Well, my father purchased the A500 Batman pack as a family Christmas present in 1988. I recall being a little disappointed - 'What is this? This isn't a Spectrum 128k?!' - I thought to myself at the time.
Unfortunately, the included modulator did not function, meaning my sister and I had to be content with typing our names as quickly as possible on a disconnected A500 over Christmas and Boxing day. The day after, I believe, my family went into Norwich city centre to 'One Step Beyond' (an independent computer store that is still going strong today), replaced the faulty modulator and we eventually returned home.
I seem to recall 'The Very First English Version' disk being inserted early on, with pictures of different Amiga accessories, accompanied with the line 'Get the best!' - rather ironic given that one of the promoted products was the very same A520 modulator that was faulty!
Anyway, I am almost certain that the first real game we played together was 'Batman The Movie' - a rather poor movie tie-in, released by Ocean. The Amiga was connected to the family's colour television in the living room, with the audio hooked up to my father's large Rotel amp and speakers. Wow, the title music was just incredible for a seven year old lad - it even had sampled speech from the film ("Who are you?", "I'm Batman!").
After this, my father insisted on playing 'Interceptor' for a little while, again the music and graphics were incredible - I still remember the sound of the afterburners rumbling through my fathers stereo.
Later on that day, my elder sister and I took turns playing 'The New Zealand' story, another classic platformer, yet devilishly hard for a small child.
I have other memories playing with the Workbench 1.3 'Say' speech program, and of course Deluxe Paint II - I would gaze for hours at a black and white TV, fascinated by the symmetry tool.
The first game I actually purchased however, was not for a little while later - 'Advanced Ski Simulator', a budget release by Codemasters for 4.99GBP. Great title screen music and scrolling text, even if the game itself was far too difficult to be enjoyable.
Ah, happy days!
Take care,
James
x
ps. I'm just thinking about these early games and how we managed to play them - I do not believe a joystick was included with the Batman pack, which rather begs the question how consumers would control the characters. At some point a friend of my fathers loaned him an old C64 joystick, and told him of the JAMMMMMM cheat for Batman. Goodness, this is truly nostalgic!
