64 Nightmares: Celebrating the weirdest, toughest, and worst Commodore 64 games that we loved to hate

by Andrew Fisher, Steve Day (design)

C64 Nightmares, the companion to Graeme Mason’s ZX Nightmares, celebrates the worst Commodore 64 titles that garners had to endure. From insanely difficult platform games such as Chubby Gristle to awful management simulations like Grid Iron ll, Andrew Fisher looks at the worst bunch in the C64’s massive back catalogue.

274 pages, ebook

Published June 7, 2024

Reviews

[Sylvia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fun trip down gaming history. The Commodore 64 invokes such great memories at primary school for me playing games like Granny's garden, Where in the world is Carmen Sandiago, Family feud, and a maths game where you had to solve equations under each rocket.

This book is the complete opposite in that it reviews the worst of the C64 games, and boy was there plenty according to this book. I loved the cover art for the games listed. Some of the games were absolutely bonkers, Di's baby being the weirdest of the lot!

[Steve · Rating 2 out of 5]

Can't fault the beautiful physical presentation of the hardback book but found it lacking in interesting content. Aside from summaries of the games (written in blurb style largely without judgement) all the entries draw their conclusions from old magazine reviews (with an understandable but eventually somewhat grating emphasis on ZZAP).

I can't help feeling that, when looking back at games primarily from the 1980s, this book from the 2020s fails to add the main value it could, which would be hindsight (perhaps in the form of more research on the worst clangers). Instead we get quotes from early issues of ZZAP with the authors being repeatedly name-dropped and little if anything new or insightful. It's not "bad" as such, but I don't feel I got much for my money other than a weighty tome that looks nice on a shelf.

[Bustagroovy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great format and well put together. I had loads of C64 games but thankfully not a single one that was mentioned here. Lucky!