Idris Elba says he grew up playing Commodore 64 games, never ever pirated them
The New York Times has delivered(opens in new tab) my favorite headline in a while: «Idris Elba, a Gamer, Was Keen on Joining Sonic the Hedgehog 2.» That's how the article appears in search results, at least. On the Times website, it's remixed into «Idris Elba, Gamer (That's Why He Was So Keen on Sonic the Hedgehog 2).» The point is: Beloved actor Idris Elba? Yeah, he's a gamer. (And that's why he was so keen on playing Knuckles in Sonic the Hedgehog 2.)
Elba told the paper that he's owned «pretty much» every console since the Sega Genesis, and is into «FIFA and driving games» these days. He started gaming, however, on a Commodore 64 home computer, which makes him a PC gamer in my book (or it would if I kept some kind of PC gamer field identification book).
Elba would've been nine years old when the Commodore 64 came out in 1982. At the time, it cost $600, which is the equivalent of a very good gaming PC today when you account for inflation—around $1,740. For that, you got a CPU clocked at around 1MHz and 65KB of RAM. Hell yeah.
There were tons of games available for the C64. Lucasfilm Games released several, including Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders and Maniac Mansion. Loads of arcade games were ported to it, as well. I played the crap out of Bubble Bobble, although I might be thinking of the Apple 2 version.
What Elba played on his Commodore 64 is a mystery, because the NYT conversation moved onto the ease with which C64 data cassettes could be copied and thus pirated. Elba said that he knew how to do that but added in a mock serious voice that all of his games were «authorized purchases.» Very suspicious! How am I supposed to enjoy Elba's performance as Knuckles if I'm wondering whether or not his copy of
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