Amiga - No DRM, less breaky than PS4/XBone, no always online

[louisg]

The Bitmaps can never be called shit for one reason only, Chaos Engine. One of the best top down shooters of all time, and I'm replaying it at the minute so it's not just nostalgia.

Super-agreed. I've never been into Chaos Engine more than I have this year. Fantastic game with a whole load of replay value.

Haha I keep hitting my head against Gods just because I want to review it. Seriously, this game is painful. And not just because it's unfair, but because it really does have potential as a puzzle-platformer that is so completely blown. I mean.. man.. I was just playing it and I basically got telefragged by warping onto an enemy.

[Pretas]

I knew someone who once said without any irony that Gods was his favorite game of all time. Something must have been in the water that the whole European computer gaming scene was drinking back then.

[Sly Cherry Chunks]

Gods was one of the very few Amiga games I bought rather than pirated. I never got past the final boss, eventually I used the score bug to rack up about a billion lives and did it that way.

I saw John Foxx live too.

[cools]

The only Amiga game I genuinely miss is Poing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrNLwT714ec

Quite simply perfect. And doesn't emulate well at all due to input lag. Wasn't such a fan of the sequels due to the music, the original was best.

The PC followup is terrible

[Herr Schatten]

Haha I keep hitting my head against Gods just because I want to review it. Seriously, this game is painful. And not just because it's unfair, but because it really does have potential as a puzzle-platformer that is so completely blown. I mean.. man.. I was just playing it and I basically got telefragged by warping onto an enemy.

While I agree that it's got its fair share of shortcomings, I did have fun playing through the Mega Drive version. Not that I want to do it ever again, mind you.

I think the Bitmap Brothers probably lost interest in the game halfway through. Marc Coleman did, for sure. A couple of years ago I had to convert (read: downscale and clean up) his graphics for an officially licensed port of the game to mobile phones, and I remember that I was shocked to see how his art got progressively lazier the farther into the game it appeared. Sadly, the port got cancelled, so all the work was done in vain.

Back on topic: The Bitmap Brothers were very overrated, but The Chaos Engine, Cadaver and Speedball II were really good games regardless. And Xenon II is perfectly fine for what it tries to be - a slow, easy and very pretty looking shoot'em-up for people who neither play nor particularly like shoot'em-ups.

[Marc]

Forgot about Cadaver, really enjoyed that back in the day. Expansion disc was balls hard though. I'd really like to play a decent isometric game again, I also remember D-Generation (I think) on Amiga, didn't look so hot but had some nice ideas. Don't think I've ever seen an isometric game on XBLA.

[louisg]

Oh shoot, somehow I didn't know Cadaver was Bitmap Brothers. Maybe I'll give that a try.

Back on topic: The Bitmap Brothers were very overrated, but The Chaos Engine, Cadaver and Speedball II were really good games regardless. And Xenon II is perfectly fine for what it tries to be - a slow, easy and very pretty looking shoot'em-up for people who neither play nor particularly like shoot'em-ups.

Yeah, I find that people who aren't that into shmups like Xenon 2. An RPG fan was telling me it was really cool cuz it's the only shmup with a shop (it's not, but I didn't have the heart to tell him because he was so stoked about it ). Like a lot of Amiga games (particularly almost anything by Psygnosis), the tech and art might've been enough to keep you interested back in the day.

Anyone play Qwak? That's a neat Amiga game that I don't see brought up a whole lot.

I'd really like to play a decent isometric game again, I also remember D-Generation (I think) on Amiga, didn't look so hot but had some nice ideas.

That's one that's been on my to-play list for like twenty years. I hear it's really good. I also remember hearing good things about Heimdall, but I couldn't ever get into it.

[BPzeBanshee]

I knew someone who once said without any irony that Gods was his favorite game of all time. Something must have been in the water that the whole European computer gaming scene was drinking back then.

You misunderstand, good sir! He clearly cited it as his favourite not because he liked playing it, but because he liked seeing everyone else's heads cave in from attempting to play it.

I never got to see anything Amiga-related here, only learnt about its existence from trying to find the Mac OS version of Lemmings I saw during my early years at Primary School. Says a bit that the IBM machines they got in to replace them were far less reliable, but having a personal network drive was nice when USB drives wouldn't work without custom drivers/Admin permissions and they didn't have CD writing drives.

[Aguraki]

some more worthy games:

-new zealand story
-pinball fantasies and dreams
-syndicate
-rick dangerous 1 and 2
-blues brothers
-beneath a steel sky
-fire and ice
-IK+
-all lucasfilm games
-populous
-bubble bobble
-rodland
-hired guns
-black crypt
-agony
-spiderman

also played a lot darkside on atari but the game is on amiga too.

[louisg]

I just put up a review of Gods

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UAFZm8rLPs

Oh I just saw Hired Guns mentioned above. That game is great and doesn't get nearly enough attention.

[wnka]

I had an A2000 growing up and it was amazing, all those cracktros!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50WWFEBsgfk

However the port of Strider made young me very very sad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucTL8AZkPFI

[Jonathan Ingram]

Three pages and not a single mention of Amiga's best original RPGs - Ambermoon and Perihelion. I'm on to fix that!

Ambermoon




Perihelion




Perihelion utilized cyberpunk aesthetics in a videogame before it was cool(IIRC it precedes both Shadowrun and System Shock, although not by much). Gameplay-wise, it's a blend of first-person exploration and turn-based battles. My main gripe with it is its relatively short length.

Ambermoon is actually the second game in an unfinished series(the first one being Amberstar which was also released for MS-DOS) and the last one the developer Thalion Software produced before it went bottom up. It plays like a mixture of Ultima and Eye of the Beholder, but a a few notches easier than either of them and far less cryptic than the former. Be sure to track down the fan-patched version, should you decide to give it a go. It fixes a certain nasty bug which prevents one of the characters from gaining levels as well as a few other issues.



Oh, and...

Hired Guns Enhanced Medley Remake

[dingsbums]

Amiga was the first machine I ever played a video game on .
It was the excellent conversion of Rainbow Islands.

Some other favourites on the Amiga:

North & South
Parasol Stars
Wings of Death
Apidya (best shooter on the system in my opinion)
Pang
Chuck Rock
Superfrog
Disc (excellent 2 player game)
Turrican 3 (I'm one of the few people who likes the third part more than the first two)
Lemmings
Battle Chess
Lionheart
Lotus 2/3

[SuperGrafx]

While I never got into PC or Amiga games back in the day, I did always admire the awesome visuals of Amgia games. Not sure if its worth the expense or effort these days to give it a go.

[Marc]

Whoever mentioned Rick Dangerous needs shooting. It was, and remains, a shit memory test.

[soprano1]

Didn't want to make a new topic, so i'll ask here: What Amiga games had ports on the Mega Drive or other consoles besides Turrican 3, that are worth trying out? I liked Mega Turrican, and played a lot of Fantastic Dizzy from the Fantastic Dizzy and Cosmic Spacehead Double Pack back in 94-95 on a friends's Mega Drive.

[louisg]

Didn't want to make a new topic, so i'll ask here: What Amiga games had ports on the Mega Drive or other consoles besides Turrican 3, that are worth trying out? I liked Mega Turrican, and played a lot of Fantastic Dizzy from the Fantastic Dizzy and Cosmic Spacehead Double Pack back in 94-95 on a friends's Mega Drive.

From memory, the ones I've enjoyed are: Chaos Engine (highly recommended BTW!), Speedball 2, Lotus 2 and 3 (as 1 and 2 on Genesis), Fatal Rewind (The Killing Game Show), Lemmings, and then there's stuff that looks good but I haven't tried like the port of Pirates, Populous, and stuff like that.

Mega Turrican is actually a Genesis original! It was ported to Amiga later IIRC.

[soprano1]

Didn't want to make a new topic, so i'll ask here: What Amiga games had ports on the Mega Drive or other consoles besides Turrican 3, that are worth trying out? I liked Mega Turrican, and played a lot of Fantastic Dizzy from the Fantastic Dizzy and Cosmic Spacehead Double Pack back in 94-95 on a friends's Mega Drive.

From memory, the ones I've enjoyed are: Chaos Engine (highly recommended BTW!), Speedball 2, Lotus 2 and 3 (as 1 and 2 on Genesis), Fatal Rewind (The Killing Game Show), Lemmings, and then there's stuff that looks good but I haven't tried like the port of Pirates, Populous, and stuff like that.

Mega Turrican is actually a Genesis original! It was ported to Amiga later IIRC.

Thanks for the info, didn't know about the Mega Turrican bit. The first level music is really awesome, it sounds so 90's Europe gaming scene...

[louisg]

Didn't want to make a new topic, so i'll ask here: What Amiga games had ports on the Mega Drive or other consoles besides Turrican 3, that are worth trying out? I liked Mega Turrican, and played a lot of Fantastic Dizzy from the Fantastic Dizzy and Cosmic Spacehead Double Pack back in 94-95 on a friends's Mega Drive.

From memory, the ones I've enjoyed are: Chaos Engine (highly recommended BTW!), Speedball 2, Lotus 2 and 3 (as 1 and 2 on Genesis), Fatal Rewind (The Killing Game Show), Lemmings, and then there's stuff that looks good but I haven't tried like the port of Pirates, Populous, and stuff like that.

Mega Turrican is actually a Genesis original! It was ported to Amiga later IIRC.

Thanks for the info, didn't know about the Mega Turrican bit. The first level music is really awesome, it sounds so 90's Europe gaming scene...

Yeah, the music's all done by Chris Huelsbeck. He's great at that kind of stuff.

I also forgot about Risky Wood, Skeleton Krew, and Wolfchild. The gameplay is pretty mediocre in all three cases, but they have nice art. Especially the art in Risky Woods. I think it's made by the same people who did Biomechanical Toy

[Pretas]

Obligatory mention of Ruff 'n Tumble for being one of the Amiga's best lesser-known action games. It has the same problems that plague many Western action-platformers of the era, but compensates with its very fluid control and speed.

[louisg]

How about Zool? I know it was a big deal at the time, and I could never see why. Is it any good if I dig deeper, or should I not bother?

[BrianC]

From memory, the ones I've enjoyed are: Chaos Engine (highly recommended BTW!), Speedball 2, Lotus 2 and 3 (as 1 and 2 on Genesis), Fatal Rewind (The Killing Game Show), Lemmings, and then there's stuff that looks good but I haven't tried like the port of Pirates, Populous, and stuff like that.

One warning about Speedball 2. The JP/EU versions seem to be a bit more polished and have the option for music during gameplay.

[Shatterhand]

Gods is average IMO. But there's one thing a lot of people don't know about Gods: its copy-protection made the game stupidly hard when the game was a copy, and most pirates/crackers of that time didn't catch this up. So nearly everyone playing a pirated version of Gods was actually playing a brutally, unfairly hard version of the game

Ruff 'n' Tumble is frigging brilliant, an awesome game and it's only problem IMO is that its just too damn long, it takes hours and hours to finish it on one sitting.

Zool was overhyped back at the time, and it's a mediocre platform game. Its sequel its a lot better, but it's not spectacular. Still worthy trying it out though.

One platform game on Amiga that I find to be brilliant and rarely ever gets any love is Arabian Nights. I deeply love that game.

[Herr Schatten]

How about Zool? I know it was a big deal at the time, and I could never see why. Is it any good if I dig deeper, or should I not bother?

You should not bother. There really isn't more to it than meets the eye, which in itself is ...not a lot.

[louisg]

We need more discussion of Hired Guns

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLoYnUc5Wt4

[Shatterhand]

Hired Guns is the only game of this kind I actually enjoyed. It was also hard as hell.

[Pretas]

Hired Guns is similar to Death Mask, also on the Amiga. While a rather poor game, it's a cool novelty to play an FPS with Wizardry-style movement and presentation.

[Turrican]

Fans of Amiga, ST, Dan Malone, Mark Coleman pixelart should jump on this:

http://kck.st/1NMzRjw

[Obiwanshinobi]

Hardly anyone seems to ever mention Elf. I have some fond memories of the MS-DOS version, but it's not saying much.
Come to think of it, along with some CPS-1 games (The King of Dragons and those two of Wonder 3/Three Wonders), it looked just like what I wanted, easthetically, from computer games at some point. Whether the gameplay holds up is a whole different story.