So, as the title asks, is a systems worth entirely defined by it’s games? Because when you look at pretty much any system released since the invention of videogame’s, they have all had a mix of truly awful games, and truly good games.

In my most recent video (at the time of writing), I took a look at some truly, truly awful games for the Commodore 16. Now, the Commodore 16 was a “bad” system. And by “bad” I really mean underpowered even when it was released. With just 16k of RAM, as the systems name suggests, making anything more complex than simple arcadey titles would prove to be an almost impossible task. Yet some developers & publishers were a touch too ambitious (Elite with their version of Ghosts’N Goblins) or a touch too lazy (Jailbreak by Bug-Byte… I mean, how do you screw up a bloody BREAKOUT clone? Well, Bug-Byte did).

And it’s these titles that have come to define the system. An underpowered system, with awful looking, horrible to play games. People don’t really talk about the machines better titles. The fact that it actually had some really good games released for it is almost a footnote. The narrative is that the C16 was shit, and so were it’s games.

But for me, I’d say: Actually try the system out. There are some good games. Galaxions is a really rather well made clone of, err, Galaxians. And the version of Steve Davis Snooker plays pretty well, with decent physics given it has to fit into the C16s tiny memory footprint. And there are plenty of others. But go look for them yourself. You might be surprised.

(And finally: an apology. It’s been a while since I updated this website. The start of 2026 hasn’t bene the best, with my Father In Law passing away suddenly. It really took my motivation away. But, I’m back. And there will be much more frequent updates.)