![Amiga](https://cdn.statically.io/img/images.timeextension.com/cd05462bb0a3f/amiga.900x.jpg)
While gaming history tends to be dominated by home consoles, it's important to remember that, at one point, many players got their fix from a home computer.
During the '80s and early '90s, powerful 16-bit machines like the Atari ST and Commodore Amiga went toe-to-toe with the NES, Master System, SNES and Mega Drive / Genesis – and, in many cases, hosted games that would later be ported to consoles to critical and commercial acclaim.
The Amiga is perhaps the most beloved example of a home computer turned gaming machine and is responsible for bringing many classic series to the world. Sensible Soccer, Lemmings, Worms and Speedball 2 all began life on Commodore's system and helped to cement its place as one of the most exciting gaming platforms of its era.
Originally released as the Amiga 1000 in 1985, it would struggle against the dominance of Atari's ST line before Commodore re-released it as the Amiga 500 – the best-selling variant of the computer. However, subsequent upgrades – including the Amiga 3000, Amiga 4000, CDTV and CD32 – failed to build on this success, and Commodore went bankrupt in April 1994.
The system's legacy lives on via modern-day updates such as the A500 Mini, and, casting your eyes over the titles highlighted below, it's clear to see that this remarkable computer deserves to be celebrated.
Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe (Amiga)
Alongside Sensible Soccer and Kick-Off 2, this is arguably the quintessential Amiga sports title, despite the sport being set over 100 years in the future. The sequel to the 1988 title Speedball, Brutal Deluxe improves on its forerunner in every possible way; the visuals and sound are better, and the gloriously simplistic action is instantly accessible but incredibly deep and challenging.
We dread to think how many friendships this game has ended over the decades (it has sold an impressive two million copies), but, despite that, we can't help but keep returning to this stone-cold classic. What makes it all the more remarkable is that, despite the advance of technology, none of the subsequent sequels have come anywhere close to matching this effort.
Defender Of The Crown (Amiga)
Cinemaware's aim was to create video games that looked like movies, and Defender Of The Crown certainly lived up to that loft goal. A neat mix of strategy, tactics and action, it has the lot – huge castles to attack, jousts to attend and suitably buxom ladies waiting to be saved.
All of this is wrapped up in some of the best visuals you'll see on a game of this age; no wonder Defender of the Crown helped sell the Amiga – few could resist its charms back in 1986. Defender of the Crown II would follow in 1993 for the CDTV and Amiga CD32, and the game has also been ported to other systems, such as the NES, Game Boy Advance and iOS.
Worms (Amiga)
Created by computer shop staffer Andy Davidson, Worms began its life in 1990 under the title Artillery before shifting to the Amiga in 1993, where it was renamed Total Wormage. After trying and failing to sell the concept to various publishers, Davidson approached Team17 in 1994, and co-founder Martyn Brown snapped it up immediately.
The rest, as they say, is history; Worms went on to become one of the most commercially successful Amiga games of all time, and Team17 has released multiple sequels over the years. 1997's Worms: The Director's Cut features gameplay enhancements and graphical upgrades, but is only compatible with the later AGA-based Amigas (only 5,000 copies were ever sold).
Xenon 2: Megablast (Amiga)
The Bitmap Brothers could do no wrong during the late '80s and early '90s, and games like Xenon 2: Megablast helped to cement their reputation. A massive visual and sonic upgrade on the excellent 1988 original, the game boasted slick visuals, tight controls and plenty of challenge – and was quickly ported to several console formats, a testament to its overall quality.
The subtitle comes from the Bomb the Bass song "Megablast (Hip Hop on Precinct 13)", which is the game's signature theme tune and plays during the action. This was one of the earliest examples of cutting-edge professional musicians having their work used in video games.
Sensible World of Soccer '96/'97 (Amiga)
Sensible Soccer is the stuff of legends on the Amiga. Before FIFA and Pro Evo took over in the '90s, this was the game everyone flocked to when it came to footballing action – which is remarkable when you consider how primitive the visuals were, even at the point of release. What Sensible Soccer lacks in visual spectacle, however, it more than makes up for in gameplay – and this final release is the best of the bunch.
1994's Sensible World of Soccer fused the core game with an amazingly deep manager mode, offering 1,500 teams and 27,000 players. This '96/'97 update contains updated data of the (then) current season. SWOS World Cup Tournaments still take place every year; Poland's Blazej_Bdg is the current champion at the time of writing.
Super Cars II (Amiga)
This top-down combat racer launched in the same year as Codemasters' Micro Machines and is just as addictive and compelling. Super Cars II controls wonderfully, is absolute dynamite in two-player and even boasts a career mode in which you can upgrade your vehicle and purchase new weapons.
It was remade for DOS-based computers in 1996 as Super Cars International, but sadly, the series has been dormant since then – a crying shame when you consider how much fun this title is.
Cannon Fodder (Amiga)
Cannon Fodder caused quite a storm when it was released due to its use of the poppy, the flower adopted by the Royal British Legion, a charity providing support to those impacted by war. However, those who criticised the game at release clearly didn't play it, because – despite being challenging and fun – it's one of the most effective anti-war statements video games have ever made.
Sequels duly followed, but none of them had the same impact as this 1993 classic.
Eye Of The Beholder (Amiga)
Created by Westwood Studios – the same group that would also produce Dune II, Lands of Lore and Command & Conquer – Eye of the Beholder was arguably one of the first D&D video games to actually do the license justice. A first-person dungeon crawler that takes plenty of inspiration from the legendary Dungeon Master, it boasts the gorgeous hand-drawn artwork of the late Rick Parks, who sadly passed away in the '90s.
Capcom and Sega would pick up the game for porting to the SNES and Sega CD respectively, and two sequels – Eye of the Beholder II: The Legend of Darkmoon (1991) and Eye of the Beholder III: Assault on Myth Drannor (1993) – would follow; Westwood Studios would develop The Legend of Darkmoon but Assault on Myth Drannor was handled internally by the publisher Strategic Simulations.
It Came From The Desert (Amiga)
Another Cinemaware classic, It Came From The Desert apes the sci-fi horror movies of the 1950s to place you in a town overrun by giant, man-eating ants. Like so many of the company's games, it's arguably low on interactivity, but the sheer freedom the player has despite this is impressive, even by modern standards, and this adds to its longevity. It would be ported to the TurboGrafx-16 in 1992, albeit with different visuals and gameplay.
Lemmings (Amiga)
Inspired by a simple animation that DMA Design's Mike Dailly created while experimenting with Deluxe Paint, Lemmings is the very definition of a sleeper hit. A seemingly simplistic puzzle title where the aim is to guide a group of the titular animals from the start of the level to the end, Lemmings has sold over 20 million copies across its various ports – which are many, as the game was such a success it was released on practically every gaming system of its time.
Comments 18
Some of these hold up very well, some of them look a bit too "Amiga". The strategy, simulation and point & click adventures really seemed to be the system's strength.
Could easily add to the list but this does a great job at giving a wide overview of genres and every game here is a certified banger.
Worth pointing out that while the 500 was obviously the best selling model, I'd hazard a guess that almost all of them were upgraded to 1mb making them 500 Plus in all but name and case badge. Growing up, it seemed more of my friends owned 600 and 1200 but that's probably just because of our exact age and the models that were being pushed at the time. People with older siblings often had a 500. All 3 of those systems are wonderful.
This list demonstrates why the Amiga was so good. Ports of Amiga games on consoles are just not the same,
Due to the sound quality (playing Xenon 2 without Bomb the Bass. No Ice Cream man in Speed Ball 2), colour pallet, and some cases no mouse (playing Cannon Fodder without a mouse just doesn’t work for me)
A personal favourite ‘North & South’ is missing though. The updated version just isn’t the same, losing all of its original charm
@RetroGames Well, it was predominantly a system designed around a keyboard and mouse, in the early 80s where single button Atari style joysticks were the norm.
There were a huge variety of more console/arcade like experiences, many of them excellent and the hardware easily kept up with the Megadrive and SNES, sometimes surpassing what they oculd do... but that darn single button joystick really held them back. This often meant "up to jump" in platformers, and ruined 1v1 fighting games, arguably the 2 most popular genres of the early 90s.
The "up to jump" thing is nowadays entirely fixed by emulation, or even joysticks for real hardware that include a second button that doubles as "up" such as the solutions from Monster joysticks - hashtag not sponsored. [edit] And yes, I know Amiga could technically support more than one button on controllers, adn some games utilise it. Its just that most people didn't have controllers to support that, so devs didn't tend to include the option or design around it.
Didn't necessarily play all of these on the Amiga, but a pretty solid list. Sometimes hard to separate some standout games that make an impact, but weren't really good enough to make a Best Of list. Sometimes fun to revisit these from time-to-time. A lot of it was just the complete newness of it all. First time to see graphics and have audio like that. First time a genre was established, or realized with that kind of presentation, etc.
One thing I loved about Worms was the ability to design your own levels in Deluxe Paint 3 and import them in to the game.
Turrican II FTW! Really one of the greatest Amiga games!
I never actually owned an Amiga, but Flashback and Lemmings were two of my favourite Mega Drive games growing up
Wow- I had Lotus on my Atari ST and never got to see the amiga version until now. It pains me to say it but I think the commodore had me beat!
Some great choices there and as the list has to stop somewhere, a good few of my favourites were missed, eg UFO: Enemy Unknown (rebranded as XCOM), Alien Breed 3D, Gloom (two Doom - but on the Amiga - clones), Slamtilt (arguably the best Amiga pinball game), Shadow Fighter (a great BEU hampered by only using one button), Apidya (japan-inspired horizontal SEU with a wasp controlled by the player). Plenty more to go on!
It’s worth noting whilst you reference Chip RAM, the Amiga - all models - had the option of adding additional memory, called Fast RAM, usually up to 8 Megs, unless an accelerator card was used. My own A1200 has 2Mbs CHIP and 32Mbs Fast RAM, as I had a 68040 accelerator card, bumping up the processing speed as well as RAM.
More Amiga articles, please! 😊
The Amiga had some outstanding games the games that were ported to consoles like speedball 2 and the chaos engine were always better on Amiga I would recommend slam tilt if you like pinball and stunt car racer is still awesome even today
One thing the Amiga unfortunately suffered from was the fact most joysticks available only used one button despite it being capable of using two button ones. As a result most action games really suffered especially any games that used up to jump as it always felt to me as the jumping was often made too floaty to compensate for the poor joysticks at the time. I even would question if games like Zool, James Pond 2 and Superfrog should be considered among the best since much like any of the one on one fighting games on it they were only considered good due to how average or bad the majority was. I may have also included Syndicate on this list too but that's just because I spent too long playing it over one summer perhaps.
@Zenszulu That's an interesting observation — and now you mention it, Robocod and Zool did indeed have very floaty jumping in them.
@Andee it's one thing I have noticed when going back and playing games on both the Amiga and C64 recently with the option of using a controller and many of the better regarded platformers were like this. It was a smart design choice for sure.
The Amiga still lives!
In the Philippines, sound mixing for their local TV shows are made using old Amiga computers, even to this day.
I am not kidding with this.
I’m not sure if my uncle had an Amiga or what, but I know I’ve played roughly half of these games at one point long, long ago. PC gaming felt so different to console gaming in those days. I sort of wish we’d get some modern ports for some of these titles.
Had a great time with Silkworm back in the day.
I really liked the pseudo-sequel, SWIV, as well, but I never got far in that one. Having done a complete playthrough more recently (only with the help of infinite lives), I now see how horrendous the game actually is. Oh, well. The first few minutes are still fun.
While I didn't really get into it back then, I'd like to do a full playthrough of Bubba & Stix one of these days/years.
Really nissing Apidya here (with swiv and banshee the best shooter) Swos easily the best game overall
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