Godzilla for the Commodore 64

Godzilla reared his head a few times on the Commodore 64!  Probably the most well known of his early 8-Bit appearances was in Epyx's much loved The Movie Monster Game (which I covered waaaay back when this was still the Wizard of Vestron blog).  However, his first appearance on the C64 was a fun little time waster called simply:  Godzilla!

The start of a new game

Back in the 80's, if you were an ambitious person you could buy books that contained software and games that you could actually program yourself.  Godzilla was in one such book (though I don't remember the name of it) and it also made it's way around via disk swapping of C64 enthusiasts.

The game itself is quite simple and plays much like a boardgame.  Godzilla will move around a grid, some representing the ocean and some representing Japan.  It's up to you to send in troops, ships, planes, missiles and even an atomic bomb to stop him.  You must try to keep him from reaching Tokyo.  If he reaches and destroys Tokyo, it's game over.

First attack on Godzilla and I've lost 5 ships and a bunch of troops!

You have the option to either attack Godzilla (you will be told how many ships, planes, troops, etc you have in a given square on the grid) or to move your forces closer to Godzilla.  This can be tricky though, because he moves quickly and he moves ALOT!

There is no real animation in the game, Godzilla will move from sqaure to square and occasionally a square will flash red when he's on a rampage.  Other than that, it's all up to your imagination.  There are some fun sound effects when you attack Big G, and you'll get a quick little funeral death march ditty if he wins.

Aw jeez, this isn't good.  Godzilla makes landfall in Tokyo and the death toll is high.  I've got to move quickly.

It may not sound like much, but Godzilla can be surprisingly addictive in the "I'm just going to give it one more go before bed" kind of way.  It's not always easy to bring the big guy down and I truly think it's down to the roll of the dice, so to speak.

.....and over twenty million dead.  I am probably the worst JSDF commander ever.  FAIL!

It's pretty easy these days to get a hold of games such as this.  Head on over to Lemon 64, go to the games section and you should be able to find a link to download the game (you will need a Commodore 64 emulator, of course....I suggest WinVice)

Though it looks like it's malfunctioning.....the game is really loading....