A primer guide to Amiga gaming

http://i.imgur.com/HdmBP.png

I've spent about a year now exploring the Amiga Format and I've had a blast. I notice that on this forum (and several like it) the Amiga is still treated by some with a degree of mysticism that is kinda baffling. Today, getting into Amiga gaming is easier than it's ever been, and I'm of the opinion that it's a style of retro gaming that is worth looking into. It's no secret on this site that I adore retro gaming - I wouldn't hesitate to call the 16-bit generation my favorite in all of gaming. The conventions, styles, and general methods of gameplay from that period of time remain fun to me to this very day. That isn't to say I reject modern gaming, but rather, if I have the choice, I will go back to that period 9 times out of 10. As someone who grew up with the Sega Genesis and SNES, I've found that there are entire catalogs of games of similar style and complexity out there for the other, more obscure formats. This is basically the sister thread to my What's a Turbo Grafx 16 thread, intended as a primer to getting into Amiga gaming and fleshing out the mystique surrounding it.

What is Amiga?
The history of Amiga is long, complex, and fascinating but, being that this is a primer thread, I'll skip to the heart of the discussion. Amiga is a series of computers brought out by Commodore in 1985 (the same year the NES was released in North America). This description, however, sort of sells the format (the correct term when describing the Amiga as a whole, instead of "console") short. When people say computer, most people will think of something akin to DOS or Windows, but Amiga isn't really like that. It's more like a video game console than anything else, which goes back to its conceptual roots, where it was originally envisioned as a video game console that could be expanded into a personal computer. As such, it shares more features in common with console gaming than most other computers. In parts of the world, namely the UK and eastern Europe, Amiga was the most popular and primary gaming format by a wide margin from about 1986 until around 1993, completely dominating the NES, SMS, Genesis, and SNES.

Global Popularity (or lack there-of)
That last line might have caught you off guard. Amiga bigger than the NES, Genesis, and SNES? If that's the case, why is it virtually unheard of in the US and Japan? Well, for a multitude of reasons, the Amiga simply did not catch on in those regions (at least, not to the extent it caught on in Europe). The circumstances surrounding this are explained in detail in that Amiga History link I posted above, but the long short of it goes all the way back to the Video game Crash of 1983. While it's mostly assumed that the crash was global (and to an extent it was) the reaction to said crash were not universal. Where as, in the US, we pretty much abandoned gaming until the industry was revived in 1985 by Nintendo, in Europe, the crash signified a switch from dedicated gaming consoles towards gaming computers. Rather than buying machines completely dedicated to gaming, from the early 80's until the mid 90's, Europeans bought into machines which looked like a computer, but behaved like a game console. It's during this period that the greatest European gaming computers took over the market, from the ZX Spectrum 48k, to the Atari ST (Atari remained a huge gaming force in Europe well into the 90's, unlike the US). The best, and most supported of these gaming machines was undoubtedly the Amiga, which was low cost compared to the IBM PC or Macintosh, but boasted graphics and sound on par with a Sega Genesis.

Features of the Amiga Format
The Amiga format is defined by two characteristics - its CPU and its GPU. At the heart of the Amiga format the motorola m68k processor, a 16-bit (and later, 32-bit) CPU operating at roughtly 24 mhz (usually). Those with an eye for retro-gaming will likely know this processor as the same processor that powered the Sega Genesis, Neo Geo AES and MVS, and numerous other game machines (like the Sharp x68k, Capcom CPS2, Tandy FM Towns, etc). The M68k inside the amiga is much faster than those typically found in consoles, however (the Genesis, for example, operates at 7 mhz, while the Sega CD's m68k operates at 14 mhz). The most defining component of the Amiga, however, is it's GPU. Upon release, the Amiga was undoubtedly the most advanced home electronics equipment ever released, and it remained that way until about 1990 (when the SNES was released). It's imperative that one remembers the time frame when the Amiga was released. In 1985, computer gaming largely was black and white. Console gaming still looked more like the Commodore 64 than anything else. Comparable computers offered CGA (read, 4 colors - cyan, magenta, yellow, green, and white (and black)) colors. The average computer looked like this:

http://i.imgur.com/Dyk16.jpg

The average console game looked like this:

http://i.imgur.com/W28Uc.png

The amiga, by contrast, looked like THIS:

http://i.imgur.com/vsF4N.gif

This image of King Tut is one of the most enduring images of the Amiga. It was very widely shown off as a display of the graphical capabilities of the Amiga at the time, and this, along with a strong endorsement by Andy Warhol, established the Amiga as the first multimedia computer. Before apple became associated with video editing and photoshop, Amiga was there doing the exact same thing with it's incredible video toaster hardware and Deluxe Paint (probably EA's greatest piece of software ever). If you were in television or film, you used an Amiga at the time to do video editing. If you worked in print, you used an Amiga with deluxe paint to do your work. If you made games, for the NES, SMS, Sega Genesis, SNES, etc - you used an Amiga with deluxe paint to create your sprites and backgrounds. In short, the Amiga was the format of choice when it came to anything video or audio.

Speaking of that audio component, the Amiga boasted the most impressive audio hardware hardware of any machine for quite a while. It was only when the Sound blaster 32 eventually released that it found an equal. Amiga games use a format called .mod, short for modulation, which provided a number of channels to play music created using samples. It's perhaps most comparable to midi, although it has certain restrictions which gave it its own unique flavor. Like just about every great gaming machine, the music for the Amiga has a very unique sound which is instantly recognizable to anyone familiar with the hardware. The best way to demonstrate the awesome capabilities of the Amiga is to compare music written for the Amiga to its contemporaries:

This is stage 1-1 (wilderness) from Golden Axe on the System 16 arcade board:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdCA1l9S6oM

This is the Sega Genesis version:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oplzMrgPA4I

And this is the Amiga version:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjOUAIyfm7E

This is the Rave music from Cool spot on the Sega Genesis:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jLiXUOUv7E

This is the SNES version:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbpDwaTnGGI

And this is the same song from Cool Spot on the Amiga:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4e-XY46od84[/img]

Whether you prefer the Amiga version or not is up to you (I personally much prefer the Amiga versions of both songs above) but what is undeniable is that there is a certain sound inherent to the Amiga versions. Again, keeping a reference to the time this hardware was released will give you a much better appreciation for the sort of power it had.

Games on the Amiga were distributed in two formats - 3.5" Floppy disk:

http://i.imgur.com/kvaV1.jpg

And 650 mb CD-Rom. Disc art for these CDs range from console-quality, like this chuck rock 2 label:

link'd for huge

to well-below shareware and freeware quality labels, like this Guardian label:

link'd for huge

Games for the Amiga don't need to be installed, in fact most cannot be installed. Nor do they have to be manually launched from the OS (called workbench on the Amiga). To boot a game, you simply pop the disk into the Amiga and turn it on. The machine will then boot into the game. Turning the Amiga on without a game inserted will result in a purple screen prompting a game to be inserted, as most Amigas didn't support a hard drive (and thus, workbench itself was distributed on floppys which were booted into just like a game):

http://i.imgur.com/cr4wJ.gif

Additionally, unlike the IBM PC or Macintosh, or virtually any modern PC, the Amiga didn't need a specialized computer monitor. Although most amigas were shipped with a standardized (and incredible) 1080S monitor from commodore, the machines were intended to be used with a standard TV, and most software was written with a normal TV in mind. Almost all Amigas feature a standard RF-out port, or an A/V port. In fact, finding an amiga with a VGA-out port is actually pretty hard to do, as, on most models of Amiga, VGA-out was sold as a separate add-on. Today, this is the ideal Amiga setup:

http://i.imgur.com/6FHgD.jpg

Like most European gaming computers, the Amiga used a standard Atari 9-pin controller port. This is both a blessing and a curse. For the vast majority of the Amiga's life, but any sega or atari controller works with it. As such, most games use only 1 button and up to jump, but you can modify an SMS or Genesis controller to map up to a second button easily. A few games use button 2 on sega controllers, but due to the way the A button is read on a genesis controller (it shares the pin with the B button and is toggled via a high-pin switch), 3 button gaming isn't feasible on an Amiga.

With the introduction of the CD32, however, the Amiga did get a standardized 6-button controller which works with many late-amiga games, and is only compatible with the Amiga (i.e. you can't use it on a genesis). Unfortunately, it's pretty much trash:

http://i.imgur.com/A0y8W.jpg

There exists only 1 third party CD32 controller, but luckily it's goddamn awesome. It goes by two names, either the "honey bee controller" or the "competition pro CD32" (not to be confused with the competition Pro, which was an extremely popular 2-button joystick for the amiga). It is essentially a mashup of all the 16-bit controllers - shape and D pad of the genesis, button layout of the SNES, and turbo switches of the Turbo Grafx 16. I have two of them, and it's probably my favorite controller from that era:

http://i.imgur.com/YNYo2.jpg

Additionally, every Amiga supports a 2-button mouse (usually plugged in to controller port 1) and, obviously, a keyboard.

Models of Amiga

When I got into the Amiga, I was at first completely overwhelmed by the number of models and configurations of Amigas that existed. Amiga 500, Amiga 600, Amiga 1000, Amiga 2000, Amiga 1200, Amiga 3000, Amiga CDTV, Amiga CD32, Amiga 4000, OCS, ECS, AGA, and so forth. To add to the confusion, the Amiga models aren't sequential, and thus it's not enough to simply choose a large number and expect a great Amiga. The Amiga 2000, for example, is in some ways inferior to the Amiga 600, and was released earlier. Some versions might lack a specific port or interface, some have less ram, some have more, some are compatible with a hard drive, some are not, etc.

In reality, there are only 2 models of Amiga you need to worry about - the Amiga 500 and the Amiga 1200, and each of these comes in two main flavors (computer or console). Though it's all, at the heart, essentially the same hardware with minor tweaks and upgrades, pretty much all Amiga gaming can be broken down into these two types.

For the sake of simplicity, I'll say that the Amiga 500 is comparable to a stock sega genesis in that the vast majority of games released for the format are Amiga 500 games. The Amiga 1200 can be compared to the 32X, in that it saw a speed increase in the CPU, and the graphics chip (called AGA) was improved (although not as drastically as compared to the Genesis->32X transition). More importantly, the Amiga 1200 is mostly backwards compatable with the Amiga 500 library, outside of a handful of games.

http://i.imgur.com/S0fUl.jpg

The Amiga 500

http://i.imgur.com/9yVk9.jpg

The Amiga 1200

Now as I mentioned, these two models themselves can largely be bought in 2 different configurations - one shaped like a computer, and one shaped like a console. The Amiga 500 and 1200 refers to the computer shaped models, while their consolized counterparts are the CDTV and CD32 respectively. The CDTV is an Amiga 500, sans floppy drive, that is massive and shaped like an old-school VCR. The CD32 is an Amiga 1200 that is tiny, looks like a Sega Genesis, and also lacks a floppy drive.

http://i.imgur.com/Fic1f.jpg
Amiga CDTV

http://i.imgur.com/SjmKQ.jpg
Amiga CD32

Now your first inclination might be to assume the consolized versions are superior. In a lot of ways, they're easier to get into - they're familiar, easy to set up, and aesthetically pleasing. However the lack of a floppy drive really hurts - the vast majority of Amiga games are floppy only. And while you can add a floppy drive to both, doing so is expensive - more so than picking up an additional Amiga 1200 or Amiga 500 to go along with your CDTV or CD32 would be.

As I mentioned, the Amiga 1200 can play most Amiga 500 games (the number of games which cannot be played on an Amiga 1200 today is insignificantly tiny) making it overall the best selection if you're getting into Amiga. The Amiga 1200 was faster (featuring an 68030 32-bit CPU over a stock 68000 16-bit CPU), more ram standard (2 mb over the 512kb in the 500), and had an improved GPU (which allowed for AGA (advanced graphics accelerator) games instead of the standard OCS (original chip set) graphics of the Amiga 500 or the ECS (Enhanced Chip Set) of the Amiga 600). There do exist a tiny number of CD32 exclusive games (as in, games only released on Amiga in the CD32 format), most noticeably Flink (which also saw a Sega CD port).

Disadvantages of Amiga gaming
While, over all, I enjoy the experience the Amiga gives me, I cannot simply ignore some big downfalls associated with Amiga gaming. While, overall, I'd compare the experience of playing an Amiga to that of playing a Super NES or Sega Genesis, in many ways it is noticeably inferior.

Getting into Amiga gaming involves getting around a lot of barriers. I dont think most are willing to do the research or put in the money needed to make playing on an actual Amiga worthwhile. you really do need the competion pro controllers, and the good games go for anywhere between $40-$70 after shipping from the UK. When you do wind up with a sweet, full setup, its actually a decent console-like experience. but I suspect many people who impulse buy will be turned off by the prices involved. cheap games tend to be shitty games, like oscar or dangerous streets.

And thats not even getting into specific quirks about amiga gaming in general. Suffice to say you need to temper your expectations. If you go in expecting, for example, full screen gaming, you're going to be disappointed. the vast majority of games run in small windows that are maybe 70% of the total screen, normally in the upper right corner of the screen.

http://i.imgur.com/GIJaI.gif

A screenshot of Shinobi that shows off the black boarder surrounding the screen. And dont expect to use every button on that gamepad - you'll be lucky to get 2 buttons at the most. And this leads me to the concept of up for jumping. See, most Amiga games used only 1 button (since most simply used Atari 2600 or similar joysticks) so that button was used for firing most often. In truth, most game from that era didn't need more than 2 buttons, especially platformers which mapped jump to a button. Thus, to get around this limitation, most developers would map the up direction on the joystick to jump. In Great Giana sister, for example, jump jumps while the button is used to throw fireballs. For this reason, it is very wise to track down an Amiga Gravis gamepad, which has up mapped to a button, especially if you've cut your teeth on mainstream consoles. The good games on the cd32 that weren't quick and dirty ports will normally run closer to full screen, and will spare you the "joy" of pressing up to jump, but those sorts of games are rarer.

I hope you dont demand music in every game. or sound effects. or both. some games will give you the choice of one or the other, but not many will let you have both.

If you go in with an open mind and can get passed these flaws, Amiga gaming isn't terrible. But dont let that 32-bit claim fool you, you're getting something much closer to the sega genesis than a sega saturn (and in 9 out of 10 cases, if a game is released on both the genesis and Amiga, the genesis version is better). that said, the few games which are really worth playing exhibit none of these flaws, but as I noted, you will have to pay a bit for those games.

The biggest flaw, however, revolves around actually obtaining and using the hardware.

Importing an Amiga
As I mentioned earlier, the Amiga was a massive hit in Europe, but it didn't make a huge splash in the US or japan. In fact, the CD32 was never even officially released in the US, seeing only an extremely limited release in japan (as in, less than 100 units). Because it's a much more European-centric format, the overwhelming majority of its software is written for the PAL standard, not NTSC. For this reason alone, getting an NTSC Amiga is not recommended, as in most cases you're going to be missing out on 90% of the format's best titles. But, as anyone who has ever looked into the subject is well aware, getting something meant for PAL to display correctly on an NTSC screen is an extreme exercise in frustration.

Luckily for you, the reader of this thread, I spent over half a grand trying out various hardware solutions so that you don't have to. If you do chose to import hardware, don't skimp on the video converter - cheap solutions simply won't work. I first tried a cheap Pal->NTSC converter and it never powered on. I tried other video converters of varying quality, and most got hung up around the need for a non-interlaced signal. After trying almost a dozen converters, I found one that works perfectly with both the Amiga 500, and Amiga 1200 (along with the Amiga CD32):

http://i.imgur.com/R2KJh.jpg

The Atlona CDM-660 typically goes for about $150 online, although you can find it for cheaper if you really look around. It'll convert both an S-video and composite video signal both ways (either PAL->NTSC, or NTSC->PAL). In truth, this is an awesome piece of hardware that, if you're really into retro gaming, has uses beyond just the Amiga. The only major downside is that it doesn't support RF-input, requiring an RF->Composite converter if you're looking to get into, say, Amstrad CPC gaming. But for it's cost, it's very useful. Compared to other converters, the video quality is excellent, without a hint of ghosting or blur that typifies these sort of converters (in fact, when outputting through S-video, the picture quality is almost too crisp).

This isn't all you're going to need, however. European outlets output at 220v, while our American outlets output at 110v. You're going to need a power inverter to get this machine turned on. Unfortunately, places like fry's tend to only stock plug converters, which simply change the size and shape of the plug. Do NOT use these - they're cheap and will MELT within hours. They're extremely dangerous and you're better off just lighting your $20 on fire, as its safer. I use this instead:

http://i.imgur.com/IjHKN.jpg

These are a bit pricey - I paid $60 for mine (well,$120 actually, since I have two) but they're high quality and most importantly they are SAFE. You can safely keep this baby plugged in 24/7 without worry. Make sure you get something rated for at least 300 w - I went with 500 w actually just to be certain.

With both that video converter and the power inverter, you can safely connect your European Amiga to an American TV and outlet and enjoy the full range of what the Amiga offers. Best of all you can connect two Amigas to that video converter at the same time - my CD32 connects via S-video and my Amiga 1200 connects via composite, with a switch on the back to change video. I daisy chain the inverters and thus my entire setup looks like this:

http://i.imgur.com/WXLky.png

Games can be easily imported via Ebay, although you can expect to pay between $40 to $70 for complete games (box, manual, disks) after shipping. Some games will require the manual as a form of copy protection, although there exists projects online to provide digital copies of Amiga manuals for the purpose of defeating this copy protection (thus enabling second-hand sales).

I realize however that this is way, way more than I could ever hope most people would go through to experience Amiga gaming, which leads me to the subject of emulation.

Emulation - Legal, modern day Amiga experience

For me, there is nothing better than experiencing the real deal on real hardware. For most, however, the best option is to play Amiga on their modern PC. Unlike grey-area emulation of console games, Amiga emulation is 100% legal, and is, for most, the preferred way to experience the Amiga today. Following Commodore's closing, ownership of "Amiga" changed hands many times until, today, it resides with the people who put out Amiga Forever. Amiga Forever is an incredible package - $30 gets you legal copies of every Amiga kickstart rom, along with a legal copy of Amiga Workbench 3.1, and a registered copy of Win-UAE, the actual emulator. This is everything you will need to run Amiga games (and programs) on a modern PC. With this setup, you can either A) Run real Amiga CD32/CDTV games on your PC via your CD-Rom drive, or B) Play freeware/public domain games. Tons of developers have released their entire amiga libraries online for free, including Delphie software (Another World, Flashback) and Team-17 (Super Stardust, numerous others).

I have a decent Amiga library today - 53 games across both CD and Floppy. Which leads me to the meat of this topic (and likely why people are still reading this):

during the 1982-1985 period the most popular gaming format in the UK was the Spectrum, after that the market fractured into like 5 different directions with no clear winner (8-bit machines were still ahead of 16-bit though), forcing the UK software companies to spread themselves really thin and attempt to put ports of every game on all formats to keep themselves going (meaning very few optimal ports)

Amiga 500, and Atari ST only started to gain steam around 1987, with the ST being the clear 16-bit winner early on due to affordable price and good software support.

When the consoles arrived in 1987 the market was already very crowded, but Sega's brand name was well respected from the arcade's so the Master System managed to carve a niche, and the NES was given huge marketing budgets, and Super Mario Bros was well respected, giving it respectable sales (much lower than SMS), later on it gained loads of free tv advertising for children in the form of its cartoon series', which allowed it to also carve a niche in the market.

So during the late 80s it was still fairly equal between all the machines on yearly sales (albeit Spectrum had the largest install base due to its pre 1985 sales).

In 88 the price of RAM changed and the ST's price actually went up, whilst the Amiga price was actually cut, leading to the two system's being priced the same for the first time, this was the first blow Amiga struck against Atari ST, and Amiga started to become more popular, in Christmas of 1989 the Batman Pack bundle was released for Amiga (from the popular of the time Tim Burton Movie), which came with the game Batman, and the Newzealand Story, this bundle was hugely popular and pushed the system into the area of large mainstream popularity in Britain.

So Amiga's peak years in the UK were probably around 1989-1992

In Britain the Mega Drive superceded the Amiga during 1992, it definitely outsold it by a decent margin (and was often blamed for heralding the end of Amiga), the other consoles you mentioned (NES, SMS, SNES) probably did sell less than Amiga though.

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Where it comes to Amiga games, its more a problem of wading through tons and tons of software to find the cream of the crop than anything else, Amiga has so many games that this takes some work, and unfortunately its gaming scene is quite built on nostalgia, so unlike most machines don't expect game recommendations from people to actually be helpful, the average Amiga fan will often recommend you really, really bad games such as Xenon II, and Project X.

If you spend the time with the system, and learn the library, you can surround yourself with games which are polished, have nice graphics, and have both sound and music simultaneously, its just a question of finding them.

A bigger problem for noobies would be difficulty, as Europeans of that time tended to have a higher difficulty threshold than Americans or the Japanese so Amiga games tend to be quite difficult.

Amazing thread. :) It's such an underrated format outside of Europe. It's too bad so many people are afraid to check it out on emulator for some reason.

Quote:

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but the long short of it goes all the way back to the Video game Crash of 1983. While it's mostly assumed that the crash was global (and to an extent it was) the reaction to said crash were not universal. Where as, in the US, we pretty much abandoned gaming until the industry was revived in 1985 by Nintendo

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I disagree with this. The C64 wasn't as mainstream as the 2600 but it was still successful in NA and was primarily bought as a game system.

Quote:

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Importing an Amiga
As I mentioned earlier, the Amiga was a massive hit in Europe, but it didn't make a huge splash in the US or japan. In fact, the CD32 was never even officially released in the US, seeing only an extremely limited release in japan (as in, less than 100 units). Because it's a much more European-centric format, the overwhelming majority of its software is written for the PAL standard, not NTSC. For this reason alone, getting an NTSC Amiga is not recommended, as in most cases you're going to be missing out on 90% of the format's best titles. But, as anyone who has ever looked into the subject is well aware, getting something meant for PAL to display correctly on an NTSC screen is an extreme exercise in frustration.

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If you have a mouse, there's some trick to get PAL games to work on an NTSC system. I don't know if it works with all games, though.

The CD32 was released in Canada. Normally systems launch in the US at the same time but there was some legal hold up. A local credit union in the Vancouver area (VanCity) loaned out CD32s for online banking so NTSC machines are probably easier to find here than other places on this continent but they're still quite rare.

Not to try and derail TheSonicRetard's thread but if anyone's interested in looking at a list of good games with screens and descriptions, I made this thread a couple years ago: http://www.the-nextlevel.com/tnl/thr...ommodore-Amiga

Kamahl's primer guide to Amiga gaming:

AGA sucks.
WinUAE sucks.
Cracktros suck.
"Read the Manual" copy protection sucks.

Play:
Uridium 2
R-Type 2
Moonstone
Beneath a Steal Sky
Turrican 2/3
Lionheart
Disposable Hero
Virocop
Chaos Engine
Leander
Ruff'n'Tumble
Dune 2
Cannon Fodder
Mr Nutz
Secret of Monkey Island 2
Alien Breed 2
Crazy Cars 3
Speedball 2
Battle Isle
Flashback
Pinball Fantasies
Another World
Lemmings
Settlers
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
Ishar 2
Rodland
Benefactor
Risky Woods
Desert Strike
BC Kid
Apidya
Pang
Shadow of the Beast 3
Agony
Golden Axe
Lotus 2
Fighting Spirit

Only Shadow of the Beast 3, Agony, Risky Woods, Lionheart and Fighting Spirit get anywhere close to "pushing the system", and even then they could be a lot better. Criminally underused hardware. (Fighting Spirit is the biggest "pusher", needing only better color choices, better music and some linescrolling on the floor to reach the peak)

And just to note that if anyone near Vancouver wants an Amiga, I've got more than I know what to do with. I'd let a few go at pretty good prices.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by NeoZeedeater

I disagree with this. The C64 wasn't as mainstream as the 2600 but it was still successful in NA and was primarily bought as a game system.

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We've been through the C64 US sales many times and it seems that the C64 market at its height was like 25% the size of the 2600, and later NES markets at best, so it was probably only teetering on being mainstream, most mainstreamers is the US couldn't have owned one when its sales were so much lower.

Also, its worth noting how much the C64 actually impacted the other computers in the US, you can definitely see it taking sales away from the Atari 8-bits, and the TI-994A computers, its seems as though it consolidated a lot of the computer market, and took only moderate sales away from the consoles.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by NeoZeedeater

Not to try and derail TheSonicRetard's thread but if anyone's interested in looking at a list of good games with screens and descriptions, I made this thread a couple years ago: http://www.the-nextlevel.com/tnl/thr...ommodore-Amiga

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You've done an excellent job with this, its definitely not a list that is too influenced by nostalgia, and represents a lot of the more polished, playable, and least dated titles on the Amiga.

I'm happy you included Quik too, I'm always saying its a very playable platformer but nobody ever gives it much of a chance.

The Amiga library always seemed very lackluster to me, the same as all those gaming computers popular in Europe. Its popular games are all slow boring simulations, strategy, puzzle, etc that don't appeal to me. Europeans had a different taste in games back then. Action games/platformers for the Amiga just seem inferior to what's available on the Genesis and SNES. Most of the arcade ports I've seen look awful. Graphics look bland compared the the Genesis and SNES. Having to use up for jump is bullshit. You should not be forced to mod a controller to play a game correctly. Kamahl hit the nail on the head in his Amiga Sadness thread from a while back.

Amiga's strength is with strategy, puzzle, and adventure games, but there's still a respectable number of polished action games on the system.

What I really like about a lot of the games on Amiga (platformers and action games included), is that they really do give you a nice break from the norm of Japanese style console games, the aethetics are very distinctly different (with even different Euro countries often creating different feeling games), and the gameplay often has a much different feel to it too, its really nice to once in a while pick up an Amiga game like Yo! Joe, and methodically jump around exploring the stages with a friend on 2-player, looking for weapons, and organising an attack on a boss pelting it with Molotov Cocktail's etc, there's really not that many games on consoles which re-create that feeling that I can think of off the top of my head.

Not that Japanese games are completely unrepresented on the system either though, as there are a decent number of very well ported Japanese games such as Pang, Rodland, Bonk's Adventure, Rainbow Islands, Parasol Stars, R-Type II, Bomberman, and Silkworm, as well as some that are still pretty respectable like The Newzealand Story, Bubble Bobble, Golden Axe, Shadow Dancer, Toki, Super Hang-On

Its a shame there wasn't multi-button controllers available though, that really was an issue, not because of the jump aspect (thats just something noobs whine about who were brought up with Japanese consoles), but because so many of the game simply required more than one action (the aforementioned Yo! Joe being one of them)

Either way I've been spending a lot of time with PC-Engine platformers and arcade action games recently, and to be honest most of them have actually started to make me appreaciate games like Super Frog LOL, the scrolling Shmups on the other hand have the opposite effect ;)

Wow, quite a fantastic thread.

I'll never go the Amiga route, but it was very interesting to read nonetheless.

Ah, this finally got posted. Here's the rest of the post:

Games worth playing
There is absolutely no way I could ever hope to cover every Amiga game worth playing - it has a library into the tens of thousands, much larger than even the Genesis and SNES. There are numerous ports from the mainstream consoles of varying quality (in general, if it comes form Japan, it's probably a terrible port), and an unlimited number of public domain (read: homebrew) games. Quality ranges from among the best 16-bit games ever released, to the worst games of all time. One of the biggest problems about getting into Amiga gaming is figuring out what to play - you can easily drown in the library unless you have some direction. Thus, I'm going to limit my discussion to the top 10 games I've found on the format, which are largely exclusive to the format (i.e. no mainstream console port, although they may exist on other European computers, probably the Atari ST). Before I do so, however, I want to express the ways in which the Internet has made getting into retro-consoles so much more fun and easier.

When I get into a new console or computer, I really get into them. I love to read the history, read articles and reviews on software, both written today AND from the time it was alive. I just like taking it all in - it's like a whole other world of gaming to explore. In many ways, this research process is just as fun to me as actually playing the games. Thus, I feel it's important to point out the two most important research tools I used:

Lemon Amiga
Lemon Amiga is the best Amiga website in the world. It is a large database of just about every Amiga game ever released, with a powerful search engine that lets you filter results. Users can offer quick reviews, ratings, or even detailed, multi-page reviews. You can search by developer, by aggregate ratings, by publisher, by format (i.e. Amiga 500, Amiga 1200, CD32, CDTV, etc). You can even search for games which have been ported to other formats, like Sega Master System or Arcade ports. Each game has a variety of links, such as magazine reviews online, fansites, screenshots, boxart shots, advertisements, manual scans. Everything you could ever possibly need. It ties in closely to the next site I'm going to talk about:

The Online Amiga Magazine Rack
I wish there was something like this for US magazines - The Amiga Magazine Rack is an on-going project to convert every amiga magazine from about 1985 to 1998 into a digital, searchable format. There are thousands of full magazines on this site, indexed by page number and content. You can, for example, search for a specific game and it'll return pages from magazines featuring cheats, guides, reviews, interviews, previews, etc for that game. You can also view entire issues online. As I mentioned, Lemon Amiga ties in closely with this site, with every game on that site linking to content on this site, so that when you search for, say, Chuck Rock on Lemon Amiga, you'll get interviews and reviews from a variety of Amiga Magazines hosted on this site. This is a very cool resource, as it gives you a window into the viewpoint of Amiga from the time period when it was alive. I've gone through and read entire catalogs of many magazines - my favorite has to be Amiga Power, which is setup very similar to both GamePro and Nintendo Power. CU Amiga also is a great magazine, and Amiga Format is another I recommend (Amiga Power is a sister magazine to Amiga Format, which concentrates entirely on games while Amiga Format is more about software and Amiga in general. Think the difference between EGM and EGM2).

One last link before I get into the games: 100 Amiga games in 10 minutes is part of a series of videos on youtube and is an excellent look into Amiga gaming. If nothing else, if you've made it this far into this topic and are still curious about Amiga gaming, you should watch that video. It gives you an extremely quick look into what the format has to offer, and it'll only take 10 minutes of your time. The music is, of course, awesome.

Now onto my top 10 games list (in no particular order):

Lionheart
When I first saw this game, I knew it had classic written all over it. The very first Amiga game I ever saw screenshots of, and the game which alone got me into Amiga gaming. It's the very first game I picked up. A true Amiga exclusive, with excellent visuals that doesn't require anything other than a stock Amiga 500. It's a hack and slash platform game, similar to Blackthorne if you're familiar with that. Incredible graphics and music. Remember once again that this is from hardware that, at the time, was competing with the NES.
http://i.imgur.com/0NXJG.png
http://i.imgur.com/B4j7C.png

Shadow Fighters
It's testiment to this game's quality that I'm including it on my top 10 list, because I was sure I'd hate it the first time I saw it. Everything about this game seems stacked against it - it's a 1 button fighting game on a format notorious for terrible fighters with a terrible art style (it seriously looks so ugly). Yet after spending extended amounts of time with it, I can confidently say that it's not only the best fighter on the system, but one of the best fighting games of that entire generation. Despite playing with 1 button, each fighter has 9 normal moves, and between 5-10 special moves on top of that. A balanced, fun fighter that is worth digging up. It comes from Gremlin Games, which I'll get into later on.

http://i.imgur.com/Bugx5.png
http://i.imgur.com/iwlZ2.png
http://i.imgur.com/IS6Hq.png

Lotus Trilogy
This series of games survived the fall of Commodore and eventually wound up on other systems sans the Lotus license (as Top Gear) but the originals on the Amiga remain the best in the series. Incredible music and varied gameplay from each game in the series, it's one of the best remembered series on the format. Lotus 1 is a standard racing game, while Lotus 2 is the best Outrun clone you can find, and Lotus 3 plays like a mix of Lotus 1 and Lotus 2. Like Shadow Fighters, this one also comes from Gremlin games. You'll be noticing these guys name quite a bit. They're still around today, I might add. You might know them, as they're a high profile developer: They changed their name to Sumo Digital a few years ago.
http://i.imgur.com/koBDt.png
http://i.imgur.com/apfYh.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/yChc9.png

Fightin' Spirit
I said Shadow Fighter is the number 1 fighting game on the Amiga, but this one has to be 1b. A single glance at this game will tell you that the developers are gigantic Neo Geo fans, as interviews have confirmed. It looks, sounds, and most importantly FEELS like a neo geo game, specifically fatal fury. It's also one of the most full featured games on the entire format, taking full advantage of the 6-button CD32 controller.
http://i.imgur.com/o9gwl.png
http://i.imgur.com/BhgXm.png
http://i.imgur.com/hDN24.png
http://i.imgur.com/FNFgb.png
http://i.imgur.com/nSjvB.png
http://i.imgur.com/4U98X.png

Zool 2
When I first got my Amiga, Mr_Grinch on this site recommended that I stay away from Zool, because as a Sonic fan I'd hate it. In actuallity, I was familiar with Zool from the Sega Channel days. He was right to steer me clear of it, as Zool 1 is a terrible game, with awful controls, no level design, and poor art direction. Where he screwed up was not recommending me the sequel, which is massively improved in just about every way, to the point where I'd call it one of the best 16-bit platformers around. It's also a game which got better as it went along - the Amiga 1200 port improved upon the Amiga 500 version, and the Amiga CD32 version wound up being a hell of a game with exclusive levels and a kick-ass soundtrack (along with proper controls). There exists a Jaguar port (which I own) but it's a straight 1:1 Amiga 1200 port, complete with up-to-jump. It's made by, you guessed it, Gremlin Games.
http://i.imgur.com/DT1gw.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/EApE3.png
http://i.imgur.com/QENNt.png

And the conclusion of the post:



(Super) Stardust
These two games - Stardust and Super Stardust - are likely the best known Amiga games today, due in large part to their incredible, well-performing PS3 sequels. Brought out by Team-17, one of the best developers on the Amiga, these games play true to their PS3 successors, taking the standard Asteroids concept and injecting it with a serious amount of awesome modernization. These games are actually a bit deeper than the PS3 sequels, featuring currency, a shop, a story (with cutscenes!), and an interesting 3D tunnel minigame. The CD32 version is the best available.
http://i.imgur.com/qRieY.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/TkWtN.png
http://i.imgur.com/iyG4A.jpg

Alien Breed
The best way to describe Alien breed is that it's the overhead missions from Contra 3 expanded into a full game. There are numerous alien breed games on the amiga, and late in the Amiga's life it became the format's premiere FPS, with the last Alien Breed game running on an engine that rivaled that of Quake. However, those games required incredibly beefed up Amigas, and thus most refer to the overhead games. They're incredibly fun in 2-player mode. If you've ever played Loaded on the PSX or Saturn, it's a lot like that.
http://i.imgur.com/dv05c.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/41HYc.gif
http://i.imgur.com/AUHxf.gif

Turrican Trilogy
I said I'd avoid games which were massively ported, but it's impossible to talk about the Amiga and not talk about this series of games. Although C=64 fans also claim this game as their killer app (and with good reason), most will say that the definitive port belongs to the Amiga if they don't claim the C=64. The best way to sum up these games is a mix of Contra and Metroid. They're incredibly well polished, and among the best action games of any platform from that era. Both the C=64 and Amiga ports demolish any other version of the game - the Sega ports are massively inferior, and the TG-16 port is awful. The Atari ST ports are also notably inferior. This is about as close as the Amiga ever came to a mainstream world-wide hit.
http://i.imgur.com/Nw6Bf.png
http://i.imgur.com/EHqZi.gif
http://i.imgur.com/i4vOO.gif

Beneath a Steel Sky
If there is one single game out of this entire topic that you should play above any other, this is it. The Amiga was home to some of the best adventure games of all time, featuring killer ports of the monkey island games. But this game takes the cake. I have this game in both 15-floppy format and CD format. The CD32 version features full voice acting which is actually really good. A tale set in a post-apocalyptic world, it's one of the most refined adventure games I've ever played, bringing the formula down to the the simplest mechanics - all that's needed is a 2 button mouse. The boxed versions of this game come with a comic book detailing the events leading up to the intro of the game that was drawn and written by Alan Moore. This game is actually freeware today, and fully compatible with ScummVM. Even if you find this whole Amiga deal isn't for you, you should still check out this game.
http://i.imgur.com/l8ZUg.png
http://i.imgur.com/iGuMI.png
Link'd for h-scroll

Ruff n' Tumble
Probably the poster-boy for just how far ahead of the competition the Amiga was, this game is fully playable on a stock Amiga 500 with an OCS. Fantastic art direction and one hell of a plaform game to boot. The best way to describe this game would be a slow Gunstar Heroes. This game was made by an all-star team of Amiga developers and it shows.
http://imgur.com/DigVy
http://i.imgur.com/LW04f.png
http://i.imgur.com/EAYsx.png
http://i.imgur.com/RTEgJ.gif
http://i.imgur.com/89T5A.png

Keep in mind, this is only a personal top 10, and I could hash out several more of these lists before I start to get into bad games. It's impossible to compress the entire Amiga library into a single post and do it justice, this is simply intended to get people interested in exploring the library.

What about Demo scene?
This could be an entire topic in and of itself (and Hardcore Gaming 101 has an excellent article on the subject here), but the Amiga format largely popularized the Demo scene (which began on earlier PCs like the C=64). Demo scenes grew out of crackers who wanted to personalize cracked releases of games - they'd brand their releases with increasingly elaborate intros. These crackers, those men who gave birth to an entire art form, still exist today - Razor 1911 for example. But many of these crackers realized they had more fun creating the demos than just cracking the game, and soon shifted their talent towards creating full demos. These are simple programs that set out to stretch the very limits of what is possible on the amiga visually and audibly. There are decades worth of demos out there, and it's impossible to say which are the best, as the technology behind them was often shared (or imitated, or competed against, or all of the above).

The Amiga demoscene exists to this very day, with thousands of demos releasing every year. These really should be seen on real hardware, as youtube videos just aren't nearly as impressive. Many historic graphical tricks were berthed from these demos, from parallax scrolling to h-blank interrupt polling. If you're a graphical geek, this is as good as it gets.

Because I can't possibly mention demoscene without providing at least ONE example, I'll link one of the best known demos of all time: State of the Art

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5kuYfTCGLg

Conclusion
I spend a lot of time at retro-gaming sites, everything from Sega-16 to racketboy to assembler. Across the most hardcore retrogaming sites, knowledge of the Amiga is still iffy - I think the format has a stigma about it which has been hard to shed. The difficulty in getting a working setup has provided a barrier which prevents many from getting into what is an awesome form of gaming. For too long, Europeans have horded one of the best-kept secrets in gaming, and it's time the Amiga stretch its legs. If I've inspired even one person to take a closer look at Amiga, then I've done my job.

I'll close this post with a few pictures from my own personal setup:

http://i.imgur.com/qWhhK.jpg
My power inverter next to my Amiga 1200. The Amiga 1200 has its on-and-off switch on the PSU, which is external, so I have it setup next to the machine itself for easy power on and off.

http://i.imgur.com/w0ykd.jpg
The Atlona CDM-660 PAL->NTSC video converter.

http://i.imgur.com/zo6MX.jpg
My CD32 running Shadow Fighters

Credits
TSR thanks:
MR_Grinch
Hardcore Gaming 101
Lemon Amiga
Arstechnica
TheNewGuy
KoolKitty89
The entire EnglishAmiga board
Paperweight of the Assembler forums

Quote:

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Originally Posted by NeoZeedeater

If you have a mouse, there's some trick to get PAL games to work on an NTSC system. I don't know if it works with all games, though.

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Nope, this is a commonly reported claim, and it's actually the main factor in the creation of this article - the Pal->NTSC software switch doesn't work. All that does is change between 50 and 60 hz. The color information is still PAL, meaning you get a black and white image that is too tall to be seen on the screen. And many (not a few, but rather a lot) of games won't boot up in 60 hz mode.

I've seen tons of people import a CD32 expecting to be able to play the thing using the software switch and get burned. The only ways to get a pal system running are either to hard mod it, buy a PAL tv, or use the converter I listed above.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Thenewguy

I'm happy you included Quik too, I'm always saying its a very playable platformer but nobody ever gives it much of a chance.

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I have quik the thunder rabbit on CD32. Great game. I like to play with the competition pro, with the spin button set to auto, so that every time I jump it acts like a sonic the hedgehog-type attack.

Great game, though. I think I picked it up on your recommendation, in fact.

I like Amiga, it's a great computer, question though.

Can you install a HDD in an Amiga 500, along with Workbench?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gogogadget

I like Amiga, it's a great computer, question though.

Can you install a HDD in an Amiga 500, along with Workbench?

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You can indeed install an HDD in an Amiga 500. No clue on workbench, though. You need a full workbench disk set to install them anyways.

Wow, I spoke too soon! Awesome follow up to an awesome post.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by TheSonicRetard

You can indeed install an HDD in an Amiga 500. No clue on workbench, though. You need a full workbench disk set to install them anyways.

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I actually have a full Workbench disk set haha, 3.1 as well ;p

I think it's also worth noting that Amigas are WEIRD machines and they can be a pain in the butt. Especially as time went by, they seemed to end up increasingly hackish. New hardware had to be made compatible with the existing batty architecture. For example, RAM upgrades. On the motherboard itself you would have sockets for Chip RAM and Fast RAM. These were two totally different things. Chip RAM was shared among a few components, while Fast RAM was more of what we think of these days as RAM. Then you could have slow RAM on a Zorro card, which was like the Fast RAM in that it was general purpose, but as the names suggested, didn't perform as well. And finally you could have RAM on a CPU upgrade card. 4 different types of RAM hanging off the system in 4 different places!

I threw together a quick article about getting an Amiga 3000 up and running from the ashes of several long dead machines. It was a frustrating process at times, but it finally worked.
http://www.jax184.com/projects/a3000/a3000.html

Hmmm, I've been ignoring people's recommendations for Virocop based on a memory of playing it a few years ago and thinking it was mediocre, being that it keeps getting brought up I decided to give it another chance and I think I may have initially misjudged it rashly, somehow I didn't notice the multiple weapon upgrade features, and I never realised you could play the game with two joysticks Smash TV style! thats actually quite a nice feature, shame you seem to have to press the button to fire on controller two though, as that really forces you to use a joystick + trigger button instead of a joypad, but its still quite useable nontheless.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Thenewguy

We've been through the C64 US sales many times and it seems that the C64 market at its height was like 25% the size of the 2600, and later NES markets at best, so it was probably only teetering on being mainstream, most mainstreamers is the US couldn't have owned one when its sales were so much lower.

Also, its worth noting how much the C64 actually impacted the other computers in the US, you can definitely see it taking sales away from the Atari 8-bits, and the TI-994A computers, its seems as though it consolidated a lot of the computer market, and took only moderate sales away from the consoles.

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I was buying C64 software at book stores and Toys R Us. It was about as main stream as any console before it. It did sell almost as many units as the N64 afterall.

I knew alot of people that had C64s. Even my school lab had a couple of those for introduction to basic programming classes.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Thenewguy

You've done an excellent job with this, its definitely not a list that is too influenced by nostalgia, and represents a lot of the more polished, playable, and least dated titles on the Amiga.

I'm happy you included Quik too, I'm always saying its a very playable platformer but nobody ever gives it much of a chance.

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Thanks. One game I didn't list because I hadn't properly played it at the time is Moonstone. I played through it a year or so ago and was amazed at how well it mixed fighting and roleplaying.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by TheSonicRetard

Beneath a Steel Sky
If there is one single game out of this entire topic that you should play above any other, this is it.

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This game is very highly praised among PC and Amiga adventure game fans but for some reason it didn't click with me. I usually give acclaimed games three chances, though. I'll give it its third shot some time this year.

I loved Beneath A Steel Sky, completed it so many times.

I recommend the PC CD-ROM or Amiga CD32 version though, those voices are important.

They may not be the most well- designed games ever, particularly the first one, but I also recommend James Pond 1 and 2 as a way to check out how colorful Amiga games could be compared to what was available on the Genesis.

http://i.imgur.com/jGjWA.png
http://i.imgur.com/AOcsW.png

Plus, I think the Amiga version of Lemmings -- the first one -- was most likely the best one. Lots of other versions didn't have the fancy hi-res HUD made possible by programming trickery. Interestingly enough, the ST version had it, too, but it also had worse music.

http://i.imgur.com/rLtFr.gif

Personally I'd argue that Lemmings is the Amiga game that came closest to being a mainstream hit, though. And deservedly so, I thought it was nothing short of brilliant and deserves to be up there with the most clever concepts for a game ever.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gamevet

I was buying C64 software at book stores and Toys R Us.

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I was buying C64 games in videogame stores, computer stores, newsagents, chemists, book stores, and toy stores

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gamevet

It did sell almost as many units as the N64 afterall.

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I wouldn't count half the number as "almost as many", N64 sold like 20 million in the US, C64 only sold around 20 million worldwide, and half those sales must've been Europe.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Thenewguy

I was buying C64 games in videogame stores, computer stores, newsagents, chemists, book stores, and toy stores

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I was giving a small example. Beyond PC shareware, you weren't seeing any other computer software in those places. The C-64 was entering into retail outlets that usually didn't carry those sort of items.

When I lived in Phoenix, there were 2 dedicate Commodore stores near my apartments.

Quote:

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I wouldn't count half the number as "almost as many", N64 sold like 20 million in the US, C64 only sold around 20 million worldwide, and half those sales must've been Europe.

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Well in Europe, it would have outsold the N64. You could also add the C128 to the total, since it's software was almost non-existant.

I don't necessarily think that the C-64 sold better in Europe, but support for the computer lasted longer in that region. Products seemed to last longer in Europe, while in North America a product runs its course and people move on. 1989 was pretty much the coming of the end for it here.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gamevet

Well in Europe, it would have outsold the N64. You could also add the C128 to the total, since it's software was almost non-existant.

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C64 was mainstream in Europe (or rather it was mainstream in the UK, Germany, Italy, and Scandinavian countries), 10 million odd sales in Europe is not the same as 10 million sales in the US, in Europe those sales are all focussed on lower population countries with higher population densities.

What's more, talking about "European sales" in general is meaningless, because the C64 was not mainstream in all European countries, it was not very popular at all in France or Spain for instance, so its "European sales total" is most likely not a European sales total at all, but more specifically a Britain + Germany + Italy total with the rest of the European countries possibly largely irrelevant to the total.

Also, I was going with the high estimate for US sales, 10 million is actually highly unlikely, a lot of sources seem to think its closer to 5 million than 10 million.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gamevet

I don't necessarily think that the C-64 sold better in Europe

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C64 almost certainly sold more units in Europe than North America.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gamevet

Products seemed to last longer in Europe, while in North America a product runs its course and people move on. 1989 was pretty much the coming of the end for it here.

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NES was 1983 hardware, only 1 year newer than C64, which came out in the US nationwide in 1986 and was still selling millions of units a year as late as 1993.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jax184

And just to note that if anyone near Vancouver wants an Amiga, I've got more than I know what to do with. I'd let a few go at pretty good prices.

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Just a heads up, I tossed your name over to some people at assembler who said they were looking for an Amiga, so you might be getting some PMs soon.

Jeez no wonder I didn't know about Virocop's weapon upgrades and such, I checked through some of my notes and I don't think I'd ever actually played it before! I think I was mistaking it for a game called Cyberpunks :bang:

I keep thinking about making a big Steel Battalian style controller for Virocop out of two Amiga joysticks, maybe I'll do it one day, I think it would work pretty well. :D

I really hate the character designs in Cyberpunks.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Thenewguy

Jeez no wonder I didn't know about Virocop's weapon upgrades and such, I checked through some of my notes and I don't think I'd ever actually played it before! I think I was mistaking it for a game called Cyberpunks :bang:

I keep thinking about making a big Steel Battalian style controller for Virocop out of two Amiga joysticks, maybe I'll do it one day, I think it would work pretty well. :D

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I have two of the grey joysticks shown in this picture:

http://www.vex.net/~falco/petscii/2.jpg

They're perfect for a dual-joystick virocop setup because of the button location. They're also pretty common, so you might do well to pick them up. As far as joysticks go, they're my favorite 2600 joysticks because the actual shaft isn't stiff, but rather it feels almost like an analog flight stick.

Everytime I see the introduction screen of Shadow Fighter I think to myself

"damn, I wish there'd got this guy to do all the in-game artwork too"

Quote:

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Originally Posted by NeoZeedeater

I really hate the character designs in Cyberpunks.

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I haven't got any problems with the character designs, I just find the game itself to be bland.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by TheSonicRetard

I have two of the grey joysticks shown in this picture:

http://www.vex.net/~falco/petscii/2.jpg

They're perfect for a dual-joystick virocop setup because of the button location. They're also pretty common, so you might do well to pick them up. As far as joysticks go, they're my favorite 2600 joysticks because the actual shaft isn't stiff, but rather it feels almost like an analog flight stick.

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In my attic I actually have a huge bin bag bursting at the seams with a variety of these old 80s joysticks :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Thenewguy

Everytime I see the introduction screen of Shadow Fighter I think to myself

"damn, I wish there'd got this guy to do all the in-game artwork too"

I haven't got any problems with the character designs, I just find the game itself to be bland.

---

I completely agree. The art in the game looks so amateurish. Awful art, but great game.

Little Fun fact: the Amiga was Originally supposed to become an Atari Computer! Jay Miner, the Inventor of the Amiga home computer, was a former engineer at Atari and had been in negotiations with Atari for quite a long time. However, Atari was dissatisfied with the Long development time of the project and reportedly Put enormous pressure on Miner, Even before any contracts were signed. Miner was pissed off, and when Commodore approached him with an offer to buy Out his Company (and not just the Computer itself), he gladly took them up on it and showed Atari the cold shoulder. Needless to say, Jack Tramiel,owner of Atari at the time (and founder of Commodore, though he was ousted from his own Company a few years before this went down) was furious about this. Understandable, Especially when you consider that Atari had already invested quite a Bit of money into the Development of the new Computer...

@gamevet: The C64 was immensely popular in Europe; here in Germany it still is the Most-Sold home Computer of all Time outside the Microsoft Windows-era! Here it was still around until 1994 (and acessories and magazines on the C64 were Sold until 1996). According to official numbers, roughly 3.050.000 C64 home computers (as well as about 1.081.000 Amiga 500-SYstems) were Sold in Germany alone by December 1993. Commodore as a brand was firmly implanted in our public consciousness - in fact, the magazine I'm working for is currently working on a special edition celebrating the computer's 30th anniversary! Just to give you an idea of how popular the "breadbox" was around here: At the height of their popularity, Commodore was the Main sponsor of Germany's Most popular and most succesful Soccer Team, the Fc Bayern Munich (that included the Year 1990, which coincidentally was the same Year Germany won the Soccer World Cup).

@TheSonicRetard: maybe i've missed it, but I think you forgot to mention the Amiga 500+ (was supposed to succeed the Amiga500, but flopped Hard in Part due to compatibility issues]when you Counted Off the Amiga Models.

/edit: oh, and this might be a bit nitpicky, but the A500 and the A1200 do Not Share the Same architecture, stricly speaking. The A500 was a variant of the 16bit A1000, while the A1200 was a 32bit-Computer Based on the later A4000-architecture and as such also equipped with an AGA-chipset. In Order to Not make the Same mistake as with the A600 (which had the ECS-chipset and wasn't compatible with the A1000/500), they worked backwards compatibility back in.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Thenewguy

C64 was mainstream in Europe (or rather it was mainstream in the UK, Germany, Italy, and Scandinavian countries), 10 million odd sales in Europe is not the same as 10 million sales in the US, in Europe those sales are all focussed on lower population countries with higher population densities.

What's more, talking about "European sales" in general is meaningless, because the C64 was not mainstream in all European countries, it was not very popular at all in France or Spain for instance, so its "European sales total" is most likely not a European sales total at all, but more specifically a Britain + Germany + Italy total with the rest of the European countries possibly largely irrelevant to the total.

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Of course is wasn't popular in all regions of Europe. Distribution chains and regional economy have a lot to do with how a system or product performs there. It's the same with North America, where regions in Canada would probably not do well, considering the population density in certain area, and of course, the exchange rate and local economy. It's the same for poor regions in the United States, with states like Louisiana and Arkansas probably not registering large amounts of sales on high-end products and a lot of the population spread out in small urban areas.

I'll just say this. I lived in a really small town in Montana. The town of Libby had a population of about 2,600 when I left it in late 1986. The only sources for videogame hardware was though mail-order, and the only stores that carried 2600 games was the local Ben Franklin, an appliance store and the large drug store. If you wanted to buy an Atari VCS, you had the option of ordering it through Sears (Tele-Games), Montgomery Wards, or the JcPenny store, from the catalog; It usually took about a month to get your order. The only options for buying a computer was a TRS-80 at the local Radio Shack, and everything else you had to order by phone. The other option was to drive to Spokane Washington (120 miles) or Missoula Montana (210 miles). You'd think that nobody would own a C64 there right? Yet, my friend who lived two blocks down from me had one, and I bought mine from a local guy that was selling his in the paper. My friend Dennis Parker shared a C64 with his older brother, and when his brother moved out, he'd bought a C128. We had a local group of guys that would share C64 software with eachother and even at my highschool they had (5) C64s and (1) C128 in the Computer Lit lab. I knew everyone in this town and we pretty much knew who had an Atari 2600, a Colecovision or an Intellivision. I only knew one guy that had a Colecovision, and he brought it from Portland Oregon, whenever he'd move back to Montana to stay with his mom. The C64 was quite popular here.

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Also, I was going with the high estimate for US sales, 10 million is actually highly unlikely, a lot of sources seem to think its closer to 5 million than 10 million.

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The total number of C64s sold is really up in the air. Tramiel stated somewhere between 22 and 30 million, while recent investigative projects like this have it between 12.5 and 17 million. I question those numbers, since the one board revision (250407A) supposedly only had about 250,000 units documented, yet I have at least 2 of those boards.

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C64 almost certainly sold more units in Europe than North America.

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Yeah, from 1989 on, it did. I'd say it was pretty close from 1983 to 1988 though.

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NES was 1983 hardware, only 1 year newer than C64, which came out in the US nationwide in 1986 and was still selling millions of units a year as late as 1993.

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The NES didn't really catch on here until around 1987. There's a big difference between the NES and say a system like the Master System, that didn't do well here at all. If your product isn't selling well, retail will cut it loose quick and they did so with the Master System.

I didn't buy the NES until @ 1989, because I still played a lot of games on the C64. I probably would have never bought the NES, if not for titles like Super Mario Bros. and Punchout!!!

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Originally Posted by Phantar

@gamevet: The C64 was immensely popular in Europe; here in Germany it still is the Most-Sold home Computer of all Time outside the Microsoft Windows-era! Here it was still around until 1994 (and acessories and magazines on the C64 were Sold until 1996). According to official numbers, roughly 3.050.000 C64 home computers (as well as about 1.081.000 Amiga 500-SYstems) were Sold in Germany alone by December 1993. Commodore as a brand was firmly implanted in our public consciousness - in fact, the magazine I'm working for is currently working on a special edition celebrating the computer's 30th anniversary! Just to give you an idea of how popular the "breadbox" was around here: At the height of their popularity, Commodore was the Main sponsor of Germany's Most popular and most succesful Soccer Team, the Fc Bayern Munich (that included the Year 1990, which coincidentally was the same Year Germany won the Soccer World Cup).

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Germany isn't exactly small. The population is over 30% that of the US back in 1986 (230 million then), within a landmass that's less than the state of Montana.

I really wish North America embraced it's products like Germany and the UK do, but everything here is one fad after another. The home computer fad died in the late 80's, and people moved back to console gaming with the NES and Genesis.


Back to the subject of the Amiga. Why no love for Power Monger?

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Originally Posted by Thenewguy

Amiga 500, and Atari ST only started to gain steam around 1987, with the ST being the clear 16-bit winner early on due to affordable price and good software support.

In 88 the price of RAM changed and the ST's price actually went up, whilst the Amiga price was actually cut, leading to the two system's being priced the same for the first time, this was the first blow Amiga struck against Atari ST, and Amiga started to become more popular, in Christmas of 1989 the Batman Pack bundle was released for Amiga (from the popular of the time Tim Burton Movie), which came with the game Batman, and the Newzealand Story, this bundle was hugely popular and pushed the system into the area of large mainstream popularity in Britain.

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From what I understand, it wasn't just the RAM prices Atari had a problem with, but an overall shortage of hardware (and limited manufacturing capacity) that forced them to raise prices on top of restricting distribution. (they diverted most of their product to Europe in '88 at the expense of losing much of the small niche they had in the US market -and momentum/growth)

Manufacturing capacity and distribution was one of the ST's bigger problems throughout its market life from what I understand.

And, of course, on the Amiga end, the issue of the A500 not arriving until '87 limited things in the lower-end/mainstream sector of the market too.

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Originally Posted by Thenewguy

Also, its worth noting how much the C64 actually impacted the other computers in the US, you can definitely see it taking sales away from the Atari 8-bits, and the TI-994A computers, its seems as though it consolidated a lot of the computer market, and took only moderate sales away from the consoles.

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If anything the C64 (and VIC, and computer price wars in general) exacerbated the console problem (and perhaps had a stronger psychological effect) if anything, but other aspects (namely those directly leading to the heavily inflated console market in the US in '82/83) were the real problems.

With Atari, Coleco, and Mattel, it made the situation worse as their computer platforms failed to compete well with CBM's on top of the shaky console market . . . though that's more Atari/Coleco/Mattel's fault than CBM's or the price war in general, same for TI for that matter. (many, many mistakes made by all of those companies, technical and/or management/marketing wise -and in different ways in the US and Europe)

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Originally Posted by Thenewguy

The C64 market at its height was like 25% the size of the 2600, and later NES markets at best, so it was probably only teetering on being mainstream

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25% of the NES/VCS is A LOT.

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Originally Posted by gamevet

Germany isn't exactly small. The population is over 30% that of the US back in 1986 (230 million then), within a landmass that's less than the state of Montana.

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Yeah, but don't forget that in 1986, Germany were split in two halves (East and West), and due to the Cold war it wasn't that far spread in the Eastern part. So before 1990, we're talking about less than 60 Million people (so size of the population was rather 1/4 than the 1/3 you estimate).

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Originally Posted by gamevet

Back to the subject of the Amiga. Why no love for Power Monger?

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You mean MegaLo Mania? Loved it :p

Personally though, being from Germany, I loved the games made and published by Rainbow Arts the most. Turrican 1 & 2, X-Out, Mad TV, The Great Giana Sisters and M.U.D.S come to mind. I also loved the works of the Bitmap Brothers (Speedball 2, Chaos Engine/Soldiers of Fortune, GODS), most of which were also ported to the Genesis later on. Sensible Software (Sensible Soccer-series, CannonFodder) also delivered some decent titles. Other favorites of mine included Lionheart, Barbarian, UFO-Enemy Unknown, Ruff'n'Tumble, Wings of Fury and Alien Breed.

Small correction to phantar's post, the amiga 600 is backwards compatible.

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Originally Posted by Kamahl

Small correction to phantar's post, the amiga 600 is backwards compatible.

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Well yeah, the system itself was backwards compatible; the Kickstart-ROM wasn't. So older titles didn't work. Also, unlike the A500 you couldn't upgrade the A600. So in the end, it was a failure all round.

/edit: By the way, here are some official sales numbers for the different Amiga models in different regions (up until 1993):

http://www.amigahistory.co.uk/sales.html

Interesting that there were almost as many Amiga computers sold in Italy (600.000) as in the whole of North America (700.000), while Germany (1.300.000) and the UK (1.500.000) reached about double that amount. I think that's because in the nineties the Americas already leaned more towards consoles when it came to gaming and to IBM-PC (or compatibles) for Office work, while in Europe, home computers were more popular.

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Originally Posted by Gamevet

The total number of C64s sold is really up in the air. Tramiel stated somewhere between 22 and 30 million, while recent investigative projects like this have it between 12.5 and 17 million. I question those numbers, since the one board revision (250407A) supposedly only had about 250,000 units documented, yet I have at least 2 of those boards.

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Personally I would say that the top half of the article is rock solid, as its predominantly focussed on compiling data from sources, so where it comes to the official figure it is 17 million (22 million when including C128)

Its the second half of the article, where they look at serial numbers which is where it starts to get iffy for me, I can very well believe that the total sales were well below Commodore's statements, as companies always do their best to exagerate sales figures, but the section about 1/6th of the hardware total being US just can't be right IMO, that would have US sales at like 3 million total, which puts it only slightly higher than SMS/Saturn, and below Atari 7800, that just doesn't mesh with the footprint in the US, the anecdotal data/continued interest of the system, and level of 3rd party support is all wrong for a system with such low sales.

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Originally Posted by Christuserloeser

25% of the NES/VCS is A LOT.

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25% of NES sales is respectable

That would put it lower than all popular console releases in the country since the early 80s, but notably higher than the failures, though as I said before that's an unrealistically high estimate anyway, the low estimate for total worldwide sales is like 13 million odd, with 1/6th of that figure being US sales (though personally I don't believe that figure could be accurate).