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THE 10 BEST AMIGA GAMES ACCORDING TO MR BIFFO

2/5/2017

67 Comments

 
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Okay, so I was an Atari ST boy. But - c'mon - of course I'd have rather had an Amiga. I'm not an idiot; I knew it was the better machine. Somehow, of course, history records that I accidentally became a games journalist in the 1990s, and proceeded to upset all of Britain's Amiga owners.

You see, Digitiser's predecessor on Oracle, FX, had covered the Amiga pretty extensively. However, Mr Hairs and I had never been games journalists before, and we didn't really know what the ruddy Henry we were doing. Something had to give, and that something was the format which was coming to the end of its life. You know: in favour of the sexy new consoles which were clearly less of a faff than games that came on floppy disks. 

Of course, we were proved right ultimately; shortly after we started covering the Amiga, following months of incessant complaints from Amiga owners that we were "bias" - some of whom were so furious that they wrote to our bosses and the television watchdogs in an attempt to get us fired - everything went badly wrong for Commodore.

Never mind, eh. Revenge is a dish best served with a side dish of knowing you were right all along.

The funny thing is... all those complaints meant that I ended up being an Amiga owner, albeit through my job. To shut them up, we managed to get an Amiga off our bosses - possibly the only hardware they ever paid for - and we started reviewing Amiga games.

Consequently, contrary to belief, I played a lot of Amiga games. I also borrowed a lot of the back catalogue from Amiga-owning mates, including my Digitiser colleague Mr Cheese. I might not have the affection for the machine that I do for certain other systems - not least because my experience of the Amiga has been coloured by the wrath of Britain's Amiga-owning zealots - but... yeah... there were A LOT of great Amiga games. There. I said it. Happy now?

​You bunch of wretched spods.


Here are my ten favourites. Oh... and don't go complaining that Dune 2 isn't in this list. I never played Dune 2. Also: no Shadow of the Beast, because it was a textbook example of style over substance. 
CANNON FODDER
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The joy of Cannon Fodder was its simplicity. Controlling a team of soldiers, you pointed and clicked the mouse where you wanted them to move... and pointed and clicked at what you wanted them to shoot at.

Its tongue-in-cheek approach didn't go down well with everyone, however.

Its intended use of the Remembrance Day poppy was criticised by - among others - the British Legion, "Ming" Campbell, Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, and the Daily Star ("The poppy is a sacred reminder of the men and women who gave their lives in two world wars. How sickening to see it being abused to sell a savage computer game.").

Controversial Amiga Power writer - and later Digitiser columnist - Stuart Campbell waded into the storm with typical tact, stating in the pages of the magazine: "Old soldiers? I wish them all dead."

When confronted by The Daily Star regarding his comment, Stuart remarked: "It may have been insensitive, but aren't I entitled to an opinion anymore?"

In response, Royal British Legion spokesman Dennis York raged: "Good God. It leaves you speechless. If it was not for the old soldiers who stood up during the wars he might not be alive."

Sensible Software maintained its stance that the game was a powerful anti-war statement, summed up best in the game's sensitive cod-reggae title song, War Has Never Been So Much Fun:
THE SECRET OF MONKEY ISLAND
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LucasArts produced some really, really great point-and-click adventures, and the pinnacle of its output was surely the Monkey Island series.

Somehow managing to combine great gameplay and ludicrous puzzle solutions with meta humour and corny gags, The Secret of Monkey Island might be the one video game which should've been a movie. In a way it sort of was, having been inspired by the original Pirates of the Caribbean ride at the Disney theme parks. Which of course later became a movie series starring the repellent Johnno D'pus. 

The adventures of Guybrush Threepwood on Melee Island(tm) followed his efforts to become a pirate, through insult sword fights, running gags, and encounters with characters featuring names like Mancomb Seepgood, and the Men of Low Moral Fibre. It remains one of the few video games which achieved the rare feat of being genuinely, intentionally, funny. 

Not every joke went down well, however. In early versions of the game, Guybrush made a reference to "An emaciated Charles Atlas" - name-checking the late bodybuilding guru, who pledged to teach weeds how to fight back against burly beachtoughs.

A cease and desist letter from the Atlas estate forced LucasArts to remove the line from subsequent editions.
JAMES POND 2: ROBOCOD
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Zool and Superfrog may be beloved of some, but for me Robocod was the top-tier Amiga platformer. It didn't feel like any other game, and - unlike its format rivals - boasted a unique character power; the ability to extend Robocod's body vertically, and grip overhead objects.

Also, that opening level music remains seared into my brain, and - to date - it remains the only video game to have been sponsored by Penguin biscuits. As a result of the product placement deal, Penguin outsold Kit Kat for the first time in McVitie's history.

Which is astonishing given that Penguins have the taste and texture of a six day-old dog excreta that has been left out in the sun.
LEMMINGS
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Having absolutely zero patience, it takes a special sort of puzzle game to keep me "piqued", and  Lemmings' weird mix of character, platforming, and smashing through scenery properly "piqued" my "fancy", while making me want to smash and bash my things.

​Also, anyone who didn't enjoy filling the screen with Lemmings and then making them all commit suicide in a scenery-destroying explosion must've had something wrong with them. Not that there's anything entertaining about suicide obviously... unless a clown does it by firing themselves out of a cannon at a giant bulb horn.

HONK!

The game was also notable for its soundtrack, which used a mix of classical and folk tunes - replacing the original soundtrack of the pre-release edition, which utilised samples of copyrighted music.
THE CHAOS ENGINE
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The Bitmap Brothers were in the top tier of Amiga developers. Why they dropped off the radar so abruptly is anyone's guess, but you always knew a Bitmap game for their blend of solid gameplay, and slick graphics. Indeed, nobody's else's games looked like those made by the Bitmaps; never a sharp corner, or solid black hue to be found.

The Chaos Engine might've been their most intriguing title, a two-player steampunk shoot 'em up inspired by the novel The Difference Engine, and set in an alternate Britain overrun with monsters and robots.

It was far and away my favourite Bitmap game - better even than the 2000AD-influenced Speedball, and Bomb the Bass-soundtracked Xenon 2.

Where you be, Brothers? Where you go now, huh?
WORMS
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Clearly influenced by Lemmings, Worms did away with the puzzling, and pitted cartoon worms against one another in an orgy of destruction. Originally an Amiga Format competition entry by its creator Andy Davidson, Worms has endured to this day due to its quirky weaponry - exploding sheep and the like - and turn-based multiplayer.

Davidson hadn't won the coding competition, as the Amiga Format judge's were presumably idiots, but showed his game - then titled either Lemartillery, or Total Wormage, depending on who you ask - to Ocean/Team 17 at the 1994 European Computer Trade Show. They lapped it up on the spot.

I recall speaking to Ocean's PR representative the following year, who stated that Davidson "Has no idea just how much money he's about to make..." 

Indeed, Worms and its various sequels continue to be released to this day, lining the elusive Davidson's pockets. He spent at least some of his earnings opening a "digital bar" in Bournemouth. Having left Team 17 in 1999 over "creative differences", Davidson returned to work there in 2012 - the year after his establishment closed, having been fined by authorities to the tune of £3,000 for having some 24 electrical faults.  

His colleagues describe him as "a bit mad", which might explain why his is the only game in history to be named after a parasitic intestinal infection.
ALIEN BREED
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Unofficially the Aliens game that everyone always wanted, Team 17's Alien Breed was clearly a Gauntlet clone, but with the added tension of taking place in a space station infested with xenomorphs who appeared to be shuffling towards you for a bit of a cuddle.

At the time, Team 17 boss Martin Brown was reportedly frustrated that many Amiga games required a £30 RAM expansion. Attempts to load the three-disk Alien Breed directly from its second disk (disk one contained an introductory animation) promoted an audible laugh, and the on-screen message "Sorry - Alien Breed requires a minimum of 1 Megabyte RAM. 512K expansions are available from all good Amiga dealers".

Way to stick it to 'em, Brownie!
SENSIBLE SOCCER
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Known to everyone who played it as "Sensi" (short for "Sensington"), Sensible Soccer might not have been the prettiest football game ever released, but its speed and economy ensured that players were addicted. By keeping the ball "stuck" to the player's foot - arguably its biggest innovation - it kept the gameplay smooth and fast. Sequels and ports followed, with Sensible World of Soccer more or less perfecting the formula.

Alas, while Sensible Software had dominated the 16-bit home computer game scene, that success never really translated to consoles. 

Sensible's Jon Hare is reportedly working on a spiritual successor, entitled Sociable Soccer - which begun life as a failed Kickstarter project. Reportedly, the game will still be released later this year for smartphones and PC.

Also: Jon Hare is a real man, and not a Warner Bros. cartoon character who once appeared in a series of shorts as a rival to Bugs Bunny.
SYNDICATE
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Very much of its time, Syndicate was a cyberpunk-themed tactical shooter, with the player controlling a squad of four cyborg operatives in their attempts to assassinate the heads of a rival mega corporation. Resource management elements - the taxation of areas controlled by your corporation - would lead to the development of new weapons and equipment. 

A testament to the generation of games which worked best with a mouse and keyboard, something was lost in its later translation to consoles. Though the 3DO version was pretty good.

Also, given that we are now living in the dystopian future that the game predicted, it's difficult to know how it would be received today.
JIMMY WHITE'S WHIRLWIND SNOOKER
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An ability to play pool or snooker is just one off the vital life skills I lack. Indeed, I'm so bad at it that I once lost my temper with a woman in a pub, who was laughing at me because she assumed my inability to pot a ball was down to me being drunk.

"He's so drunk," I overheard her muttering to a friend.

"I'm not drunk," I snapped. "I just can't play, alright?" 

That told her.

However... I was quite good at Jimmy White's Whirlwind Snooker, a game best remembered for its 3D visuals, and the way a ball woul mock you if you took too long to take a shot. Yes, I had a go at that as well.

Extract the Michael out of me, would you...?
FROM THE ARCHIVE:
13 IMAGES THAT EVERY AMIGA OWNER WILL INSTANTLY RECOGNISE!
​
10 VINTAGE COMPUTER ADS
10 THINGS THAT LOOK LIKE THE COMMODORE LOGO
67 Comments
David Heslop
2/5/2017 11:14:00 am

Yay! As an Amiga fanboy, I was frequently miffed at Digi back in the day for being so mean to my chosen faith. Obviously it was a machine on its hind legs, and history has given me perspective, so I forgive Mr B.

This is a really, really good list. Weirdly, I think titles like Chaos Engine - which was huge on its release - seem to have slipped off the cultural radar. RoboCod remains my favourite platformer of all time - yes, more than Mario, deal with it - and yet is a weird after-thought for most people. And no one talks about Jimmy White anymore either.

I think, personally, I would pick SWOS over Sensi and Lemmings 2 over the first game (more variety and a more flexible structure made it more fun to play for me). And I loved Alien Breed: Tower Assault, which had a slightly more open-world feel to it. But overall, yeah, I can't disagree too much with any of this. Ten fantastic games.

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Chris
4/5/2017 09:50:02 am

Yeah, Lemmings 2 I really enjoyed, the variety of different skills (even though a lot of them were just tribe-specific variants of the normal ones) and the 2D levels, along with the fact if you got stuck you could piss off back to help one of the other tribes and come back later, made it a much better game. The original Lemmings was a classic though, and the Amiga version had an interesting two-player mode which I don't think appeared on any other platform!

I'd also replace Worms with Worms: Director's Cut.

But as you say, no real complaints with this list.

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Clive peppard
2/5/2017 11:19:12 am

Quality listicle here biff. I'd have speedball 2 and north & south on mine. Ooh and elite. Other than that I firmly concur they were the good uns

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Kara Van Park
2/5/2017 11:20:51 am

Wot, no Championship Manager?

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Mr Biffo
2/5/2017 12:08:03 pm

It came VERY close...

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Bruce Flagpole
2/5/2017 11:21:33 am

I'm getting retro pangs from this! Great list. I was never big into overhead shooters, so chaso engine and alien breed wouldn't be on my list, but can't really disagree with it in general.
Such a shame that the likes of Sensi and Cannon Fodder have never quite managed to be 'modernised' while still retaining that classic sense of fun and immediacy - fingers crossed that Sociable Soccer might do it.

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Biscuits
2/5/2017 11:29:39 am

Worms beta was called Total Wormage. How do I know this? I saw the creator playing it on 'Bad Influence', the ITV Andy Crane video games vehicle that had unrelated radical dinosaurs in its opening credits

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Biscuits
2/5/2017 11:38:05 am

Worms, Lemmings and Robocod are 3 of my all time faves. It was a good time to be a kid, with the deluge of wacky cartoon characters everywhere

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Dino Dini's Flange
2/5/2017 11:42:13 am

Why no Kick Off 2?

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Dino dinini
2/5/2017 11:49:47 am

Fuck off!

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Steve
2/5/2017 11:57:14 am

Super Skidmarks, Base Jumpers and Ruff 'n' Tumble would surely have been included were this a top 13. Cracking list

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Paul
2/5/2017 12:19:34 pm

The only contact with Amigas was at university, where they had a load in the computer suite to teach basic computer animation. I have no idea what software we used now, but it did allow some fairly funky things to be done. It also introduced me to the wonderfully named HAM screen mode.

We also had some massive Amigas as well which the model making course seemed to be using to render “24 bit graphics” of mostly teapots.

Also, Amigas were used to render the spaceships in the first series of Babylon 5.

And that is all I know about that machine. We never played any games on them. We weren’t allowed to.

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Chinny
2/5/2017 12:45:01 pm

You missed the bit where The Star described Campbell as "spotty". Also, IIRC, they chased the flat topped one into the Future offices Roger Cook style.

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JazzyWif
2/5/2017 12:51:02 pm

Why no Kick Off 2, Biffo?

I'm messing with your bins tonight for that shocking ommision.

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Aleczandah
2/5/2017 01:05:56 pm

Shame there's no Benefactor. DICE need to drop making endless Battlefields and realise what solid gold they have in their archives.

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RoboJamie
2/5/2017 01:20:28 pm

Great list. SuperCars 2 and Pinball Fantasies would be on mine, at the expense of possibly Worms and RoboCod. Not because Worms was a bad game, but I'd moved onto the PC by that point so I don’t think of it as being on my Amiga.

RoboCod brings back memories of the short-lived UK games-magazine-on-a-VHS-tape 'Click'. I bought the first issue and must've watched that video twenty times, memorising the tunes and clips for each game. I remember them covering Heimdall, Robocod, Exile, some Magnetic Scrolls adventure game, hell they even reviewed the ‘AMOS’ programming language if I remember correctly. It was pure joy for me, but then the following month they doubled the price for the 2nd issue (£5 up to £10) and it was well out of my pocket money range.

Speaking of which Paul, I'm hoping a Biffovision-esque parody of 'Click' is on your YouTube channel to-do list. Think there would be some ripe pickings there. Well, you’d get one viewer at least. (hint: ME!)

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Oliver Ronns
2/5/2017 03:12:24 pm

I had that, it was ace. Was one of the guys from that now in Eastenders? That ginger fella.
I used to see him in other stuff, and deduced they must have all been actors. I was always convinced it was him, but lost my tape and could never verify myself.

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RoboJamie
2/5/2017 04:06:23 pm

Yeah, it is that guy. I've found out since I posted that comment that (a) they only made 2 issues of Click, (b) they are both on YouTube and (c) it was pretty terrible.

Linky: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1e1gVA6YjII

Panama Joe
2/5/2017 01:32:19 pm

I never owned an Amiga but played on one belonging to some cousins. It was a fantastic machine and I still longed to have one even after I got a Megadrive. Such a diverse selection of games available for it, although it struggled to handle certain genres where a joystick with multiple buttons was needed. Street Fighter 2 with a one button joystick sacrificed a lot.
These top 10 would be very close to my own. I'd perhaps drop Chaos Engine for Flashback.

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PC MasturRace link
2/5/2017 01:34:27 pm

Tsk, Syndicate was a PC game, and the Amiga version a mere port. You might as well have added it to a SNES games top 10 list.

You can tell by the gloriously detailed, beautifully hand-dithered 16-colour graphics of the true original, set up like that so the game could use the rarely-seen high resolution mode of the old standard VGA format.

In fact, that's it there since you've used a PC screenshot, lifted from the wikipedia page. The Amiga version looked like this:
http://syndicate.lubiki.pl/downloads/synd_pictures/synd_amiga_ingame_aim_hq.png

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Im Not Here
3/5/2017 01:32:36 am

They worked on them at the same time, although eventually putting more effort into the PC version when they realised they needed the extra power to do what they really wanted.

Never seen anywhere list it as a PC game, always see it listed as being a PC+Amiga game then ported to other systems.

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Voodoo76
3/5/2017 10:12:20 am

Oh good grief, arguing over 25yr old games. "Er actually the games are 27yrs old" or whatever. I don't care, get over it.

PC MasturRace link
3/5/2017 10:29:39 am

There was an article in Edge about it's development back in the day. Actually, it might have been in Super Play, because they were talking about the SNES port...

Actually I've found the Super Play article:
https://archive.org/stream/Superplay_Issue_22_1994-08_Future_Publishing_GB#page/n25/mode/2up

which is suprisingly in-depth, compared to what you see from devs today.

But it doesn't mention the thing I was on about (although it does say the PC version is the one the guy was porting from), so there might have been another article in Edge before that.


Anyway, to cut a long story short, the Amiga version is a much closer port than the console versions were, but the MS-DOS one was the lead platform at the time of release.

Kelvin Green link
3/5/2017 05:55:54 pm

At the risk of drawing the ire of Voodoo76, the Amiga version of Syndicate is indeed a port but it was developed at the same time as the PC original; the PC manual lists the Amiga programmer in the credits.

You could call it a 0th generation port, I suppose.

Spiney O'Sullivan
2/5/2017 01:57:41 pm

Robocod is an insanely large game. I had it on the Megadrive, and it was just so long you weren't likely to complete it without using the EARTH cheat right at the start of the game. If I remember right, it didn't have battery backup or passwords, so Game Over was particularly frustrating.

That and the level select cheats to Sonic 1 and Sonic 3D are emblazoned into my brain.

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Euphemia
2/5/2017 02:42:03 pm

And not a mention of Babylon 5 ... ? I salute you, sir.

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Wet Ham
2/5/2017 03:40:39 pm

I bought an Amiga off my friend when I was a teenager and spent a glorious year playing either Microprose Grand Prix or Dino Dini's Goal, before one day the Amiga fell off my bed and became deeply erratic after that - regularly it failed to load games properly.

It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times.

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Iain Shrimpton
2/5/2017 04:05:10 pm

I managed to witness, live and first hand, the crushing impact of the release day of Rise of the Robots on the 'Miggy'.
My best mate a college (Mark Treehorn) wouldn't stop going on about it for months. I was a SNES owner at the time and after playing SF2 all summer I could tell it was going to be awful.

Anyway, cue the big day and a few of us had been invited round his house to celebrate the occasion with a tournament. This initially started quite well, despite the game being exactly as bigger turd as expected, Mark put a brave face on it and was happily in denial.

But as the afternoon wore on, he began to crumble. The devastating disappointment was written clearly across his beetroot coloured face.
After three hours of no fun whatsoever, and my repeated questioning of if this was the full game, and if he was hot or something.

He pulled the joystick he was using (guests were on keyboard) so hard it came flying off his tv unit onto his Mega Drive sitting directly underneath. This caused fatal damage to both, causing his face to go yet another shade redder. He stormed out the room and down the stairs. We watched him from his own bedroom window as he tore round his back garden swing his arms at anything and everything, haymaker style. Until he eventually tried to kick the tennis ball on a string on his swingball set. His furious, poorly aimed kick administered only a glancing blow. Causing said tennis ball to wrap itself around his leg sending him straight to the floor on his back and pulling the swingball set down on top of him. At this point he burst into tears.

That was probably the greatest day of my life, and I once won Channel 5's Gadget Show giveaway.

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RoboJamie
2/5/2017 04:41:05 pm

Great story.

Seriously with the Gadget Show win? That one worth 10s of £k?

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Chinny
2/5/2017 05:10:44 pm

BEST STORY EVER! Biffo needs to close this site now as its all downhill from here,

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Oliver Wright
2/5/2017 05:40:23 pm

This story has it all. I literally laughed out loud on the train like a madman at it.

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Mark Treehorn
2/5/2017 07:34:30 pm

I can't see what's so funny about it, seems like rather a sad story.

David W
2/5/2017 06:56:09 pm

I can handle frustration-fuelled property damage and swingball injuries, but being hyped for Rise Of The Robots? That's just tragic.

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Matty
2/5/2017 08:14:22 pm

A friend of mine also stumped-up the £45-odd that Rise Of The Robots cost for the Amiga version, sensibly doing so before all the magazines (with a few infamous exceptions) could reveal what a steaming hot log it was. He maintained it was "quite good" when it was clear within ten minutes that it was anything but and, as far as I know, continues to argue that it "wasn't that bad" to this day.

£45!

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Im Not Here
3/5/2017 02:16:29 am

I got it after knowing it was bad, as it was being sold off in a games shop for £3 boxed with poster. Thought it might be worth collecting, just for the novelty, but probably wasnt.

Mr Biffo
2/5/2017 08:49:08 pm

Beautiful.

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A kid called Dave
3/5/2017 04:09:18 pm

Your "best mate" lol.

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Spiney O'Sullivan
2/5/2017 05:13:29 pm

Also, no mention of Escape from the Planet of the Robot Monsters?

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wyse
3/5/2017 09:15:09 am

Boy, what a game. Only had this for the ST though. My mate had a 'Miga but I was too young to really discern the difference between the machines and it's only as I've got older that I realised that:

a. there was some kind of petty rivalry between owners
b. the Amiga was objectively better

I just know he had an almost completely different set of games, so in my eyes, our systems complemented each other beautifully and we spent many a glorious summers day crouched around a tiny little monitor playing game after game.

It all changed when I got a x386 and wolfenstein 3d, but I look back on the pre-PC home computer gaming period most fondly of all. He stuck out with his Amiga for quite a while longer, and I just remember him having worse versions of eye of the beholder, dune 2 & syndicate etc, and we drifted away as we went to different secondary schools :*(

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Kelvin Green link
2/5/2017 05:24:34 pm

That's not a bad list for an Amiga-hating mutant like you BIffo! I'd stick Hired Guns, Pinball Fantasies, and Turrican in there somewhere, too.

A book about the Bitmap Brothers came out last year; it's quite good and does go into the demise of the company a little, although it's a bit too reverent to dig into the proper juicy bits.

They were the rock stars of the gaming world so, like proper rock stars, everything collapsed. The company technically still exists under the control of one of the original Btimaps, but it ports the old games to smartphones and the like, rather than doing anything new. I think one of the other founding members went off and runs Sony Computer Entertainment Europe now.

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Dave Reward
2/5/2017 05:30:13 pm

In early December 89 my dad was an insurance salesman, the old fashion type that would call at your house after tea,well they had an incentive based reward scheme based on how many policies they sold,my dad did OK and won(he says earned) an amiga with what felt like 100 games (one of those starter pack type of things),I believe the first prize was a week in corfu. Well as you can imagine my brothers and I were very excited as we only had a speccy between us but my dad being the kind soul he is gave it to my nephew. My nephew had lost his mum earlier in the year so he thought that might help him some what,and you know what,when we visited on Christmas day that year I really think that computer really did make his day,he never mentioned his dead mum once.

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Urine James
2/5/2017 06:41:38 pm

This article should have been just a blank page.

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Amiga Fan
2/5/2017 06:57:20 pm

Urine trouble now.

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ChorltonWheelie
2/5/2017 07:23:37 pm

Hmmm, nice list.
Maybe time to take your name off MY list.

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Raybies
3/5/2017 10:24:37 pm

*crosses Mr Biffo off a list*
*applies lipstick*

Answers on a postcard folks!

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bicks
2/5/2017 07:39:16 pm

Great comments section today

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Fancy Pants
2/5/2017 07:41:27 pm

I sent a review of Kick Off on the Amiga to FX / Oracle. And they "printed" it! Although they replaced the word "mental" with the word "crazy". Political correctness gone mad.

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Chris Dyson
2/5/2017 08:30:50 pm

No Wizzball? You really are worse than Hitler. Another Jon Hare classic.

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Darrel
2/5/2017 09:32:24 pm

Just to reiterate my twitter message really (that was rudely accused of being sarcastic by the way) that this must have been a right bastard to put together due to the huge amount of software released. I certainly couldn't do it, be it down to having too many favourites or too much LSD in my youth has mashed my memory beyond usefulness.

But, I would have at least shoehorned in SWIV, Speedball 2 and championship manager.

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Monkey Head
5/5/2017 04:34:13 pm

Speedball 2 is perhaps my favourite game ever. I can't count how many times I just forgot to go to bed through playing it then had to go to school with having had no sleep. Totally worth it.
Xenon 2 was great and the Bomb the Bass soundtrack me it even better.

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Scott C
2/5/2017 09:33:48 pm

Even though my parents weren't rich enough to buy me an Amiga, I've played most of those games, and they were indeed great!

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Skanker Fitzgerald
2/5/2017 09:41:32 pm

I remember seeing my very first (albeit very badly digitised) vagina during a game of Cover Girl Strip Poker on the Amiga. My mates and I were around 10 years old at the time and smuggled the disk out of a kindly neighbour's lending library in-between pirate copies of PGA Tour Golf and Blood Money.

As I knew how to play Pontoon and Rummy, the decision was made for me to be put in charge of the "pokery" and do my best to display a lady's rudey bits on the 12" portable TV. It must have taken at least two hours to complete the striptease and finally unearth the "woman's willy", by which time we were so delighted/relieved my friend called his Mum upstairs to his bedroom to boast and bring our triumph to a wider audience.

Unfortunately, his Mum told my Mum what we'd been up to and I had to describe to my Mum, in one of the most excruciating, embarrassing moments of my life, exactly what I'd seen on the screen. She banned me from going over to said friend's house for weeks, but I had the last laugh when, a few months later, his parents had Sky installed and would often go out on Friday nights, leaving a load of pre-pubescent boys to "look after the house", which basically consisted of doing nothing but sitting in front of RTL und SAT1 and ogling German ladies' boobies and fannies on a crystal-clear, 24-inch screen.

Take that, Mum!

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wyse
3/5/2017 09:18:26 am

My dad had a disk that I wasn't to use that I believe had some form of strip poker on it. I was terrified of being caught, so I didn't get a proper glimpse of a womans charms until a Duke Nukem 3d penthouse mod that was accidentally included in some cover disk compilation. I knew that level inside and out.

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RoboJamie
3/5/2017 09:42:38 am

Ha! I once took a risk and bought 2 Public Domain disks from the XXX Over 18 category. I didn’t fancy playing a poker game as I didn’t know how to play, so I selected one from the ‘slideshow’ section, and then saw that one was marked as being in German. Jackpot! We all knew germans were the muckiest.

I couldn't wait until these disks turned up, I ran home from school and checked the mail before anyone else each day. It was half-anticipation, and half paranoia that the PD seller rejected my payment and wrote a stern letter to my parents. Eventually the package containing the precious floppies arrived. I stealthily removed them from that day's pile of mail and hid them upstairs under my pillow before my parents got home.

That evening I went through the motions of eating dinner and watching TV with the family, but never taking my mind off the precious disks under my pillow for a second. The night couldn’t finish quick enough, and was relieved when my parents finally signalled they were going to bed. Once I was sure they were in their bedroom with lights off, I crept downstairs and tried the first of the disks.

It was called 'Die Fickinger', and other than being in the XXX category I had no idea what it was. I slid the disk in and the screen lit up. I was presented with cartoons of Vikings (drawn Asterix-style) doing normal viking things like sailing boats, and chasing women, but each Viking had a massive cartoon knobs sticking out 4 feet in front of him. Pages and pages of this.

Three weeks of teenage anticipation and i'm sitting in a dark room staring at a 90s, german version of male hentia. Blue balls doesn't even begin to describe it. And then, from behind, inevitably, I heard the door swing open. My dad walked in and spied me in the dark corner of the room, lit from the TV screen. Staring at 2 cartoon vikings sword-fighting each other with their massive cocks.

Took a bit of explaining, that one.

Reply
Biscuits
3/5/2017 10:18:08 am

hahahahah wicked. I really, really want to see that disc. I can't imagine why it exists.

My German friend had a book called 'Asterwix' (with 'wix' meaning 'wank' apparently). It also featured cartoon vikings with their knobs out.

Do you still have the disc?

Dr Budd Buttocks, MD
3/5/2017 04:26:39 pm

I also have the Amiga to thank for my first exposure to hardcore pornography at around the age of 12 - in the form of tiny, grainy monochrome video clips on a disk called "Party Games" where you had to waggle the joystick to see some comically fast shagging.

My brother got the disk from one of his mates. But I was the lucky one who had to tell my dad what it was when he saw the disk lying on the table. I saw him playing it later.

Fat Angus
3/5/2017 12:25:26 am

This is actually a pleasantly surprisingly good Top 10 (no offenc Biffster). Robocod is a particularly great shout. I would happily play 2 player Lemmings or multiplayer Worms for another several decades if my applicable mates were still around :(

KO2 over SWOS though obv. And I'd have Civilisation AGA and Frontier in there too. And honourable mentions - esp for multiplayer - Lotus 2, Stunt Car Racer, Gravity Force 2.

Some other excellent picks above, including Super Cars 2, SWIV and Turrican. I need to get back into emulators actually.

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Im Not Here
3/5/2017 02:13:58 am

Not a popular opinion but I preferred Brutal Sports Football over Speedball 2 for a two player sports game (and 1 player as well).

I also preferred Pinball Dreams to Pinball Fantasies, which also seems to be an unpopular opinion. I had both and spent a lot more hours on the wild west and nightmare stages (can’t remember the actual names) on pinball dreams.

Not included in this list that I think are worth a mention would be Wings (should be in any top 10), Bubba 'n' Stix, Walker, Simon the Sorcerer, Beneath a Steel Sky, Stunt Car Racer, Another World+Flashback . . . and I am sure I have forgot plenty more.

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Chris
4/5/2017 10:05:42 am

I preferred Pinball Fantasies.... that was until I got Slam Tilt. Man, that game is superb! It's the best pinball game I've played on any platform (although the one on the 3DS, which I've temporarily forgotten the name of, comes close). It was released rather late in the Amiga's life, and I ended up buying it from a company which I later found out was alledged to be involved in illegal activities.

Imagine that: An Amiga mail order games retailer as the legal front of a criminal organisation.

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Im Not Here
5/5/2017 06:34:54 pm

Not really related to what you said, but you did remind me that when my dad would sometimes get amiga software "cheaper" (ill just call it that), it was delivered my a policeman, in uniform a lot of times, whos son was making them.

It wasnt often, games were pretty cheap for the Amiga mostly, but some software could be pretty pricey.

Chris
6/5/2017 12:13:45 pm

One of my dad's copper mates came round and either provided or took copies of some of our games on at least one occasion.

Piracy isn't a proper crime, apparently.

Nick
3/5/2017 12:23:21 pm

After reading the comments, Amiga owners certainly have the best anecdotes. I wish I had one now.

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Dr. Budd Buttocks, MD
3/5/2017 02:49:44 pm

Oh man.

Being a diehard Amiga user and Digi fan caused me no end of emotional turmoil. I'm sure I even had a couple of letters printed where I was trying my very best to sound reasonable, but probably still came across as a blinkered fanboy.

It's easy to look back today and see why in the mid 90s it was viewed as the weird cousin in amongst the PC and console games. But back then, that sense of injustice as Commodore brainfarted themselves to death, and everyone queued up to abandon and shun it... it rankled so badly that I still feel a little bit of that bitterness today.

Part of me wants to say I feel mildly ashamed for just caring so much about a computer platform, but the whole landscape of computers and gaming was really quite different back then, especially in the UK bubble, where the last vestiges of the 80s cottage industries were starting to shrivel up. It wasn't just blind loyalty or tribalism, it was something more.

Anyway, I could go on and on. Can't disagree with any of the top 10.

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Nicholas and Taylor
3/5/2017 10:50:26 pm

I think I must have been in love with my Amiga in my teenage years, and probably still am. Yet still, any Amiga bashing within each edition of Digitiser went straight over my head. Either that, or I just took it to be humourous, honest or maybe I didn't need other people to love my Amiga too. In fact, I distinctly remember there was an Amiga chart featured in Digitiser well after the world decided a computer isn't a proper computer unless it can play a smooth game of Doom. I consider that going beyond the call of duty. The extra mile.

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Kelvin Green link
3/5/2017 11:03:26 pm

I wasn't in at the time, but apparently the Virgin Media man -- other disappointing cable TV services are available -- got all teary eyed and nostalgic when he came around to fix the broadband and spotted my Amiga 1200 next to my TV.

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Col. Asdasd
6/5/2017 09:52:23 am

Missed opportunity to use a picture of a Commodore 64 as the header image, Biffster.

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Jim B
9/10/2019 09:22:35 am

Lovely personal list. But can't believe you don't like Sensi's graphics. Even as a 10 year old I appreciated the beauty of Sensi's aesthetics. Still looks great now.

Reply



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