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The Amiga's gaming legacy is pretty amazing when you think about it

RagnarokIV

Battlebus imprisoning me \m/ >.< \m/
Via new member L lionagony - Would love if someone could post this into the gaming discussion, thanks!

"The Amiga's gaming legacy is pretty amazing when you think about it"
Recently I discovered that Team 17 are listed on the London Stock Exchange. I was amazed to hear that and it got me thinking about the Amiga's legacy. I took a huge break from gaming pretty much from 97 until 2022 so having gotten back into it so hard these last few years it's very interesting to see how things shook out looking back at it all.

Besides Team 17, DICE, Rockstar North, Traveller's Tales, Housemarque and Raven Software also got their start on the Amiga. Bethesda's first game was Gridiron for the Amiga which ended up laying the basis for the John Madden Football franchise by Electronic Arts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bethesda_Softworks Although not Amiga originated Electronic Arts' Trip Hawkins was one of the first and biggest Amiga advocates.

One extreme question is would the Playstation 5 exist without the Amiga? Psygnosis who rose to fame with the Amiga were one of if not the main companies behind many of the launch titles on the PS1 like Wipeout (Some elements of the game were inspired by Matrix Marauders, an Amiga game released by the Liverpudlian studio in 1990) from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wipeout_(video_game_series) Psygnosis had one of the most extensive catalogues on the console. Without this support maybe the PS1 wouldn't have been the success it was. Then you had Core Design who also rose to fame on the Amiga and Gremlin who had a lot of PS1 titles. Obviously this is just speculation and many of the Japanese companies had great games that might have had the PS1 be a success regardless but it's intriguing to think about. For those that say it's a crazy notion I found this article from 1996 entitled "Psygnosis to Continue Carrying Playstation" that states Psygnosis was the Playstation's top developer in Europe and in the Top 3 in the US at the time. https://www.newspapers.com/image/15...9.-YxLwYnvas5jQa1ShamC1uBNOwFJQTxwVPACxwL_j3A

Just to add context Core Design since 1988 had 38 Amiga games, 17 Atari ST, 13 Sega, 11 DOS and 2 SNES. Psygnosis since 1985 had 57 Amiga games, 29 Atari ST, 28 DOS, 14 Sega and 7 SNES. Therefore I think it's fair to say that both companies were majority Amiga built.

What are some other household names that have an Amiga background?

1) Grand Theft Auto - Take Two Interactive are also on the Nasdaq and obviously GTA was created by DMA Design who started on the Amiga. The link is possibly even stronger in that the programmer of Crime Inc https://amiga.abime.net/games/view/crime-inc alleges that his Amiga game was plagiarised by Rockstar North and they even settled with him.

2) Tomb Raider

3) Worms

4) Lemmings

5) Warcraft - the first Warcraft game was partly inspired by Lemmings https://archive.ph/20170906105422/h...d-in-part-thanks-to-lost-vikings-and-lemmings

Amiga original game Populous started the entire God game genre, Hunter was one of the first open world games, Corporation was a precursor to System Shock, Deus Ex and the "intelligent FPS" genre overall. Another World was a revolution in gameplay storytelling. Sim City was developed on the Amiga in parallel with the Macintosh.

Many Amiga games have been rebooted and/or remastered in the modern era. Shadow of the Beast came out for PS4, Another World and Gods were remastered, Speedball 2 came out for mobile and Steam, Worms games are still coming out, Zool was remastered, there are still SWOS tournaments to this day, Ruff N Tumble got remade for PS4, Xbox One, PC and Switch as Rad Rogers, Bloodhouse has put out modern Stardust games, Putty Squad was remade for all modern systems, Lionheart was recreated on PC, Agony was remastered with the Unreal engine, etc.

It's more nebulous but Cinemaware games like Defender of the Crown, Rocket Ranger and It Came from the Desert which originated on the Amiga may have helped inspire the movie type game experiences of today. So the DNA of the Amiga is in many things even in modern society, pretty amazing for an almost 40 year old computer. What did I miss?
 
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Hudo

Member
It's a nice little thing when you're poor and don't have the money for the MOTHERFUCKING SHARP X68000, BABY


x68kls.jpg

X68000-ad-1-T.jpg
 

JCK75

Member
My first REAL job (after years at Shoney's) was at a PBS Television station, we had an Amiga setup with Video toaster that ran all of our video overlays (I started there around 1996ish)
I don't think there was another computer at the time that could do what that program did...
 

Fess

Member
This thread makes me emotional. That era was the peak of my gaming and computer interest and it got me into programming, doing digital art, animations, making music and I met some of my best friends through the Amiga. Still have an Amiga 1200 plugged in to the same screen as my main PC and more floppies than I could count and boxes of joysticks and hundreds of magazines and game guides.
 

foamdino

Member
Amiga was peak 90's UK demo scene.

Video toaster -> Babylon 5
Fat Angus, Copper, etc

The design relied on a bunch of coprocessors when the PC was doing everything on the CPU.

There was a huge variety in the games being created at that time.

Some stand outs
Syndicate
Populous
Lemmings
Sensible World of Soccer and Kick Off being the Fifa of the day
Anything from Psygnosis, anything from Bitmap Brothers.
Dungeon Master (the start of the dungeon crawler genre)
Worms

It was glorious, and it died far too early, not making the move to 3d games, which the PC managed due to 3dfx cards.

The legacy of that time though is in many of the games and studios today.
 

yurinka

Member
What did I miss?
I did work with some of the heads and founders of Supercell before they created it. They started in the Amiga demoscene, their group was named Sumea, like the mobile gaming company they later founded. Sumea later got acquired by Trip Hawkins to become Digital Chocolate Helsinki. Later some of their heads left to found and lead Supercell.
https://ada.untergrund.net/?p=demo&i=301

Finland is a small country and don't have a lot of population, so many people who worked at Sumea/Digital Chocolate/Supercell at some point also worked at Remedy or Housemarque. And well, Housemarque also started as the merge of Terramarque and Bloodhouse, who made Amiga games like Stardust and Super Stardust.

Fumito Ueda was also a Commodore Amiga fan, and these games inspired his job.
 
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lionagony

Member
I did work with some of the heads and founders of Supercell before they created it. They started in the Amiga demoscene, their group was named Sumea, like the mobile gaming company they later founded. Sumea later got acquired by Trip Hawkins to become Digital Chocolate Helsinki. Later some of their heads left to found and lead Supercell.
https://ada.untergrund.net/?p=demo&i=301
That's awesome, here's a Youtube video of the demo I found

Finland is a small country and don't have a lot of population, so many people who worked at Sumea/Digital Chocolate/Supercell at some point also worked at Remedy or Housemarque. And well, Housemarque also started as the merge of Terramarque and Bloodhouse, who made Amiga games like Stardust and Super Stardust.
Finland has great Amiga history, I loved Stardust and especially Super Stardust. That along with Banshee and Slam Tilt and the the modern Reshoot R and Reshoot Proxima are probably the best use of the Amiga AGA chipset ever in games. I also loved Terramarque's Elfmania mainly for the stunning visuals which I think looked even better than SF2 on the SNES on a machine from 1985. RIP to that wonderful artist.

Fumito Ueda was also a Commodore Amiga fan, and these games inspired his job.
I heard that, there is an article here about it https://blog.amigaguru.com/shadow-of-the-colossus-and-the-connection-to-amiga/ In it it mentions that Parappa the Rappa might have been developed on the Amiga, anyone know if that's true?
 

Pimpbaa

Member
I wouldn’t know. The Amiga fucking bombed here in north america. Everyone had a c64 (with disk drive), but no one had an amiga. And that really pisses me off now. Absolutely amazing hardware for its time.
 

DryvBy

Gold Member
We had a PC the entire time. For some reason, I thoguht the Amiga was just like a Gateway, but apparently it's some weird PC that wasn't a PC. I just found that out today somewhere else too.
 

Gaelyon

Member
I loved my A500 and then my A1200.
Remember german studio Thalion Software ? Great action platformer Lionheart with astounding graphics, great rpg Ambermoon and Amberstar...
Also Blue Byte with the turn based wargame Battle Isle (and its spinoff Historyline), The Settlers, and the cool rpg Albion. Blue Byte has been bought by Ubisoft long ago and still exist as Ubisoft Blue Byte today
 
Doubt I'd be gaming today if it weren't for the Amiga. As a C64 owner I still remember vividly going to some guys house who had an Amiga. He showed me Barbarian 2, Shadow of the Beast, 3 Stooges, and Altered Beast. I couldn't sleep that night and knew I had to have one. Saved up all my paper round wages and part ex'd my C64 to get my Amiga. It came with FA18 Retaliator (think that was the name) and Rainbow Islands.
So many games though. Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge, Super Cars 2, Stunt car Racer, Swiv, Chaos Engine, Geoff Crammonds F1, Monkey Island 1 & 2, Cannon Fodder, Robocod, Agony, Speedball 2, Future Basketball, Moonstone, Off Road Racer, Pinball Dreams, Wings, Populous, Powermonger, the music that played when you died in Shadow of the Beast 2, Alien Breed, Turrican 2 and so many more I can't remember.
Gaming is better these days but it doesn't stop me missing those times.
 
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Obviously. The ground work for any successor is laid by its predecessors. Same applies to the Zuse computers being important for Amiga becoming what it was. Also thanks to the mathematicians figuring the binary stuff out long before bits and bytes went on their paths and before that some other binary like systems have been invented.
 

Rob_27

Member
I wouldn't mind having a full size one again which I believe is coming. But with new development. Something about when I was a kid - great times.
 

Trilobit

Member
Great post, RagnarokIV! You have put much thought into the subject. I just wish some users like lionagony could be more like you.

jk!

I had no idea GTA had a predecessor:

W8GkIUl.png


Crime Inc. looks almost better than GTA in this screenshot.

I had a hard time finding it and it doesn't seem to be well-known, but this thread made me think of Rod Land that I used to play on my friend's Amiga. An excellent two-player game where you deal with one screen at a time if I remember correctly. Like Bubble Bobble, but much better.

ARC_Rod_Land_%28Y%C5%8Dsei_Monogatari_Rod_Land%29.png
 
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RAIDEN1

Member
Had the Sharp X68000 released in the West, say 1989 at a competitive price, the Amiga would likely have seen its demise a lot earlier than 1994...let's face it, it had arcade conversions the likes of which you could only DREAM of having...as an Amiga/500/600/1200 owner....hell even throw the CD32 in there too
 
The Amiga was such an great machine, i have really fond memories of my time with the 1200.
The only bad thing from that time was the joysticks with single fire button at the time it was fine, but thinking back now i dont think I could play that way anymore.
I was lucky enough to have a mega drive too which the controller worked on the amiga so could play with that it it was great. Though i'm sure connecting them to the amiga broke the controller over time, the controllers would just stop working sure I went through a couple and it was the Amiga that broke them.
Awesome system though. Best version of Mortal Kombat 1 was on the Amiga and games like syndicate, UFO enemy unknown the settlers cannon fodder all played best on it. All the PD games too I had loads.
 

lmimmfn

Member
terrible developers imo
US Gold was just the publisher, a lot of the arcade ports were done by Tiertex, an absolutely awful developer - https://www.lemonamiga.com/games/list.php?list_developer=Tiertex
For Amiga Tiertex games are mainly ST ports with minimal use of Amiga hardware(except audio where they were forced to use the Amiga's capabilities).
Most of those USGold/Ports above(Strider, Strider 2, Dynasty Wars, UN Squadron. Last Duel) are by Tiertex and are as expected crap :). Its a shame back in the day that magazines when reviewing didnt look at the software development companies handling ports so buyers could avoid games.

Tiertex ports on other systems(e.g. Amstrad, C64 etc. ) were also junk lol
 
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mansoor1980

Gold Member
US Gold was just the publisher, a lot of the arcade ports were done by Tiertex, an absolutely awful developer, for Amiga resulted in mainly ST ports with minimal use of Amiga hardware. Most of those USGold/Ports above(Strider, Strider 2, Dynasty Wars, UN Squadron. Last Duel) are by Tiertex and are as expected crap :). Its a shame back in the day that magazines when reviewing didnt look at the software development companies handling ports so buyers could avoid games.

Tiertex ports on other systems(e.g. Amstrad, C64 etc. ) were also junk lol
dont forget the final fight and street fighter2 ports , they even botched the cd32 port of super street fighter2
shadow dancer was a good port tho.
 
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lmimmfn

Member
dont forget the final fight and street fighter2 ports , they even botched the cd32 port of super street fighter2
shadow dancer was a good port tho.
Yes, Shadow Dancer was good. Final Fight was done by Richard Aplin, while a great programmer he admitted he didnt really have any interest in the arcade version of Final Fight, the port graphically was decent but the gameplay(compared to the arcade) was awful. Brick Nash recently released an excellent port of Final Fight for the Amiga, where the actual gameplay is also intact


Street Fighter 2 and Super Street Fighter 2 were awful on the Amiga. The programmer who did Amiga SF2 - it was his first game, says it all really lol.

To be fair regarding SF2, i dont think it would matter who ported it, the home computer versions would always suck because back in the day the original arcade developers wouldnt provide any code/documentation/assets. Unless the state machines/hit box logic for SF2 was provided it was impossible to have a decent version.
Capcom themselves did the Megadrive/SNES versions hence so much better.
 

mansoor1980

Gold Member
Yes, Shadow Dancer was good. Final Fight was done by Richard Aplin, while a great programmer he admitted he didnt really have any interest in the arcade version of Final Fight, the port graphically was decent but the gameplay(compared to the arcade) was awful. Brick Nash recently released an excellent port of Final Fight for the Amiga, where the actual gameplay is also intact


Street Fighter 2 and Super Street Fighter 2 were awful on the Amiga. The programmer who did Amiga SF2 - it was his first game, says it all really lol.

To be fair regarding SF2, i dont think it would matter who ported it, the home computer versions would always suck because back in the day the original arcade developers wouldnt provide any code/documentation/assets. Unless the state machines/hit box logic for SF2 was provided it was impossible to have a decent version.
Capcom themselves did the Megadrive/SNES versions hence so much better.

goddamn that new final fight port is great , wish i played this one back in the day
it is the A1200 however with custom chip upgrades
here is another impressive version running on a stock A600 apparently

 
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lmimmfn

Member
goddamn that new final fight port is great , wish i played this one back in the day
it is the A1200 however with custom chip upgrades
here is another impressive version running on a stock A600 apparently


No, both videos are the same game/port,i.e. Final Fight Enhanced. It doesnt make any use of A1200 AGA features so game is the same whether A500/A600/A1200 etc. i.e. original release - https://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p=1665909&postcount=279
The video i linkes was just the latest version released a few days ago and they just captured it running from an A1200.

Its amazing, pity we didnt get that version back in the day, i would have been a very happy kid :)
 

Duchess

Member
For better or worse, I owe my IT career to the Amiga.

One month, Amiga Format gave away a demo of AMOS, along with a listing for how to make a simple game. I decided to type it out ...
 
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tassletine

Member
It didn't even run as well as the C64. Both that and the ST were so compromised.
The proper evolution is c64 > Snes >ps1
 
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