AGA games: Is it worth getting an A1200?

[sdyates]

I understand what AGA is and how it is better than ECS.

There, that being said, are there enough AGA games and are they good enough to justify getting an A1200?

Plus, most of the a1200s I find are PAL based. Does anyone know a good place to get them in NTSC. Paying in C$ or US$ is much better than Euros and pounds

[Flashlab]

If you just want upgrade for AGA games I think it's not really worth the trouble...

Especially since you have a 2000 and 3000!

[motorollin]

I suppose the question really is, "are there any AGA games you want to play, which do not have acceptable ECS equivalents?". And if there are, do you want to play them badly enough to buy an A1200 on which to play them?

--
moto

[sdyates]

That's just it, never seen any AGA games.

Is it just the colour depth that is better in these games, or are they played in a higher resolution?

I guess what I am looking for here is testimonials.

[amiga_3k]

I've not come across an AGA game that ran at a higher resolution than its ECS counterpart. Remember that most of the games were written to be playable on the domestic TV-set.

However... if you can get an A1200 for a box of beer or a nice bouquet of flowers (or just at a tempting price) there's nothing to loose. Afterall there's loads of ways you can still run the old games on it and it gives access to nice upgrades.

For me, Pinball Illusions was a reason to start bidding on an A4000T a few years ago (actually, that's 6 years ago)... which I won. :-)

[Wayne]

sydates,

of course you must get an A1200 or A4000
some idiots here says no cause Im sure they haven't one but

OCS and ECS games run at 300x200 NTSC or 320x256 PAL and 16 or 32 colours..depends of the authors of the game

AGA games mostly run at identical resolution but at 256 colours and of course the chipset have more chip memory for special effects like coloured scrolls and paralax

some AGA games are exclusives like Aladdin or Lion king or Road kill,Alien breed 3d,and many others (doesn't exists an ECS version)

and some AGA games have the clone for ECS chipset..which of course ECS version have less colours and effects like Trolls,Soccer kid,Zool 1 & 2,Fire and ice,Bubble and Squeak

and for the PAL and NTSC problem that you think...don't worry cause all A1200 are multinorm PAL/NTSC automatic
however some A1200 boot by default on NTSC and others by default on PAL
and of course all games are compatibles



bye, Laser

[Homer]

Yep, I reckon its worth getting an A1200 (at the right price). Its so easy to expand if you want to add things to it, and it probably already does what you want. IDE, PCMCIA, clockport  interfaces mean you can make what you want.  :-D

[Flashlab]

Sigh... allow this "idiot" to explain. As my sig states I have an A4000, which is, my DEAR Laser, an AGA machine.

It's just my OPINION that getting a 1200 solely for playing a very few games that require AGA is a bit silly. There are really very few games that run on a vanilla 1200 that don't run on 500. Most AGA games even have OCS/ECS versions that are almost the same except for graphics with fewer colours.

And Laser, you really need to learn some manners. Is this the way you talk to family and friends too?

"Hey idiot! Pass me drink!!"

[Rob]

@sdyates

A few AGA only games that spring to mind are Bloodnet, RoadKill, Banshee, James Pond 3, Guardian and Slamtitlt pinball.  Also most the FPS games that appeared were AGA only.  I'm sure you can find quite a few more if you look.

Most AGA versions simply featured more colours than their ECS counterparts.  Some of the pinball games featured a high res view so you could see more of the table and super Skidmarks also had a high res mode.

As for wether it's worth getting an A1200, then that depends on how cheap you can get one.  Also if your OCS/ECS amiga doesn't have a hardrive it is a lot easier to add one to an A1200.

If you add a hardrive you can use WHDload and JST to install and run your games from hard drive.  You can probably find installers for all of your existing games and most legal download sites have HD installed availble along side ADF versions.

Also with an hard drive you can easily write the legal ADF games back to floppy too.

If you like the idea of running games from hard drive you will need some extra fastram too.

[Hyperspeed]

Super Stardust & Kid Chaos!

Must Buy!

[leirbag28]

@sdyates


I can let you answer your own question:

What is your favorite Video Game in the whole world? (no matter the system)

ok now.......imagine that game was only on the Amiga 1200............would you pay $185 for a plain NTSC A1200?


Ok now.......I got one word for you:   SLAM TILT....Nuff Said!



.............ok all joking aside........seriosly...Slam Tilt Pinball is a darn fine game and really worth getting an A1200 alone for.....especially if you turn it into an arcade machine or simply play with friends........that increases the fun 10 fold!

oh boy.......wait till you try SUPER StarDust...if you thought StarDust for ECS looked good..try this!

Now that also said............really...no kidding..an A1200 comes with 2mb Chip and a 68020..........so immediately after pulling it out of the box.........you will have utter enjoyment in the Speed of the OS and other applications compared to a 7mhz machine...especially if your machine is an A500 or A2000.

ontop of that....the A1200 is at the top of Amiga's to own if you could only have one Amiga.

also ECS compatibility is absolutely close to no problem at all.  Just get WHDload and you got yourself an ECS and AGA Amiga all in one.

there probably like 3 games in existence that you cant run on an A1200.....that said....you can probably get the game to run with Degrader or some other tool.

Also....very Important: DO NOT get a PAL Amiga if your in USA. unless you love Black and White alot.

Some people dont understand that you probably wont be getting a gfx card or will be using a VGA monitor, which means you will be using a TV or RGB monitor..........and trust me.......there is hardly any monitors in USA made by Commodore that Run PAL correctly (I have had almost all of them).....yes they will display it in color..but you will still see some lines cut off..........unless you get a Philips TV or a Magnavox RGB monitor that was made for Amiga. Its possible one model of the Commodore Monitors can do this too..and thats because it was made by Philips.

You will be running alot of games in PAL unfortunately....because some absolutely require PAL or will not work such as:

Most Team17 Games
All ClickBOOM games
SlamTilt
Pinball Illusions

.........  those alone are enought to tick me off.

ECS machines are still awesome........but you will never ever go back to them if you try AGA.....not even to the Sadly overhyped A3000.

[Tomas]

It's just my OPINION that getting a 1200 solely for playing a very few games that require AGA is a bit silly.

Well, the real question is wether he already has an OCS/ECS amiga. If not, then i dont see the point in getting a older one as a standard a1200 is usually not much more expensive than a a500. You can also play most old ocs/ecs games in the a1200 with the usage of whdload and at the same time you can also play the newer aga games.

[Hyperspeed]

Leirbag28: ClickBOOM's Quake and Napalm both have screenmode requestors and are retargettable!

Hey those rotating 3D tunnels in Super Stardust will still amaze - they even scroll horizontally if I remember correct!

What I'm curious about though is Workbench compatibility. I always thought Workbench 3.0 and above needed AGA for things like Mode Promotion and No Flicker?

[marcfrick2112]

@Hyperspeed: IIRC 'No Flicker' screenmodes require AGA, for sure,
Can't remember about Mode Promotion...seem to recall an
option for it under WB3.1

-Edit- Just ckecked my OS3.1 Workbench book....
Both Mode Promotion and NoFlicker modes require AGA

As for getting a 1200 just for games...I probably couldn't justify
it, though there are many good games for AGA, as mentioned.

If you can add a CD-Rom, then it gets better, IMHO. I installed
James Pond 3 from my CD using WHDLoad...very cool
A1200's are nice, with 'Degraders' you can run far more games
than on an ECS machine....
If you start getting into other areas, graphics, demos, etc. you
will really value AGA...
I don't actually own any ECS machines anymore....

2x1200, 1x1200T/060, 1xA4000/040, 1xCD32...

[HellCoder]

Although you mentioned AGA for games, if you look beyond the games and like the demo scene than you should definitely get it!