You may remember when I found out that some kind and generous souls from across the pond had started publishing NEW Commodore 64 games on cartridge, and that I was going to try out as many as I could via emulation, then order a couple… Well, I finally did!
After narrowing the field down – by eliminated PAL only games as well as ports of classic games on other systems – I tried the rest of the lot out and settled on Soulless…which, as of this writing has been out of stock for months. So I went with my second and third choices, Assembloids and Mollusk Redux.
In Mollusk, you are (wait for it) a mollusk. It’s basically a game of eat or be eaten as you explore the ocean looking for smaller fish to eat, while avoiding predators and other hazards. It’s fun to play and looks and sounds appropriately Commodore-ish, in a good way. Mollusk starts out easy, but takes the kid gloves off around level five. It’s not a must own title, but I’m glad I picked it up.
Moving on, Assembloids exceeded my expectations in nearly every way. Based on a flash game, it’s stylish and 
contemporary, yet somewhat paradoxically fits the C64 like a glove. Simple, yet addictive, you sort bits of faces that appear in the center of the screen into one of four different bins. Complete a face and you clear a bin. Complete a matching face for more points, but take too long – or put a piece in an occupied spot – and you lose a life. Once it ramps up, it can really feel like patting your head and rubbing your belly at the same time. If you still have a working Commodore lying around, you really ought to give Assembloids a go.
Cheers,
Ben
Both carts can be purchased from the RGCD shop. You can also grab disk images of the games here and here to try out in a C64 emulator.