The Commodore 64 Collection 3 review – retro console serves up old favourites in fine style

Blaze Entertainment; Evercade consoles
Paradroid, Boulder Dash and Break Dance are among the classic C64 games repackaged for the 21st century in this weird but lovely compilation

It is an odd feeling having an unremitting barrage of childhood memories fired at you by a game cartridge no larger than a matchbox. That’s certainly been my experience of the C64 Collection 3, the latest in a series of vintage gaming compilations assembled by Blaze Entertainment for its Evercade retro consoles. Each of these little carts contains a dozen or so classic titles from various arcade manufacturers and home computers, all emulated to a pretty high standard. This one, for me, and I suspect a lot of other C64 veterans, is unmissable – for several reasons.

One is that it contains what I think is one of the greatest home computer games ever made: Paradroid. It’s a top-down multidirectional sci-fi blaster by Hewson, beautifully styled, fiendishly difficult and with one of the earliest examples of the now ubiquitous hacking mini-game.