’s fine. At least for my purposes, as a .NET dev. One thing I love about it is Windows Sandbox… really wish Linux would could up something similar.
Yeah, it’s weird. I’d been trying it on and off since 1997, and always bounced off because of some annoyance or other. Now… nothing. It’s very low friction.
It’s interesting how far Linux desktop has progressed recently… I don’t hate Windows, in fact I think it’s a great OS for most purposes. But I happened to try Linux Mint a few years ago in a fit of pique about being excluded from the Win11 upgrade for spurious reasons… and it just kind of stuck.
Two years later and I am full on Linux now. Don’t even have a Windows partition (though I do keep a VM). And I’m about to buy a new laptop that I intend to buy without an OS, it will never be touched by Windows, there’s just no need.
For my purposes, Linux does everything now. OS, software, the games I want to play… I never even think about it. Also, everywhere I look, I see Linux - my Steamdeck, my MiSTer, my Pis, my Miyoo Mini. It’s everywhere…
Well, my problem is partly that I play docked, so every issue is magnified up to 50 inches… so take what I say with a pinch of salt.
I managed to get it to run at a fairly stable 30fps, but the settings were so low that everything looked pretty muddy and basic. You can turn off the FSR to get it to look less blurry at 800p, but it still looked pretty bad. Generally, everything just looked a bit unstable, you know? Hair was pixelated, lines were jaggy everything felt jumpy and gritty. I’m sure it would look better on the SD screen itself.
I also read that Act 3 onwards takes a further hit to performance… so at that point I decided to cut my losses. Shame… it’s the first game where I’ve genuinely felt the SD isn’t up to it.
I’m looking forward to it! I bought it on Steamdeck, but had to refund because I couldn’t get it to run decently… felt I would be doing it a disservice with all the compromises. So I’m not waiting for the PS5 release…
Isn’t it weird how music streaming has managed to remain a preferable option to the high seas, but video streaming has become so enshittified that it’s easier to not use it?