The C64's versions of the two Rick games are easily identifiable by the SID sounds, the many and varied but slightly dull colours, the bizzare mixture of single and double-pixel graphics, and the low-budget intro screens. Play the games to see what I mean.

This version of Rick 1 was also notable for being the only one where Rick jumps out of the screen when he dies. None of the other versions of Rick 1, even the 16-bits, do this.

As mentioned above, the graphics are more colourful than the Spectrum version and there is none of the Speccy's infamous colour clash; however, whereas the sprite for Rick is built with single-pixel graphics and looks remarbably close to the 16-bit version, and the background is single-pixel and two-colour, the nasties and foreground scenery are limited to the rather ugly double-pixel graphics. The nasties with blue outlines in Rick 2 look very odd indeed.

The C64's colours do have the advantage of showing movable walls in a slightly different colour to the rest of the scenery.

As the C64 had no memory variation (like the 48K/128K options of the Spectrum 128, +2 and +3) the decent sound is always available.

Two C64 emulators that are recommended are CCS64 and VICE.

VICE, in its Windoze point-and-start version, WinVICE, is the one I'd go for these days. Its colour pallette is sharper and closer to the C64's original than CCS64, plus it's far easier to use and can save more than one save-state file at a time, as *.VSF - as opposed to CCS64's solitary FREEZE.C64 file which is very easy to overwrite - the same problem that the SPectrum emulator, Warajevo, suffers from. One word of warning, though - make sure you remember the key to switch between fullscreen and windowed mode (ALT+D), because as far as I can see, there's no other way to switch it back and I can't see any way of putting up the Options menu while in fullscreen mode.

C64 game files will usually have the extensions .PRG, .T64 and .D64. Running games with WinVICE is simple: associate the .D64 and .T64 files with WinVICE, and you've got a double-click-and-run setup. The .PRG extenstion is used for other machines, so keep that free, and use "Autostart Disk/Tape Image" in the File menu to run .PRG files.

If it's a cracked & hacked version, which many C64 disk images are, the chances are it will have an interim menu; press SPACE to jump through it.

My original emulator of choice was CCS64, a DOS-based emulator which comes with no documentation whatsoever and took me a long time to work out. However, once I knew what I was doing with it, the games were very easy to use.

To run Rick with CCS64, unzip the games into the CCS64 directory. Run CCS64 and press F9 to enter the console and select 1541 Device 8, or press Alt+8 to select it directly. The filenames will be displayed; select a game and hit enter.

EMULATORS
CCS64 emulator:	Go to the site	Direct download
VICE and WinVICE emulator:	Go to the site
GAME FILES
Rick 1:	Go to the site	Direct download
Rick 2:	Go to the site	Direct download (side A) Direct download (side B)

The C64 versions of both Rick games were controlled by a joystick. I have no joystick and can provide no information of how to use one with WinVICE or CCS64, but here's a guide of how to set up keyboard emulation.

In WinVICE, enter the "Settings" menu, and hit "Joystick settings". Configure Keyset A to be what you want. I recommend the cursor keys and right CTRL for this.

Bizarrely, CCS64 allows for three fire buttons, so this is what I recommend. Press F9 to enter the console, select "Options" and then "Input", or enter the menu directly by pressing ALT+I. Define the keyset in Control Port 2 as follows:

UP	DOWN	LEFT	RIGHT	FIRE 1	FIRE 2	FIRE 3
cursor keys				Z	X	C

Diagonal controls can be ignored, and only fire button 1 will be used for Rick.

See the "How to play Rick Dangerous" page to see how to use Rick's arsenal of weapons.

Both my versions of Rick come with cheat menus on the disk image, but for traditionalists, here's the cheat codes.

In Rick 1, enter FLUFOMATIC on the high score table to select any level that you have previously reached.

There are some pokes to be entered before loading the game for infinite lives, dynamite and bullets, but these do not work with my version of Rick 1. I suspect the cheat menu operates the pokes automatically. But here they are anyway:

For Rick 1, enter the following BASIC commands before loading the game for the following cheats:

Unlimited lives, bombs and lasers:	POKE 1409,0 POKE 10073,0
"Cheat mode":	POKE 27931,173 POKE 11193,173 POKE 10886,173 SYS 2057

Rick 2 also has a cheat menu on the version I have. Note that when using this cheat menu, if Rick fires a shot while on the hovercraft, the shots decrease by one. Any other time, shots are not used up. And now, here are some traditional cheats:

Enter JE VEUX VIVRE on the high score table for infinite lives.

Enter the following BASIC commands before loading the game for the following cheats:

Unlimited lives:	POKE 5317,165
Unlimited shots:	POKE 43029,181
Unlimited bombs:	POKE 55190,165

Hit the thumbnail to see a full-size version of the screenshot.

RICK 1 TITLE SCREEN	SOUTH AMERICA	EGYPT	SCHWARZENDUMPF CASTLE	MISSILE BASE
RICK 2 TITLE SCREEN	HYDE PARK	THE ICE CAVERNS OF FREEZIA	THE FORESTS OF VEGETABLIA	THE ATOMIC MUD MINES	THE FAT GUY'S HEADQUARTERS