Top 10 'Most Influential' Amiga Games 192
stacybro writes "There is an article on Wired about the Top 10 most influential Amiga games. As someone who actually programmed on the Amiga way back when, I can attest to how far they were ahead of the clones when it came to graphics and audio hardware. I often wonder where the PC world would be if Amiga or Apple had had the marketing smarts (or maybe it was cut throat attitude) of Microsoft. 'Defender of the Crown (Cinemaware, 1986): Way before the Hollywood-ization of the game industry, Cinemaware evoked the era of classic movies with this game and others, such as Wings and the classic B-movie tribute It Came From the Desert. Cinemaware titles were definitely precursors of the CD-ROM era of flashy titles such as Myst and The 7th Guest. More importantly, they brought strong and realistic characterization and depiction to the world of computer games. Cinemaware is still alive today and currently working on an update of Defender of the Crown.'"
apple should of used some of the amiga hardware (Score:3, Interesting)
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Oh, and where the hell is Populous/Populous 2? Those games alone would have made me run out and get an Amiga if I'd had the cash. Talk about addictive.
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I was going to raise the same objection, but then I looked it up and Wikipedia claims that it was out for Atari ST and PC before Amiga.
I don't think that's true, exactly; I think it was out for Atari ST, then Amiga, then PC. But I don't have a cite, and I could well be wrong.
Certainly the game was best on the Amiga.
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I used to have a 68020 accelerator in an Amiga 500... :)
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Most games worked properly. Not all.
The recoverable ramdisk is STILL my favorite thing about the Amiga. If we had that technology on PCs we could reboot Windows a lot faster :)
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It was better on the ST- if you system linked an ST to an Amiga with a NULL modem cable the ST and let the CPUs battle, the won due to it's slightly faster CPU speed (8MHz compared to 7.09MHz (PAL)).
That may have been true on computationally-intense games, but the Amiga's custom sound and graphics hardware would have more than compensated in most cases due to them taking the load off the CPU. The ST lacked in those departments. In particular it used a variant of the same off-the-shelf sound chip [wikipedia.org] as found in many 8-bit computers; the Amstrad CPC [wikipedia.org], the later ZX Spectrums [wikipedia.org] (128K models) and even the Oric 1(!) [wikipedia.org].
It *could* do sampled sound, but the chip itself didn't specifically support this, so I assume i
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I'm not sure if the Amiga's sound hardware could natively generate sound - it may have
STe should have replaced the STFM (Score:2)
I'm not sure if the Amiga's sound hardware could natively generate sound - it may have been sample playback or nothing. But then, with four independent channels of sampled sound, each with its own playback speed and volume, you're hardly going to complain.
Eh, that rings a bell; and I don't suppose it really matters. It'd be trivial to generate the waveforms manually, store them in a small amount of memory and point the sound chip towards them.
things did improve with the STe. That had two channels of CPU-ignoring sample playback (left and right)
That's an improvement, but hardly Amiga-beating.
Hardly any games ever used the improved abilities, of course.
That's Atari's fault; on its launch (1989?), the STe was briefly sold in place of the STFM at the same price. Whether it was originally intended that it would replace the STFM or they just ran short of the latter, I don't know. But they then sold the STFM at its old pri
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I say this as a former Amiga owner/lover, and someone currently sitting at a desk with a Powerbook, a W2K, an XP and an Etch machine cranking away (very hot in here right now...). I coded multimedia apps on Amiga, recorded 3D to my PVR hard-disk-recorder, was heavily invested in my Amiga stuff.
But it became all-too-clear to me what was wrong when I showed the Amiga's NTSC-TV-resolution picture to a PC-using colleague and heard him go "oooh - gross!".
The standard Amigoid response is to explain
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The Amiga was released long before the Microsoft and the PC was the 800 pound gorilla of the home PC market. There was no dominant software platform. If anything, it was the Commodore 64, the best selling home computer up to that point. It was everywhere. Toys R' Us had an entire aisle devoted to C64 software -- it was Nintendo and Dell rolled into one. There was no Microsoft Office, it wasn't even on the radar. Totally level playing field as far as software goes.
On top of that, the Amiga was far and
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The Amiga also used to be common in TV/3D production, and that only really changed (so I believe) after C= went bankrupt, I assume because relying on a dead plat
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Hot of the press - Most Influential Linux Games (Score:2)
Top 10 Most Influential Linux Games [commandline.org.uk]
Yes linux does really have ten games
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On a serious note, "should of" is right up there with "more then foo" in the "mannerisms of illiterate Americans" category.
It's a corruption of "should've" (Score:2)
It drives me batty as well. It's almost as bad as "I could care less".
The top of the list in my mind... (Score:2, Insightful)
How about this game: Cube Defender of the Polyvers (Score:2, Funny)
Datastorm (Score:5, Informative)
It came from the desert (Score:3, Insightful)
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There was 'It Came From The Desert II'. I think it was really just more of the same, but that wasn't a bad thing!
It came for dessert (Score:2)
Wings (Score:3, Informative)
And holy crap! Wings is available again -- on the GBA! http://www.cinemaware.com/gbawings_main.asp [cinemaware.com] Now can I had a flight stick for a Game Boy?
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Let me be the one to say it (Score:5, Insightful)
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Wing Commander was developed for the PC and later ported to the Amiga. Not the other way around. At the time of its release, I remember Roberts saying that he made Wing Commander just because everyone was telling him how impossible it was to do on the PC. Of course he kind of cheated seeing as how Wing Commander required a high-end 286. Not that it was a big issue in the long run. The Wing Commander series would push hardware requirements for many years to come, and was a driving
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You need to remember that there was nothing driving the upgrade cycle at the time. Many people were happy with their Commodore 64s. It wasn't until games like Wing Commander that the upgrade cycle really started. Especially when you consider that a high-end 286 was the minim
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Eight whole years later, I was on a 80386SX25, no floating point, though that was kinda crappy. Still better than the MCA crap floating around about then.
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I sincerely doubt that. The only "graphical options" it had (other than the extra graphics if you had EMS) was EGA or VGA. I ran (or at least tried to run) Wing Commander on an 8MHz XT with an EGA adapter. It was anything but smooth. Unless you count about 5-10 FPS as "smooth". I did, however, run it on a 486. Which I only realized many years later (and after beating the game) was WAY too fast. :P
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I sincerely doubt that.
Doubt it all you want, but trust me, the first system I ever ran it on were the CAD machines in the computer lab at the college an associate of mine worked at. I was a pretty dedicated Commodore user at the time so didn't have a PC available and my buddy had a copy of Wing Commander. So we would play it at his work, a blatant abuse of university equipment that nearly got him canned, but that is beside the point. I can't remember the full statistics on the machines but I do recall they were 8086 (because
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I'm thinking that you're remembering the game through rose tinted glasses. At the time, quite a lot of games were PAINFULLY slow. (I remember Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego being oddly faster on a CGA PCjr than it was on a beefy EGA XT! Of course, that had everything to do with fill-rates.) So Wing Commander running at 5-10 FPS probably didn't seem so bad. It really was supposed to run faster than that. :)
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I'm thinking that you're remembering the game through rose tinted glasses.
I'd call it relative, not rose colored. And I will agree it certainly wasn't optimal, like running WC off of floppy, I was just saying it was playable and enjoyable on a 8086, and didn't require a 80286 or higher. The box claimed 286 12 mhz or better with Dual Floppy or a Hard Disk. Never tried it with dual floppy but if it was anything like one floppy it would have been far less enjoyable than the frame rate on an 8086. And since most sci fi movies are 24 frames per second, I can't see playing a game a
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Presumably missing because it was a port (Score:2)
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Populous (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the author may have a bit of tunnel vision, insofar as the games are rather limited to a few publishers (Psygnosis & Sensible Software make up half the titles).
Notably missing are Blood Money, Arkanoid (maybe because it's a port), and Battle Squadron.
Another World (Score:2)
It was one of the most famous adventure games of the era (at least in France), with Alone in the Dark [wikipedia.org].
Another World was never released on Amiga in the U (Score:2)
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some of the things that the article talks about.
Rather intriguing to find out Syndicate got its start on Amiga (tunnel vision, or not).
Lest you think me a heathen/n00b, I got my start on the Atari2600 (Asteroids, Atlantis, Subterrania, Tanks), then
a Classic Nintendo (Rolling Thunder, Metroid, Double Dragon--to the point me and roommate almost got murdered by our 3rd roomie). Mid to late 80's
Then
Some other Amiga games worth mentioning (Score:3, Interesting)
Virtually all of Cinemaware's games could have been listed, but DotC and Wings are probably two of the best examples. Rocket Ranger and It Came From the Desert are also heartily recommended.
The list in the quoted article does have some glaring ommissions. Dungeon Master was the first 3D realtime action CRPG, and I think the Amiga version was superior to both the ST and PC versions. Also woth mentioning are Populus and Artic Fox, which I think really shined in the Amiga versions. Finally, there is Faery Tale Adventure, which I think was one of the best isometic action CRPGs ever, irrespective of platform.
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I think Faery Tale Adventure was great for the huge world that streamed in seamlessly off the disk. Admittedly the world was fairly sparse but at the time there was nothing else like it. It also had some pretty good music. Getting the turtle and later the golden swan to ride was
Missing Games (Score:4, Insightful)
Faery Tale Adventure: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faery_Tale_Adventure [wikipedia.org]
A giant, continuous world full of quests and tasks to run. Like most old games it was very unforgiving... you could die quickly and easily if you weren't careful. I spent hours exploring that world. I remember finding a flying goose and being able to fly across the land. Ah the memories.
Dungeon Master: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeon_Master_(comp
The first real-time, first person dungeon crawling game. Casting spells involved clicking a series of runes in a particular order, Fireball was Fire then Wing. On the 13th level of the dungeon was the boss, whom you had to capture in a forcecage, a very challenging battle. You could also go down to the 14th level whose only resident was a huge dragon. Food was a big issue in the game, you had to manage your food stocks carefully. The dragon at the bottom of the dungeon could be killed for a heaping pile of Dragon Steaks. To me this was the most influential game on the Amiga, it is my favorite Amiga game of all time.
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Not to diminish it's brilliance though. The stereo sound on the Amiga really made it creepy.
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Another World... (Score:2)
Obvious Omissions... (Score:4, Insightful)
Dungeon Master was way, way out there. You could even carry your characters over to the sequel title!
There was so much originality in the Amiga gaming scene that is sadly, sadly lacking in modern gaming. Looking back at the Amiga it was so far ahead of its time in so many ways...food for thought...
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The Bard's Tale games on my Apple IIe when I was a kid let you do the same thing. In fact, at least one of them (III) let you carry over your characters from other series entirely - e.g. Wizardry.
The obscure and unfinished Star Saga trilogy let you migrate your characters from the first game to the second.
I believe Might & Magic II let you bring your characters from the first game over as well.
Nothing against the Amiga - it was an awesome pla
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- ArmourGeddon - switch between piloting one of several combat machines (heavy tank, light tank, helicopter, strike fighter, stealth bomber, and armored hovercraft) combat against the computer or another player via serial. All the simulators were quite fun to control. Sure with the BZFlag guys would get ideas from it.
- Gauntlet I and II - FOUR Players at the same time with all the good sound and graphics! Sure did the arcade version justi
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Ah, Carrier Command (Score:2)
Sad to say, I seem to recall some bugs in the Amiga version that weren't in the PC version. Your inventory would get screwed, and you'd have to restart your game to get it working right again. And on the PC you could send a set of walruses with a set of mantas way off on expeditions to capture other islands, as long as
SpeedBall (Score:5, Interesting)
F18 Interceptor! (Score:4, Interesting)
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I think it might've been as late as 1988 when my brother and I had F18 interceptor [classic-pc-games.com] networked on our amigas: head-to-head networked air combat flightsim, with excellent color, speed, and stereo sound, when a lot of people were still using black-and-white Macs that went 'beep'. My friends in college were literally unable to believe such things existed until they saw it.
Oh yes! That game was cracking good fun. Used to take it in turns with a mate to see who could pull off the most outragous stunts, like touching the plane's belly in the sea without crashing, flying inverted under the bridges, or just taxiing it over a bridge. :)
Very well designed game for the time, and impressive to play.
It was a blast programming the Amiga (Score:5, Interesting)
I did the first version of King on the Mac in '86 and then ported it to the Amiga and the Apple IIGS. I did my own art on the Mac (using digitized clay heads) but C-ware wisely redid the art for the Amiga, which had a lot to do with the big sales. Rob Landeros (who later formed Trilobyte and did 7th Guest) did the art.
Coding on the Amiga was a blast. The main online hangout for developers was BIX, the Byte Information Exchange. Simple things like screen-flipping for animation were poorly documented and there was little agreement in the first years about the best way to code them. You had to get down and dirty writing little fragments of code executed by "the copper" - the video coprocessor system.
"Cinemaware is still alive today and currently working on an update of Defender of the Crown.'" - And screwing the original game devs royally. They stripped any mention of Kellyn Beeck from their current version of Defender of the Crown and left my name off the King of Chicago credits on their website. Here's a little discussion with a current Cinemaware employee on the Indie Gamer's forum about their current version of Defender of the Crown http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?t=973
At least they'll never butcher King of Chicago because they'll never figure out Dramaton.
Self-horntoot warning - I am also very proud of the game I did before King of Chicago - ChipWits - which I am reviving at http://chipwits.com/ [chipwits.com] .
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+10 Retro.
Enjoy,
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I think they should also have stated devpac was one of the most influential games. The amiga was responsible for getting many people into programming, for me that's when programming really made sence.
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King of Chicago kicked ass! (Score:2)
Alien Breed (Score:2)
There is a freeware remake available for Windows:
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/xavnet/alienbreed/ [ntlworld.com]
Black Crypt (Score:2)
HOW could you LEAVE OFF the ULTIMATE amiga game... (Score:2)
Wanderer (Score:2)
The death-scream when your avatar is killed is pretty funny too.
*walk underneath boulder*
*THUMP**THUMP**THUMP**THUMP*
*BLHAHHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!
I was always like GOT DAMN (Score:2)
And then I witnessed Ocean's F29 Retaliator - released on bot
some more... (Score:2)
- Shadow of the Beast: first time I ever saw parallax scrolling!
- The Killing Game Show: most awesome intro animation ever.
Simcity? (Score:2)
Populous I can get onboard with. That game rocked. The second was pretty good as well. And surprisingly the third one is one of my all time favorite games - I've even played it in the past year.
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The only game I've ever "played" on an Amiga (Score:2)
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I still own two Amigas, but were there really ANY "influential" Amiga games? I mean, games that were unique to the Amiga platform
Well, plenty of Amiga games were converted. Does this disqualify them?
I think the marketplace has spoken pretty loudly on this topic: if there HAD been any influential games, Amiga wouldn't have been extinguished.
By the same logic, there were no influential C64 games because that machine is also dead... huh?!
The Amiga was extinguished because Commodore did too little to improve its specs in the face of competition from commodity PCs. By the early 1990s, PC prices were falling rapidly, and their specs were vastly improved over the text-and-CGA-if-you're-lucky crudeness of mid-80s PCs (when the Amiga launched).
(Of course, the Amiga was never *
Oh, yeah.... and the Mega Drive (Score:2)
However, this changed with the launch of the Mega Drive (Genesis) and SNES in the early 90s. The Mega Drive in particular was better at side-scrolling parallax/plane effects, and again, the Amiga was no longe
Sorry, Psygnosis games sucked donkey balls. (Score:2)
Sorry, Psygnosis games sucked donkey balls.
Sure, Shadow of the Beast looked cool in the shop in demo mode, but the play of the game was worse than Atari's PitFall from ten years before. If anything, Psygnosis's legacy is "games that look better in the screenshots and demos than they do in normal play". (Oh, they also had annoyingly long cut scenes that you couldn't click through.)
And ALL of Psygnosis games had the reputation of copy protectio
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ALL of Psygnosis games had the reputation of copy protection vampires: they wouldn't launch from Workbench, wouldn't copy easily (in case your Amiga ate the originals) and they were touchy as hell (couldn't run on A1200s or A500s or visa versa).
To be fair, most other Amiga games didn't run from Workbench either, and Psygnosis were far from the only company that had compatibility issues when the A1200 (or even A500 Plus) came out, due to games "hitting the hardware" directly for the performance boost.
I would say that Psygnosis did the classic Lemmings; but then again, maybe not. They just distributed it- it was DMA Design (now Rockstar North) who actually created/wrote it.
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The Amiga died in about 1995... the CD32 and A1200 had poor performance compared to the 486 PC. The Amiga was better during the PCs 386, but not the 486, and many people held onto their Amigas until the Pentium.
Thing is, the A1200/CD32 were also a lot cheaper than the 486s you describe, and had they been released before the cheaper PCs (above them) and the 16-bit consoles (below) got more of a toehold, they might have done quite well.
The "cheap" PCs were *not* cheap by today's standards; however, they came with a VGA monitor, hard drive and 256-colour VGA graphics. Adding those to a base Amiga would have been pretty expensive (I never had a hard drive for mine); so I guess that was part of the attraction.
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The amiga version being the first is what usually made an amiga game, occasionally being a significantly better version also made a game and "amiga game", etc...
Exclusiveness is nothing to do with it.
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The Amiga was one hell of a machine for its time. Unfortunately -- and this is a problem which occurs with any single-source product, not just the Amiga; Macs and Palms were always (in)famous for it -- it was just too expensive. Ev
Influential Amiga Hardware (Score:2)
It would've been MUCH more interesting ... to see what sort of innovative things people did using Amiga's fancy hardware -- especially since this is in the HARDWARE category and n...
Three words:
Newtek Video Toaster
I worked in television at the time, and I'll tell you that the damned things revolutionized broadcasting. That cute animated logo for the 6 o'clock news was a mere static card with trumpet fanfare before the Video Toaster.
But they've already been discussed here.
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..if Commodore hadn't stolen the Amiga from them.
Commodore didn't steal the Amiga from Atari, they simply out-manoeuvered them. Jack Tramiel (who had left C= and purchased Atari's computer division by this time) thought he had the Amiga company by the balls and could push them into surrendering the company/rights to him; he was wrong and he didn't succeed. But I'm sure it wasn't for wont of effort.
Can't say I give a toss; it went to court, and he lost. Call it bullying or not, but Tramiel was/is the type of guy who would use any means, fair or foul to
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They brought additional engineers into the projects
By contrast, on buying Atari, Tramiel supposedly fired all the engineers [wikipedia.org]. I read elsewhere that they had a SID-beating sound chip lined up for the 8-bit computers... it was shelved because the people who knew how it worked were all gone. Sad...
(Would've been better than the ST's off-the-shelf sound chip as well).
Commodore did actually have a fab that could make the chips for the Amiga.
Atari always seems under-resourced to me. They abandoned the Falcon [wikimedia.org] shortly after it came out to concentrate on the Jaguar [wikipedia.org], and the Lynx [wikipedia.org] never got the breaks it deserved. It didn't help that the
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The story, according to that, was that you were a guy who was being hassled by a minor demon. She was making you have constant nightmares in an attempt to drive you crazy. Eventually your tiredness resulted in some accident that ended you up on an operating table, where you slipped into deep, disturbing anaesthetic-induced nightmares...
This sort of also explains the final screen, which I only got to by using the cheat code. IIRC you had t
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It was great though wasn't it
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I missed playing it when it was first released (friends raved about it, however) and eventually got round to playing it many years later on a super-speedy emulated ST. It was brilliant, and this was when I was familiar with 3D accel