15. Classic Concentration
I knew I said I'd pump the brakes on these game reviews a little bit, but I really can't help myself; I just enjoy these 80s game show conversions so darned much.
Classic Concentration is a tile-based memory game developed in 1988 by Softie and published by Sharedata. Two players compete to uncover and match pairs of tiles with various prizes underneath, then attempt to solve a rebus puzzle hidden by the cards. The winner of this first round gets to complete in a second tile-matching lightning round boasting a grand prize of a new car. The game mostly plays quite faithfully to its real-life counterpart, though the "Take One", "Forfeit One", and "Bonus" tiles are all missing from this version. The developers ensure their player base is well-represented with a choice of 4 male and female characters.
Oh no, I do not.
Prospective players should note that, as quite furiously articulated in Hoedown Episode 7 - "Press Your Luck", most Sharedata games use multiple floppy disks for puzzle content vs. game code. This means that the tedium of swapping disks and the molasses-like performance of the 1541 disk drive can make for a miserable experience if you're the impatient type. However, I was fortunate enough to play this game using the SD2IEC SD card floppy drive emulator. In addition to allowing you to store a sizable collection of games on a tiny flash storage card, it includes a handy feature to swap between disk images using a combination of a push-button on the device itself and an AUTOSWAP.LST text file pointing to the location of the C64 disk images on the device's SD card storage. When used in tandem with the "Epyx" Fastload Reloaded cartridge (the original Epyx-branded Fastload is unfortunately incompatible), load times are greatly reduced through comparatively efficient data transfer routines.
I will also say that Classic Concentration immediately looks a heck of a lot nicer than Press Your Luck, ditching the garish yellow, blue and red layout of the aforementioned abomination for a tasteful and effective yellow, blue and white layout. As expected with these titles, it's a little nicer than the Apple II and DOS versions, while maybe not quite as colorful and crisp as the NES port (though Nintendo's version notably maintains a very C64-ish font and art style).
I'd consider the music passable by C64 standards. The game does have quite a few different tunes playing through its various sections (as opposed to the dreaded, constant singular 4-bar loop of some Commodore titles), and includes a few sound effects thrown in here and there for good measure. However, the compositions again pale in comparison to the re-written music found in the NES version.
Like most game show adaptations, players will be likely to find the most enjoyment out of Classic Concentration's multi-player variant. The computer player seems to demonstrate perfect photographic memory as it pertains to previously-flipped tiles, as well as having prescience of correct prize locations within an exceedingly large set of un-flipped tiles. A few "pick-two-tiles-at-random" moves from time to time help tilt the play back in the human's favor. Despite occasionally lending the player a bit of mercy with one of these errors, the game's AI has a nasty habit of running the board in general - I played more than one session where I missed the first one or two turns, and never got a chance to recover. Worse, the computer player occasionally guessed the correct answer with only a few tiles removed (and none of the clues visible).
In addition to the use of the C64's keyboard, Classic Concentration supports a joystick for gameboard control. I'm very thankful for this functionality as navigating the board quickly and accurately can be nigh-impossible using the limited cursor control layout of the C64. A joystick is particularly necessary for the final round - you're required to quickly uncover and match the entire tile set within 35 seconds, and using the keyboard cursor and shift keys alone is nearly impossible. With that being said, there may be a little too much compensation for the clunky C64 joysticks of the time:
the final round is far too easy with the use of my accurate and responsive Sega Genesis gamepad, and I was usually able to complete it with around 10-15 seconds remaining.
Though the game tracks your winnings and invites defending champions to keep playing, the number of puzzles on the disk quickly came into question and limited the game's overall replay value. Though the game's box art boasts "over 100 puzzles", I had to play less than 10 games before hitting a repeat puzzle. Like many game show ports, this was later remedied with a "Second Edition" containing new puzzles, but it would've been nice if the game kept track of completed puzzles and rotated them appropriately instead of making the selection completely random.
Complaints aside, I'd be lying if I said I had a bad time playing Classic Concentration. The fun factor is there, and it's a short (~10-15 min), approachable party game for players of all ages with a very low barrier to entry. I'd place it in the upper half of the C64's game show offerings and would recommend it to help pass the time with a friend.
Think you've got what it takes to beat my single-game grand total in Classic Concentration? Check out our High Scores page and submit a screenshot to earn your spot in Hank's hall of fame!
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