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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Gaming => Topic started by: 4ppleseed on February 23, 2008, 01:46:19 AM
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Hello, I'd like to get a list together of some more 'off the beaten track' Amiga releases. Games that are great but didn't quite get absorbed by the mainstream. This is potentially for an article for over here RacketBoy Hidden Gems (http://www.racketboy.com/guide/hidden-gems) depending on how the list comes out. So which games do you think should be on the list?
Post them here and I'll add them to the list :rtfm:
To get things started I'd say Base Jumpers is pretty fun for a platform mash-up and didn't seem to be picked up my the magazines at the time.
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Nuclear War never got the credit it deserved.
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Me and friends had a lot of fun with PD games.
Droidwars5(and its prequels) was a hit in my cycle,
how every battle was different and thrilling
because you never knew what would happen.
My brother says it is atleast 90 percent luck
but I like to think that the droids
I choose to beam into the arena at the right time
is a good strategy, but its really hard to determine
what can or will make a good strategy in this game.
one of my younger friends always beamed in crappy droids
because they were cheap,
while I beamed in sophisticated killer droids.
Often his strategy just collapsed
coz my droids blew them away, but sometimes he would get lucky and all my droids would get erased.
REALLY exciting.
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I always thought "Trolls" was under-rated.
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I agree that Nuclear War was under-rated. Another good game that didn't get it's share of the spotlight was Batman the Movie game from Ocean. That was the best movie conversion game ever
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Ruff n Tumble & Troddlers; both didnt seem to get a mention at release, both very good games.
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Captain Blood. Fly around space meeting aliens and learning to communicate with them, blowing up planets.
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Zany Golf!
Hehe... Although it was a port... had lots of fun playing, and you could have up to 8 players... pretty rare at the time!
:-D
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Turrican 2
oh, ehm, wait....
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This is great! Thanks for your suggestions so far.
When it comes to hidden gems you can say that certain games, although well respected now were kinda missed in their day. So for example you could argue that Apidya is a hidden gem because it was over shadowed by Project-X, Agony and a whole load of other earlier Amiga SHMUPS. I never saw it on the shelf in a box either and I'm pretty sure it never sold as many copies as it deserved to.
Slam Tilt is another good example. Released too late when most people had migrated to other systems and it was always going to be difficult to follow in the Pinball Dream/ Fantasies/ Illusions footsteps.
So taking that into consideration could you say game like Hired Guns, Benefactor and Wizkid could be considered hidden gems as they were overshadowed by Eye Of The Beholder and Lemmings?
I'll be checking out some of those PD games and will include a PD game in the final selection.
Sooooo... anymore for consideration? :idea:
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Terse wrote:
Nuclear War never got the credit it deserved.
Ahh yes! Happy memories of nuking neighbouring continents *contented smile*
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There was an early flight combat simulator, I'm spacing it on the actual name. You could work your way up to choosing the top performing plane, "Paper Airplane" for some weird reason. But it turned you loose against an opponent in a boxed space and you had to fly and find them in a 3D environment. Wireframed planes. Amazing bit of programming for the day.
Not sure what else counts as a hidden gem. I'd say I spent more hours in Empire, playing five play-by-mail games at once, sending them to a friend on three time zones away, exchanging turns all evening by modem. Time-wasted more with Scorched Tanks, the shareware game, really fun, creative strategy and dozens of different weapons. Role playing, I loved Mega-Traveller, the Amiga single player version was quite good and took a long time to get through. Multiplayer, Gauntlet II with the 4 player adapter, true arcade quality dungeon maze crawling.
Those are my top picks.
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Nuclear War never got the credit it deserved.
Of course.... Nuclear War is a classic. But it got more attention than a host of other brilliant half-strategy half-humor games also of that timeframe.
"North and South" was always a humorous play. A fairly typical "move the troops and fight the battle" type game, but it had some interesting twists with the Indians running around and certain squares that collected various bonuses. (Troops, Gold, etc) Also, the other minigames always kept things lively. (Train-robbing and whatnot)
No one EVER remembers "Conflict!" Possibly for good reason. It WAS rather dry on the surface, but digging into it a bit revealed the tight balancing act you have to walk as Israel to keep from pissing off the US too much while still getting your way with your Middle-Eastern neighbors. The headlines in the newspapers it displays each month always worth a chuckle, as well.
"Big Business" is another one that never gets remembered. Probably because it rarely completes a full game without spiraling deep into insanity. But to me, that's the charm of it. You end up with players borrowing billions of dollars from their parents, and prices going wonky in the M.U.L.E. style auctions each turn. Heck, you can blow through MaxInt and end up in unexpected negatives! But still, I can't remember a time I've sat down with a few friends and played a round when we didn't finish with our sides hurting from laughing so hard.
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@Terse
Nuclear War was way under rated for the hours of fun it delivered . . .
Oh . . . By The Way . . . I'm Ronny-Raygun and you've just been NUKED ! . . . :lol:
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4ppleseed wrote:
To get things started I'd say Base Jumpers is pretty fun for a platform mash-up and didn't seem to be picked up my the magazines at the time.
Never played it, but I remember reading a review of it in one of the Amiga magazines I bought. Thought it was a great concept for a game, came up with a similar game concept of my own (but that's AWOL in the Internet somewhere).
4ppleseed wrote:
Wizkid
That was going to be my suggestion, so much fun and pretty original, while being unappreciated outside the Amiga world.
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pault1 wrote:
There was an early flight combat simulator, I'm spacing it on the actual name. You could work your way up to choosing the top performing plane, "Paper Airplane" for some weird reason. But it turned you loose against an opponent in a boxed space and you had to fly and find them in a 3D environment. Wireframed planes. Amazing bit of programming for the day.
Googling around delivers me the name 'SkyChase (http://www.mobygames.com/game/amiga/skychase/screenshots/gameShotId,78562/)'
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An absolute classic for me is Persian Gulf Inferno.
It's outstanding fun to play !!!
Unfortunately the graphics were very outdated for it's time, even more because it was an Amiga game, a machine with great graphics capabilities.
But as the game was part of the golden era of games, where the playability was all that matters, it's a true gem !
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@amigakid
Another good game that didn't get it's share of the spotlight was Batman the Movie game from Ocean.
It got better recognition in the UK.
http://www.amigahistory.co.uk/a500batman.html
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Cool, thanks for these suggestions. I'm gonna have a crack at writing a little article about them next week.
Thanks again and if you've got anymore I'd love to hear about them :)
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There was a 3d wireframe space shooter kind of game on Aminet that I stumbled across one day that I got a lot of play out of.. It was German if I remember correctly, but I can't quite remember the name. "Something"-us2 I think...
Okay, I just searched Aminet and found it - Mostares2.
Another good one that my brother and I had lots of fun was also the best game I ever played made in AMOS -- Knights2. It's a top down dungeon kind of game where you have to try to hunt down the other player and avoid vampire bats, zombies, trapped chests, locked doors etc. For some reason it was just a lot of fun and very funny too. The sound effects had a lot to do with it.
Anyway, both highly recommended :)
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I always enjoyed "Floor 13" I think that is the name anyway.
I simulation of running a spy agency such as MI6, was very difficult from what I can remember. I always loved it.
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WARNING! Long boring post ahead.
I don't know how much attention or praise this one received, but I didn't see any of it, so I will guess that it was overlooked and falls into your category. It was the first game I ever played on the Amiga and was called Millenium Return to Earth by Ian Bird & Glenn Dill, copyright Paragon Software Corp. and marketed by Microprose Software Inc.
It is a very simple, linear space strategy game of gathering resources, building equipment and various spacecraft, occasional grabbing the joystick to fight off the overbearing Martians in a 3D wireframe mode, and finally repairing the damaged Earth so it can be repopulated to win the game. The graphics are not anything spectacular, but are satisfactory, the sounds create the great atmosphere of the game and the storyline is adequate enough to (combined with the rest of the game play) keep me glued to the Amiga for hours at a time. Then I play it again and again, knowing the outcome is always going to be the same, just for the enjoyment and to try to see if I can shorten the time it takes to complete, or to lengthen the time to complete so I can create the maximum amount of resources and equipment on each colonized planet or moon. I never seem to tire of playing this simple (and maybe boring to others) game.
This game originally only worked with OS1.2, but has been released more than once by other software companies which might work on later OS versions. The later releases were called Millennium 2.2 Return to Earth. I don't think that the game play was any different, but the graphics may have been slightly altered. There is also a WHDLoad fixed version which I am pretty sure runs on all Amiga OSes.
One of my goals in life is to create a Millennium clone that has one important difference in that at start up the fixed characteristics of the planets and moons resources would be randomly switched, so the game play would be different each time you played it. If there is any other parts of the game I can make random, that will even be better. AMOS Pro, or Blitz Basic 2.1 will be my first choices to code the clone, then I plan to learn C, C++ and may then port my Basic code to C, C++ as a learning experience.
I have been told that Deuteros is very similar and I should get it, but the only time I have ever seen it was at auction and I did not win.
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Virocop, PP Hammer.
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Silent Service (submarine game from A500 days) is one of my all-time faves. Very tough game to win as even if you manage to sink one or two ships, they launch so many depth charges and/or ack-ack at you, your sub gets sunk in short order....
Stunt Car Racer (pre-AGA game also), not as obscure but ridiculous tracks and scenario and purely entertaining....
TFX - fairly obscure as never published, save on the CU Amiga cover disks/CD in 97(?) - jet fighter game, very cool...
Was there a version of Ballblazer for Amiga? I know it was on C64.....
kevin
http://www.amigau.com
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oh and let's not forget the best combo of strategy and melee of all - Star Control (sadly the sequels were never on the Amiga but they are also way, way fun.....
kevin
http://www.amigau.com
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Anything with Sid Meier's name on it. :)
Pirates, Civilization - is there any game he sucked at?
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a couple of PD games come to mind.
I had a lot of fun with:
1) Drip - a kind of pacman style maze game that was hilarious to even watch someone play. As I recall it didn't like accelerated Amigas, and use of a downgrader was essential for play on my 030 accelerated Amiga 1200.
2) Megaball - a breakout clone by Ed Mackey, initially shareware and then placed into the public domain. Lots of fun!
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Amithony wrote:
Anything with Sid Meier's name on it. :)
Pirates, Civilization - is there any game he sucked at?
Those are gems, yes, but far from hidden...
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@ Twin
Yes, it was "Floor 13" and I enjoyed play it also. The game came in 2 disks if I remember correctly.
Also to mention the CDTV version of Defender of the Crown, below 50% in Amiga Format? :-?
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Joan of Arc was shadowed by Defenders of the Crown.
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"Extreme Violence" - I first discovered this on an Amiga Power coverdisk, Issue 24.
It was a two player game where you would run about an arena, trying to kill the other player. You couldnt see the entire arena, so you would run about trying to hunt them down. The game had all kinds of powerups, for example, bouncing bullets, which made it more interesting. I think as the game went on, you had more walls appear in the arena so it became more complicated as well.
Great game, I found this website that has an .adf of it, I'd recommend it!
http://amigacoverdisks.emuunlim.com/IndexAmigaPower.shtml
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Clockwiser
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Great Giana Sisters: Super mario brothers for Amiga
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by amigau on 2008/3/17 12:14:53
Silent Service (submarine game from A500 days) is one of my all-time faves. Very tough game to win
Oh yeah! My pal still had a C64 and was holding out, not wanting to upgrade. I got my Amiga and did two things to him - first had the Say function call him up on the phone to announce my new Amiga :lol: and then I got Silent Service, which he LOVED on his 64, and told him that there were cruisers to fight against in my version which were not in the 64 version. That tore it, he had to upgrade. We both explored the Pacific for literally real-time days - too bad that there was no group play/wolf pack on that one....
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Heh.. lots of games here which definitely aren't "hidden". Nuclear War, Zany Golf, North & South, Stunt Car Racer, Silent Service, Great Giana Sisters etc were THE REASONS to buy Amiga :) At least where I come :)
But then.. yeah.. Extreme Violence was great fun with two players. And I'm not sure if Persian Gulf Inferno was that hidden either, but it sure had balls in it's audio... you felt the power of the guns :)
I'd say real hidden gems are games which came only in german language. I recently found that there's lots of them and they seem to be pretty good quality. It's shame that those weren't sold in english too! There's lots of them even in late era from Amiga gaming (1995 and later). For example company strategy games (http://www.lemonamiga.com/games/list.php?list_genre=Strategy&list_sub_genre=Company) which I was just looking. Pretty good looking ones there, but only in german :( Other categories too, but that's just what opened my eyes just ;)
I don't know if Minskies Furballs is hidden, but that's very addicting game with two players too :) Late found for myself. Also Turboraketti 1 & 2 might be hidden for other than finns (almost like national game for us ;).
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-Faery Tale
-Nuclear War
-Gravity Force
-Space Crusade
-Skidmarks
Top5 games for me... Lot's of others of course. :crazy: