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Will the Real Commodore 64 Crystal Castles Please Stand Up?

In 1984, with the home video game industry crumbling, Atari cancelled projects for many different systems, from their own Atari 2600 and 8-bit computers to the Apple II and BBC Micro. Commodore 64 Crystal Castles was one of the casualties, but it seems there may have been more than industry instability affecting Atari's decision. While Atari's programmers were still at work, another Commodore 64 version of Crystal Castles began making the rounds, credited to an entity known as Thundervision. Nobody could tell who or what Thundervision was; the best guess anyone had was that the game came from Australia. Thundervision's Crystal Castles, while obviously rough around the edges, was very well done, and at least as good as anything Atari could do. Rumor has it the person or people behind Thundervision sought a license to publish their game, and when Atari declined, Thundervision threw their 99%-finished port into the wild, where it quickly proliferated. Whether Atari cancelled their Commodore version because of the Thundervision release is unknown. The company actually called off several Crystal Castles conversions, including one for the Apple II, which wouldn't have had any such competition. Surely this other port was on Atari's radar, however, especially if they were initially asked for a license to make it legitimate.

Whatever the reason behind the game's cancellation, Atari's programmers were pretty far along with their Commodore effort when the axe fell. Unlike other cancelled projects from this era, the 64 version actually saw an official release, at least in Europe, thanks to U.S. Gold acquiring the game from Atari in 1985. Of course, the shadow of Thundervision still loomed over this "proper" version of the game, and reviewers couldn't help but compare the two when writing about the U.S. Gold release.

So which version is better? If forced to make a choice, I would have to give the edge to the Thundervision version. Really, though, it's a toss-up. The Thundervision version has better graphics and somewhat better controls, while the Atari version has better audio. Both versions are hard to play due to Bentley moving way too fast for a joystick, but the Thundervision port compensates for this somewhat with more logical jumps -- Bentley tends to sail slowly through the air in the Atari version, covering great distances -- and a more forgiving use of the joystick, with less reliance on diagonals that are often hard to hit on decades-old controllers. Both versions do a decent job preserving the castles and their inhabitants, so once you master the controls, the decision may just come down to what you like more: better, more faithful graphics, or better, more faithful sound.

Grade for both: B.