Favourite Amiga shmup?

bcass · Post by **bcass** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 2:53 am

The fact is, hardware alone never made a game. That is the grand point of the latter posts in this thread. You can sing the praise of the Amiga as much as you want, but that platform never saw Oids. In fact, it would never have seen many of it's greatest games if it wasn't for an inferior platform. That platform never saw some of the greatest undiscovered gems of that era, in fact. There will be people reading this thread who never even heard of the greatest home computer ever - the Acorn Archimedes.

Post by **Shatterhand** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 12:17 pm

This is pathetic, the MSX2+ was the best 8 bits machine EVER.

And AFAIK the C64 is the home-computer with the biggest amount of units sold ever. [/code]

D · Post by D » Mon Oct 22, 2007 12:22 pm

Some guy somewhere was using 8 ps3's to get lots of processing power.
I'm sure you read about it.

MJR · Post by **MJR** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 12:26 pm

I have a vision of a shmupmeet, where 30-somethings start a drunken fight about which 8-bit/16-bit computer was the best, while all the younger 20-somethings nearby wonder what the hell are these old men shouting about

Emperor Fossil · Post by **Emperor Fossil** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 12:48 pm

I'll be sure to bring my sturdiest cane.

And my absorbent underliners.

Post by **Shatterhand** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 1:16 pm

The most weird thing about this is that I am just 24 years old

MJR · Post by **MJR** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 1:17 pm

You can join the fight when you turn 30

mcgeezer · Post by **mcgeezer** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 4:24 pm

MJR wrote:I have a vision of a shmupmeet, where 30-somethings start a drunken fight about which 8-bit/16-bit computer was the best, while all the younger 20-somethings nearby wonder what the hell are these old men shouting about

This sounds like a good idea, I'm 32 so I can join in.

Fenrir · Post by **Fenrir** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 4:46 pm

I have a vision of this being totally awesome

I haven't been bitching about spectrum/C=64 and Amiga/St since like what, 12 years? Yeah probably the last fight has been in late 1995. Although I can't really see why somebody could say that the ST is better than the Amiga... but whatever

ps. 31 y/o here (of course)

yojo! · Post by **yojo!** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 12:42 am

Yep. Amiga > Atari ShiT

bcass · Post by **bcass** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 1:31 am

yojo! wrote:Yep. Amiga > Atari ShiT

Oh my, those are quality debating skills right there.

Turrican wrote:@bcass: ok, I take it back the PS2 comparison. C64 wasn't probably as dominant as PS2 is / was until recently. But it still had the biggest slice of the pie, don't you agree? (and hey, I noticed how you took the USA into our completely EU-centered discussion, that's unfair )

TBH, it only sold about 150,000 units in the US anyway... Estimates for the UK alone are close to 10 million. Commodores official worldwide sales figures for the C64 are 17 million. Add all those other countries with high Spectrum sales to the UK sales and it's easy enough to see that it's probably closer than you'd initially realise (even if you exclude all the USSR clones).

MJR · Post by **MJR** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 4:08 am

And I'm 33.. and the rules for the fight are.. everyone against everyone! \o/

Turrican · Post by **Turrican** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 7:07 am

bcass wrote:The fact is, hardware alone never made a game. That is the grand point of the latter posts in this thread. You can sing the praise of the Amiga as much as you want, but that platform never saw Oids. In fact, it would never have seen many of it's greatest games if it wasn't for an inferior platform. That platform never saw some of the greatest undiscovered gems of that era, in fact. There will be people reading this thread who never even heard of the greatest home computer ever - the Acorn Archimedes.

I don't really get this post bcass. I mean, what you say here for the Amiga can be said for a lot of awesome retrohardware.

"You can sing the praise of the SNES as much as you want, but that platform never saw River City Ransom. In fact, it would never have seen many of it's greatest games if it wasn't for an inferior platform (the NES)."

I am aware of the Acorn Archimedes, and yeah, I'm pretty amazed by Zarch/Virus... But really, how many people were able to enjoy it on its native hardware?

I think that as long as we remain into the european 16bit scene, the Amiga is pretty much the fundamental choice. Sure, the european 8bit scene had more creativity and often better gameplay... Therefore I'm glad that many old classics such as Qwak were given a second chance on the Ami.

And there's another element to take into account - for all the gameplay slump the amiga witnessed, with poor games overhyped because of their looks, the amiga still represents the peak of the european gaming when it comes to music and design. Shatterhand will probably kill me for saying this, but the world is full of perfectly-playable games such as Apidya, while something (undeniably poor in gameplay) like Agony still stands the test of time when it comes to atmosphere. And let's not mention the music - if Turrican, Apidya and such are still played at every game concert session out there, you realize that even in retrospective, the Amiga age wasn't really a waste.

PooshhMao · Post by **PooshhMao** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 12:08 pm

Exactly why is Xenon II considered crap by most people here?
And Poject X good?...

MJR · Post by **MJR** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 12:16 pm

Xenon II has actually first class production values; especially for an amiga game from the 80's.. the design and quality of pixel art is second to none when compared with other amiga/St shmups.. hell with almost ANY 16-bit shmup (I've pushed few pixels myself so I think I know what I'm talking about), enviroments are exciting and varied in art and design, they even affect the gameplay, enemies and monsters brilliant and suprising (if you play for the first time).. I think it has only 2 problems; almost zero replay value, and v e r y bad framerate.

I don't know if anyone here has ever considered project X a good game.

I still boot Xenon 2 sometimes, when I want to marvel at some of the bosses

Ceph · Post by **Ceph** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 12:17 pm

PooshhMao wrote:Exactly why is Xenon II considered crap by most people here?
And Poject X good?...

No-one in their right mind thinks Project X is good. As for Xenon II (which certainly looks and sounds great): While I wouldn't say it's as bad as Project X, its just not very good. Someone who hasn't played any Japanese vertical shooters might enjoy it (I suppose that's why people liked it back in the day; they simply didn't have a lot to compare it to). Still, even back then there were better vertical Amiga shooters, like Wings of Death.

BrianC · Post by **BrianC** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 12:19 pm

PooshhMao wrote:Exactly why is Xenon II considered crap by most people here?
And Poject X good?...

IIRC, Xenon II has a big hitbox and is designed so you have to take a couple hits. Most people here don't find Project X good. My post on it may have been misleading. The game has a rep for being impossible, but there's a video on YouTube with a cheatless 1LC. I showed this off, but I didn't really give my impressions of what I saw in the video. I felt the game itself looked pretty bad. The game looked a bit too random and the patterns didn't look interesting.

MJR · Post by **MJR** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 12:20 pm

Yeah, japanese always tend to beat western developers with playability. But Many european games had that atmosphere thing, which I've began to appreciate little bit more during the years

MJR · Post by **MJR** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 12:21 pm

BrianC wrote:
PooshhMao wrote:Exactly why is Xenon II considered crap by most people here?
And Poject X good?...
IIRC, Xenon II has a big hitbox and is designed so you have to take a couple hits. Most people here don't find Project X good. My post on it may have been misleading. The game has a rep for being impossible, but there's a video on YouTube with a cheatless 1LC. I showed this off, but I didn't really give my impressions of what I saw and the video. The game looked a bit too random and the patterns didn't look interesting.

I actually 1:cc'd project X..

bcass · Post by **bcass** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 12:24 pm

Turrican wrote:I don't really get this post bcass. I mean, what you say here for the Amiga can be said for a lot of awesome retrohardware.

I think the point of my post was summed-up in the first sentence: 'hardware alone never made a game'.

Post by **Shatterhand** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 12:29 pm

Turrican wrote:And there's another element to take into account - for all the gameplay slump the amiga witnessed, with poor games overhyped because of their looks, the amiga still represents the peak of the european gaming when it comes to music and design. Shatterhand will probably kill me for saying this, but the world is full of perfectly-playable games such as Apidya, while something (undeniably poor in gameplay) like Agony still stands the test of time when it comes to atmosphere. And let's not mention the music - if Turrican, Apidya and such are still played at every game concert session out there, you realize that even in retrospective, the Amiga age wasn't really a waste.

I'm coming to your house with my shotgun.

I actually agree with you, Agony doesn't have the best gameplay of all, but it still can be enjoyable (Unlike Xenon 2 or Project X, heh

).

I think I can name about a hundred of games that were originally developed for Amiga that are very good games. A waste? Only an uninformed people would say that. I still think that the Amiga was one of the greatest gaming-machines ever.

Actually, I'll do that. Let me have some free time here at work and I'll give you a list with 100 games made originally for Amiga that are very good.

Gorecki · Post by **Gorecki** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 12:36 pm

Disposable Hero is a good example of an Amiga shmup with amazing graphics, sound and atmosphere, but rather suspect gameplay (I haven't played it in about 10 years or more but I seem to remember the game being bloody ridiculously impossible).

Post by **Shatterhand** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 1:10 pm

Not impossible, but very hard. Not that I have finished it, but I know people who claims to have did it, and I never felt the game to be impossible.

And yeah, I haven't played it for a long time, so maybe my impressions are mixed with nostalgia, but I remember it being pretty good... I remember actually enjoying it while finding Project X bland...

Emperor Fossil · Post by **Emperor Fossil** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 1:58 pm

Yeah, D-Hero was good. I'm reasonably sure I finished it, back in the day.

The worst part of it was one particular point on level 3 (at least I think it was 3), where you get shut in this ventilation shaft with this crazy winged monster. The wind from the spinning fan pushes your ship up in the monster, and you can easily burn through most or all of your lives on that one point.

Also the weapon upgrades system interrupted the flow a bit, but it generally played well and looked great.

Turrican · Post by **Turrican** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 6:53 pm

Shatterhand wrote:Actually, I'll do that. Let me have some free time here at work and I'll give you a list with 100 games made originally for Amiga that are very good.

Oh, mind you, I know that Amiga is sweet

I guess I was thinking to that racist thread about "euroshmups" when I wrote before.

@bcass: we're on the same wavelength

Post by **Shatterhand** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 6:59 pm

That wasn't pointed at you, but at whoever may believe the best Amiga games are ST ports, or the Amiga don't have enough good games.

I find amazing, at EVERY Amiga vs Atari ST discussion, some ST lover has to bring Oids.

You guys didn't had ANYTHING ELSE BUT OIDS goddamn?!!??! Owning an Amiga, I never missed Oids. You can keep Oids with yourself, I'll go play Uridium 2, kthx gbye.

bcass · Post by **bcass** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 7:24 pm

Shatterhand wrote:That wasn't pointed at you, but at whoever may believe the best Amiga games are ST ports, or the Amiga don't have enough good games.

I find amazing, at EVERY Amiga vs Atari ST discussion, some ST lover has to bring Oids.

I hope that wasn't aimed at me because I never even owned an ST. I owned an Amiga, and a large portion of the games I played on it were ST ports. Uridium 2 is ace though. Better than anything the Japanese have ever come up with IMO.

MJR · Post by **MJR** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 8:29 pm

I owned an amiga, I didn't like uridium 2, and I miss the Oids.

Sorry. I just had to stir it up

Post by **Shatterhand** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 9:06 pm

The "oids" part was just a joke, to keep the "Amiga vs Atari ST" fight, because it's fun

I should had added an smile there, but I forgot

I sometimes think that the Atari ST ports thing is more akin to people who departed from the system too early. I see many people dropped the Amiga before 1990. Mine was my main computer up until 98, so I saw the amazing games that were released in 93 and 94. The "list of 100 good games that arent ST ports" was aimed to anyone who believes the good games on Amiga were most ST ports, something I disagree... but after making the list, I noticed most games are from after 91.

Anyone here was FOOL ENOUGO to actually have owned an Atari ST but not an Amiga?

Turrican · Post by **Turrican** » Tue Oct 23, 2007 9:20 pm

you know guys, i have the distinct feeling that we could go on forever.

I liked Uridium 2 as an update, but I think it's exactly one of those cases bcass was talking about: a fine game whose 97% of goodness comes straight from its 8bit predecessor.

Shatterhand, feel free to post a 100 list but to me it could begin and end with one title, Lemmings. What else is needed?

shmups.system11.org

Favourite Amiga shmup?

What's your favourite Amiga shmup?