What I did with the C64 Action Replay cartridge

Also features a review of Freelancer, plus the latest retro gaming news

Author

Christian Cawley
July 21, 2024

Hope you’re having a great weekend so far.

A big welcome to our new subscribers, and thank you to everyone who shared last week’s edition. I know a lot of you were interested in the Project Stealth Fighter box content photos, so I’m aiming to bring you more features like that in the coming weeks.

To start off, this week includes a look at the C64 Action Replay cartridge. Mine was bought through a magazine advert, and is a little worse for wear. I’m pleased to say I found other uses for it aside from inputting pokes and cheats and backing up games, as you’ll see below.

I’ve also revived an old review of Freelancer, a strong but now forgotten Elite alternative for the PC. To finish off, the latest retro gaming news and a top video from the past week.

Table of Contents

Remembering the Action Replay Mark VI (C64/128)

This Commodore 64 cartridge changed how I used computers, and redefined my understanding of what was possible.

I don’t know when I first saw the advert for the Acton Replay cartridge. It would have been in Zzap64! or Commodore User, and after I became aware of carts like the Freeze Frame backup cart. At this time, games weren’t available on cartridge in the UK, unless you had a copy of International Soccer, although a few applications shipped with RAM expansions.

My main reason for wanting the Action Replay from Datel Electronics was, I’m sorry to say, piracy. Mostly, I wanted to make copies of my own games, speed up loading (the cartridge added a turbo loader tool for tapes and disk) and get infinite lives in some games.

(Of course, that’s a dangerous thing to do in certain titles - the infinite death loop in Jet Set Willy, for example!)

Sprite Control

At first, I was happy with the main features. But then, I discovered Sprite control. Thanks to a cassette demo of Robocop 2, I was able to lift the main sprite out of the game and drop it into Turrican.

Suddenly, games stopped being these monolithic works of genius, constructed by superior intelligences. All those hours of pouring over code I didn’t understand, with no concrete context, and poor explanations might have been wasted, but this changed things.

I’d just discovered the rudimentary basics of a modern game, the sprite editor, and it wasn’t long before I found a copy of Shoot Em Up Construction Kit. But that’s another story.

My Action Replay VI

As my C64 has not been powered up in 20 years, I’m reluctant to risk it without a new PSU. So, does my cart work or not? I’m not sure, but I do know that it survived the blue ink splash you can see in the lower corner.

I think I’ve kept the box contents reasonably intact. As you can see, I still have the guide, which interestingly features a duplicate sheet of pages 6, 7, 18, and 19. This is possibly some form of addendum.

The eagle-eyed among you will notice a slot for a cassette, a 3.5-inch disk, and a 5.25-inch disk. I genuinely cannot remember whether the cassette or the disk shipped with this Action Replay, and I have no idea where it is at this time. My C64 disk collection is relatively modest, and it isn’t with those.

A mystery to be solved later!

Did it change my life?

I bought the Action Replay VI with my own money, paying (I suspect) with a postal order. Suddenly having the power of backups, I felt like it was the missing part of my C64, but to be honest, it wasn’t that long before we moved onto the Amiga.

Having said that, it’s another lovely big box product, with a useful, printed guide. It certainly made life easier, bringing an end to those mind-numbing cassette loading times, and perhaps colouring my C64 memories in a positive light.

But back then, there were just some games that you couldn’t copy, or add infinite lives to.

Replay the action

As you may know, the Action Replay carts transcended the 8-bit era. Later becoming a cheat device, the Action Replay was released on Nintendo DS, Nintendo DSi, Nintendo 3DS, PlayStation Portable, PlayStation 2, GameCube, Game Boy Advance, and the Xbox.

There was even a Windows 95/98 version!

Datel still exists, its website still active, and seems to still supply Wii and DS hardware. But really, in the age of instant digital downloads, it seems strange they’re not leaning into the retro revival a bit…

Watch Viva Amiga on Amazon Prime Video

Incredibly, it has been 7 years since the release of Viva Amiga, a 60-minute documentary about the genesis and release of the Amiga computer series.

If you haven’t seen it, the doc interviews key personnel from the machine’s development, both at the Amiga side, and from Commodore. If you’re a fan of the machine, or love 16-bit retro machines as a whole, here’s the trailer.

Perhaps the ultimate documentary about the development of the Amiga, you can only watch Viva Amiga on Amazon Prime Video.

Freelancer

Published by Microsoft and released March 2003, Freelancer takes the player on an epic voyage through space combat, trading, age old secrets and revenge.

Capturing the magic of classic space trading game elite, Freelancer brings an entire universe of money, trade and combat to the comfort of the desktop PC.

The backstory is ornate, with nods (both in the narrative and the spaceship design) to sci-fi greats such as the original BattleStar Galactica, Aliens, Star Wars and Space: 1999.

Freelancer is set 800 years beyond the 23rd century where a society has developed in the Sirius system after vast sleeper ships were dispatched to avoid defeat in a 100 year war between Earth factions the Alliance and the Coalition.

This history – relevant to the game’s plot – opens with a well-realised michinima but sprawling epic interpretation which recounts the foundation of the galactic society in the game (based on successful eras of the USA, Germany, Japan, Britain, with the Spanish becoming pirates). Freelancer eventually introduces the player to Trent, the survivor of a terrorist attack and the player character.

After his home is destroyed by the criminal outfit The Order, Trent needs a job, and it isn’t long before he is getting a drink in a low key, relaxed start to the game. Other than Trent and one other character, it is around this time that the quality of the voice acting in the game is poor by modern standards, the script peppered with poor dialogue. Given the age of the game, however, this can be forgiven.

Once the slow start is out of the way (sadly the cutscenes can’t be skipped) and some backstory about local politics featuring border quarrels, profit concerns, and nationstate corporations has been filed for use later on, the space combat finally begins.

This is where Freelancer excels with a superb, intuitive point and click mouse interface that doesn’t require any keyboard input. A quick hop into space to defend a food transport outlines the method of interstellar travel (via a series of warp gates) introduces the pirates. Space combat is enthralling and invigorating, with a range of options for engagement with enemy vessels. Better ships come better equipped to deal with pirates and aggressors. Optional mouse-only interface focuses attention on the combat and away from distracting keystrokes.

The space scenes are also where Freelancer comes into its own, casting older players’ memories to Geoff Crammond’s classic 8-bit space trading game Elite from the 1980s. Freelancer takes the basic idea of Elite and develops it exponentially, enabling the player to not only earn cash (through missions, trading, collecting space debris) and reputation, customize ships and equipment but also to unravel the Machiavellian schemes of the game’s villains.

No one is trustworthy in Freelancer.

Upon its original release, Freelancer scored highly in reviews and won awards as well as high praise for the sublime graphical representations of deep space. Other than some clunk cutscene graphics and poor-quality of the voice acting, Freelancer remains a must-have game in the collection of any retro PC gaming fan, especially those with a penchant for space trading and combat adventures.

Retro news you might have missed

Some retro gaming news and new releases that didn’t make it into our midweek newsletter:

If you have any links to share for the newsletter, please hit reply and let us know.

Retro gaming video of the week

The Retro Collective has added a retro development office to its existing attraction in Stroud, UK. The feature - which joins the existing retro technology and gaming museum exhibits - will help demonstrate how classic games were made.

Game Over

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Until next time, take it easy…

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