2019/11/12: Commodore 64: Seven Cities of Gold, The, Gunship!

[VideoGameCritic]

Check out these two very funny new Commodore 64 reviews submitted by the C64 Critic! It's been a while but these are worth the wait. I love the shameless politically incorrect tone.

[newmodelarmy]

Check out these two very funny new Commodore 64 reviews submitted by the C64 Critic! It's been a while but these are worth the wait. I love the shameless politically incorrect tone.

Wow! Gunship! Great review. This brings me way back! I must have played 100's of hours of Gunship, absolutely loved that game. I remember staying over my buddy Joe's house who was also addicted to this game, we would stay up to 3 or 4 in the morning playing it until all of the caffeine (supplied by many 16 oz. bottles of Pepsi) was used up.

[LuckyWDFN]

"It's too bad I never played this as a kid because I could see myself losing months at a time in this engrossing, open-world exploration title"

You nailed it with the opening line. I was a Day 1 player of Seven Cities on the Atari 800 and if you did play this when you were young, you'd likely bump it a full letter grade. The map disk feature was fantastic. Aside from the bothersome natives, which I agree is extremely tedious, there are so many hidden facets of the game you could unlock that you likely wouldn't be aware of unless you played the game for hours & hours - much like M.U.L.E. (also created by Dan/Danielle Bunten). Not a criticism of your review though, you're spot-on.

On the map disk version, you could find different islands that were in the extreme north & southern portions of the map with tiny tribes and hidden caches of gold. You needed to find all the little islands if you wanted to get 100% of the map completed. The maps were 100% random, a new world with new features every game.

The part of the game I found hard to grasp was that there was no clear mission. Did you go for 100%, find all the gold caches? Convert all the natives? Set up forts and missionaries everywhere? Kill all the natives? It was never clear and the Monarchy never seemed thrilled no matter which approach you took. If you establish a friendly relationship with the natives, they will give you clues when you're near a lost cache of gold - but you have to be patient.

Still, it's a tremendous game you get more impressed with the more you play. If M.U.L.E for the 8-bits is the king of supply and demand games thinly veiled as an educational game, then Seven Cities of Gold is the king of asset management games thinly veiled as an educational game.

[ASalvaro]

"It's too bad I never played this as a kid because I could see myself losing months at a time in this engrossing, open-world exploration title"

You nailed it with the opening line. I was a Day 1 player of Seven Cities on the Atari 800 and if you did play this when you were young, you'd likely bump it a full letter grade. The map disk feature was fantastic. Aside from the bothersome natives, which I agree is extremely tedious, there are so many hidden facets of the game you could unlock that you likely wouldn't be aware of unless you played the game for hours & hours - much like M.U.L.E. (also created by Dan/Danielle Bunten). Not a criticism of your review though, you're spot-on.

On the map disk version, you could find different islands that were in the extreme north & southern portions of the map with tiny tribes and hidden caches of gold. You needed to find all the little islands if you wanted to get 100% of the map completed. The maps were 100% random, a new world with new features every game.

The part of the game I found hard to grasp was that there was no clear mission. Did you go for 100%, find all the gold caches? Convert all the natives? Set up forts and missionaries everywhere? Kill all the natives? It was never clear and the Monarchy never seemed thrilled no matter which approach you took. If you establish a friendly relationship with the natives, they will give you clues when you're near a lost cache of gold - but you have to be patient.

Still, it's a tremendous game you get more impressed with the more you play. If M.U.L.E for the 8-bits is the king of supply and demand games thinly veiled as an educational game, then Seven Cities of Gold is the king of asset management games thinly veiled as an educational game.

i had the Atari 800xl in the mid 80s and played Seven Cities a lot! ..i have amazing memories playing my Atari and using my 300 baud modem lol

[VideoGameCritic]

Is it just a coincidence these two games use the exact same color palette??

[Stalvern]

Is it just a coincidence these two games use the exact same color palette??

The C64 only has 16 colors to work with. Anything involving a desert is going to look pretty similar.

[C64_Critic]

Is it just a coincidence these two games use the exact same color palette??

That didn't necessarily occur to me, but it was pretty clear to me that Seven Cities looked, felt, and sounded a LOT like Pirates! by Sid Meier. He didn't have anything to do with this game, but I'm assuming that EA must have been in the development chain of both games. The similarities are just too numerous.

"It's too bad I never played this as a kid because I could see myself losing months at a time in this engrossing, open-world exploration title"

You nailed it with the opening line. I was a Day 1 player of Seven Cities on the Atari 800 and if you did play this when you were young, you'd likely bump it a full letter grade. The map disk feature was fantastic. Aside from the bothersome natives, which I agree is extremely tedious, there are so many hidden facets of the game you could unlock that you likely wouldn't be aware of unless you played the game for hours & hours - much like M.U.L.E. (also created by Dan/Danielle Bunten). Not a criticism of your review though, you're spot-on.

Glad to hear it! I try to keep in mind how I game and the amount of time I can devote to it now versus "in a perfect world" and recognize the differences. I am certain that over a lazy summer as a kid I would easily devoted 8-10 hours a day to Seven Cities, and absolutely would have gone through the trouble of generating a 'random world' to see how it played differently. As it was I gave it more time than I anticipated I would, but of course I wanted to make sure I played enough to be fair in my review.

I've read that "Heart of Africa" is the game that Seven Cities should have been, so I'll have put that one the queue and see how it compares.

[LuckyWDFN]

I've read that "Heart of Africa" is the game that Seven Cities should have been, so I'll have put that one the queue and see how it compares.

Great stuff, looking forward to it. I always wanted to try Heart of Africa back then but couldn't because it was C-64 only

[LuckyWDFN]

i had the Atari 800xl in the mid 80s and played Seven Cities a lot! ..i have amazing memories playing my Atari and using my 300 baud modem lol

Nice! The modem was too rich for my paper route. My friend had one and I'd give him some blank Elephant disks and he'd fill them with games.