Would like an opinion from US and AU members

[Amiga_Nut]

See  here in the UK just about every blockbuster of a technically stunning arcade game was done really badly on the Amiga here in the UK (outrun, chase hq, robocop, gauntlet) with the exception of very technically simple games like Bubble Bobble/Rainbow Islands etc.

It is even more disgusting that Gauntlet 1 on the Atari ST is so far and away superior to Gauntlet 2 on the Amiga which was pathetic. And if you compare the identical game engine of say Lotus Turbo Challenge 2 and compare it to what Outrun/Turbo Outrun/Powerdrift look like you can really get an understanding that it wasn't the machines fault. Hell Space Harrier should have looked identical to the arcade but they skimped on such silly things as the number of colours on the floor....which the ST version has more than 2 colours just like the arcade.

Was it this bad across the pond? I know the US version of Afterburner was much much better than the UK version. The best software seamed to be from home grown ideas for people this side of the pond.

And Street Fighter...dear god what a travesty!!

[Cammy]

Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers (both OCS and AGA versions) aren't too bad. The gameplay is perfect, the sound is good enough too. Shame about the graphics, they look worse than the original.

Hey, at least Golden Axe got an awesome Amiga port!

Apart from Afterburner and Teenage Mutant Ninja/Hero Turtles, Amiga didn't get too many different versions of the same game. TMNT/TMHT is interesting though, we got the US TMNT version here in Australia, when I found out the UK version was a totally different port of the same game I was intrigued, the UK version played worse but had much nicer pixel art. I still like both versions more than the NES original though.

[Damion]

IMHO most of the arcade conversions were terrible. I must be picky, but even games like Toki ( generally considered to be a good port) look awful to me. There were maybe a few exceptions, RodLand for example was pretty decent.

The best software seamed to be from home grown ideas for people this side of the pond.

Can't say I disagree there... games like Lionheart/Alien Breed/Lotus/etc... leagues above any of the arcade conversions.

[Amiga_Nut]

I dunno about Golden Axe, quite a simple game technically and they could have used EHB mode to make it as nice as the Genesis/Megadrive version I thought but it's not bad.

I think most software houses here were in such a rush to get the licence and convert it they didn't care much for helping get the best possible product.

For example in Gauntlet 2 they recorded the sound of the arcade intro on tape and resampled it with hiss and had to do the graphics by hand. In Japan on the Sharp x68000 Konami/Capcom/Sega used their original actual graphics and the games instantly looked much better when converted.

Mortal Kombat was interesting....could play it on the Super Nintendo with no blood or the almost as good version on Amiga/Megadrive WITH blood haha great days. Can't really moan about disk access on MK on Amiga....a hard drive wasn't that common or cheap for a games machine in those days.

edit: But yes Outrun/Turbo Outrun were mostly down to sloppy coding when compared to full screen full speed lightning fast Lotus II. MK 2 is amazingly good all things considered (can't blame Aklaim for the Amiga using Atari 2600 style 1 button joysticks really other than that issue it looks and sounds great)

[Amiga_Nut]

Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers (both OCS and AGA versions) aren't too bad. The gameplay is perfect, the sound is good enough too. Shame about the graphics, they look worse than the original.

Hey, at least Golden Axe got an awesome Amiga port!

Apart from Afterburner and Teenage Mutant Ninja/Hero Turtles, Amiga didn't get too many different versions of the same game. TMNT/TMHT is interesting though, we got the US TMNT version here in Australia, when I found out the UK version was a totally different port of the same game I was intrigued, the UK version played worse but had much nicer pixel art. I still like both versions more than the NES original though.

LoL you will probably slap me but I think SF2 (US Gold version) in the UK dropped a lot of frames...even the intro animation is worse than that of the 8bit PC-Engine and the floor isn't in the arcade kind of parallax...an effect most demo coders mastered on the Amiga in 1987

*runs*

Actually the CD32 Super SF2 version looks pretty damned good on youtube.

[x56h34]

OK, here are a few that immediately come to mind as good or really good ports:

Pang! (really good)
Toki (good)
Shadow Dancer (good)

[save2600]

I think most software houses here were in such a rush to get the licence and convert it they didn't care much for helping get the best possible product.

I totally agree with this assessment. Too bad as that hurt the platform immensely. But both R-Type's are great, Qix was really good, Arkanoid excellent, Operation Wolf great (most of the Taito conversions were excellent) and Golden Axe was better than 'good enough'.

The original games truly did seem to take the cake so to speak though.  SuperFrog is excellent. Pretty much anything by Psygnosis, Alien Breed, yadda. Driving games historically sucked no matter which computer they were on. Except for the top-down racers like MicroMachines, etc. To me and with very few exceptions (Virtua Racing & Pole Position come to mind), driving games weren't worth a dang until systems like the 3DO & PSX came out.

[Amiga_Nut]

Skidmarks was awesome, if it was made by Nintendo fans worldwide would have been frothing at the mouth and given Acid god like status....it still is one of the most fun racing games ever anyway and the Megadrive version looks worse which is nice. heh

[NioByte]

@x56h34

I can definately say that PANG was a very good port indeed. It is pretty close to the arcade original.

I think another good port was Snow Brothers (Snow Bros) (unfortunately it was never officially released on the Amiga).

You can get it off the AGTW (Amiga Games That Weren't). I think Ocean France possibly made some of the best Arcade Ports on the Amiga.

The Liquid Kids port also looks quite good. All of the sprites were traced off the Arcade version by-hand. I think the same was done for the other like Pang, Toki, etc. Shame Liquid Kids also was not officially released.

[SamuraiCrow]

I remember that I got the Final Fight for Amiga 500.  It didn't support the trapdoor memory and was therefore quite terrible.  The graphics did resemble the original but with a significant palette reduction.  The gameplay was awful and much easier to beat than the original ever was in the arcade.  Even the SNES version was truer to the original than the Amiga version and it (the SNES version) was only one player.

[motrucker]

I haven't seen many UK versions, but in general most arcade ports were horrible on the Amiga - and obviously not the machine's fault.
I can remember an odd one - GODs (one of my old favorites) on the Amiga was not as good as on the Sega Genesis (looked the same, but played MUCH slower on the Amiga)... But I digress.
There were some ports that were actually better on the C-64 than on the Amiga! Try to figure that one out (could it have been greed?)

[Amiga_Nut]

I remember in the early days UK software houses were openly admitting  they were hardly using the copper and blitter on Amiga versions and yet still charging 25% more than the ST version. Comments like that never helped anyone...they should have either done it properly or not done it not add 25% for re-compiling ST 68k ASM source files LOL

Although the  Amiga was not easy to get 100% knock your socks of code produced it was a very versatile machine....unlike things like Super Nintendo or Sharp x68000 which had very specific technology to help for specific areas of game design. Try finding a shootem up on the SNES that is arcade quality....not going to happen  despite the SNES being half a decade newer than the classic Irem/Konami horizontal shooters we all loved.

You could do an almost arcade perfect Gauntlet on the Amiga but you couldn't do Lotus II on the SNES etc  

[Pyromania]

Cammy is right, Super Street Fighter II is nice and Golden Axe was awesome on Amiga.