Cybernoid for Commodore 64 is one of those Video games that will remain in history, despite not having any particular technical innovation. Personally I was and remained in love with music, written by the timeless Jeroen Tel, but also with the game designed and programmed by Raffaele Cecco I spent hours of pure fun.

Wikipedia classifies Cybernoid as a shot-em-up, but in reality it is only partially so. Cybernoid The Fighting Machine I remember it as a room videogame, a labyrinth where aboard our technological ship we had the task to recover a cargo, recovering it from the pirates who had stolen it. They were super-technological pirates, who also reacted in a rather heavy way. In fact, our spacecraft moving through the 2D rooms was armed to the teeth. We had four ships to get through the game rooms, a set of weapons and powerups to recover. Maybe I was helping myself with some of my crack at the time, but that's not a story to tell.

Programmed by Raffaele Cecco, who despite his name is an English guy (probably his roots are Italian), to whom I feel particularly close. Raffaele started programming in basic for Zx Spectrum, then he evolved into something else, to become the programmer of several games of the time. Cybernoid was initially born for Spectrum, but then it was converted for several computers of the time, like Amiga and Commodore 64. Nick Jones takes care of the conversion for Commodore 64, since Raffaele remains linked to the Zx Spectrum and Amstrad, machines that used the same microprocessor.

The graphics for Commodore 64 were particularly successful, with well done animations. One wonders how the small-big Commodore at home could cope with the display of so many details, while making everything run so smoothly.

The exploration of the game environments was very linear - each screen simply led to the next, there were no different paths to follow (you couldn't even go back) - but it was enough to make you want to see what was next. Maybe it was the environments to explore, the enemies to shoot down, the weapons to use, the mazes to solve... or maybe it was the music, instead of the sound effects, that gave the game the energy to move forward. And it was shooting, it was like shooting. I remember that spaceship that threw out arches of plasma missiles, which for me designers and programmers, like Raffaele Cecco, were beautiful to see. You who can see might object: they were a pile of pixellons. Hey, it means you don't have the imagination of a teenager of the time, when the big pixellons were beautiful plasma missiles.

My graphic memories can no longer be revisited, given my blindness, but I can listen to the sturdy C64 soundtrack again, if I can. In the player here on the side there is the superb stratospheric music composed by Jeroen Tel, the same one that was part of Maniacs of noise. The Sid of the Commodore 64 is squeezed to the bone. I don't want the other conversions of the time, but the soundtrack for C64 is unsurpassed. Many remixes have been made, even in a classical key.

Cybernoid is one of those precious pearls that will always remain in my memory. It had a sequel, Cybernoid 2 The revenge, but that is history for another article, perhaps accompanied by some anecdotes of my computer life. You who see you could read me with the music of Cybernoid in the background, and soon you can open a C64 emulator and replay it, but for you blind friend it's time to enjoy the colossal music of Jeroen Tel: click Play and come back with me to the eighties!