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Cybernoid 2 for Commodore 64, in 1988 I programmed amazing things and I didn't know it

Updated the 06/05/2020 07:00 
 Cybernoid II schermata per Commodore 64

The tape cost 12000 lire, the floppy 15000 lire. It was 1988 and the sequel to Cybernoid was released, the videogame programmed by Raffaele Cecco with the timeless soundtrack of Jeroen Tel. The following year it would be released also for Amiga, and my memories merge in a space-time continuum that unites them both. On the other hand, I bought my Amiga 500 in 1989, adding it to my already cluttered "work station", where the undisputed prince was Sir Commodore 64.

Cybernoid 2 was the worthy sequel to the first already excellent title made in UK by Raffaele Cecco, programmer and Designer of which I have already written in the review of the first title. Cybernoid 2 was not an easy title to play, on the contrary. So many more aliens, so many new weapons for our fighting machine called Cybernoid. Graphics and animations were a blast, at least for me fascinated by all the art I admired inside video games at the time.

In 1988 for Commodore 64 I had programmed various utilities for the creation of graphics and animations. I remember a character redefinition Software, which was used at the time to build game scenarios, and an animated sprites editor, the animated moving objects that were used for game characters. I was 15 years old, I was programming at a low level, I could write code of high complexity and didn't know it. Who used those Software that was of high quality? I only used them myself, because here in Avola I had no one to appreciate them!

Cybernoid 2 was breathtaking. I don't really remember if the environments shrugged - scrolling means scrolling through the game scenario -, I'm pretty sure the game philosophy remained the same as the first title, i.e. rooms to overcome, enemies to shoot down, pitfalls to avoid, loot to recover.

The music at the time was not considered up to the first one - reading now the review Zzap made - but comparing them now, after 32 years since its publication (in other binary logic after 2^5 years), I can certainly say that Jeroen Tel pulled out of Sid once again a masterpiece. Now as then I was standing there listening to it, and then I could see. Unconsciously I sensed that Cybernoid 2 was carving its name into the all-time video game gold book.

The Revenge, that was the subtitle, just to highlight the fact that the battleship had come back meaner and more pissed off than ever, and wanted to... revenge.

I remember the Amiga pack, made from a plastic case, a cassette cover and a floppy. In hindsight, maybe even then it was a pirate version marketed under its original name. The music on the Amiga sounded softer, less hard, but still remained at a high level. In the player at the beginning of this article, you can listen to the music for Commodore 64, and please do it in religious silence to fully enjoy it.

For you sighted that you stopped to read another of my video game memories, it is time to open your C64 emulator, write "Load", beat Return, Press play on tape and go back to 1988. To you friend or blind friend I hope to have transmitted some of the passion that in those years has formed me, just to give you a glimpse of the Giuseppe programmer of today.