It wasn't until folk started making or buying reset switches that enabled you to reset so called "reset proof" games that this problem regarding the C64 died out... 
Heh. I remember the poor mans solution to freezing games from before I got my first Action Replay (and before I learned enough asm etc. to be able to work my way around these things in other ways):
Turning the machine off and on quickly enough a couple of times and save the memory... If the game didn't use any parts overwritten by BASIC, you could get it that way, as it took at least a tenth of a second or two without power before the RAM on the C64 was cleared enough to be useless...
Amazingly I never did blow any C64 PSU's. Did blow several IC's, over the years, and had a dust fire in one...
