Was America nonchalant about Amiga arcade gaming?

[Cammy]

I wonder if the fact that natively, the Amiga, having only a single buttoned mindset had anything to do with it. Most of the arcade games at the time utilized 2-3 or more buttons next to their joysticks. Or Overscan. Dedicated consoles have this way of filling up the entire screen. Many of the arcade conversions on the Amiga had you playing with an invisible border .75" thick it seemed. Another attribute that's not very "arcade" like  

Only the idiot programmers of the time had this "Amiga only has one fire button" mindset. Anyone with a hint of curiosity would have plugged in a Sega control pad, seeing that the plugs look the same as Amiga ones, and discovered that the second fire button on those pads is exactly the same as the Amiga's Right Mouse Button, therefor ALL Amiga games from the very start were capable of using two buttons. Many games have the option to use a controller with 2-buttons.

There was never an official Amiga joystick. Commodore released the machine with 2/3 button capability, but it was the third party programmers and peripheral manufacturers who were lazy and didn't take advantage of this fact.

Commodore DID release an official control pad, the CDTV pad, and it did have two fire buttons. They later released the CD32 pad with six fire buttons so from 1993-onwards there was no excuse not to include support for extra button control pads in games.

Because of these lazy or oblivious programmers and peripheral manufacturers, yes many Amiga games were ruined and plenty of console owners laughed at these poor attempts to simplify the gameplay to use a single button.

The thick black borders around many Amiga arcade conversions are a result of quick and nasty ST-to-Amiga ports where none of the extra hardware in the Amiga is taken advantage of, and we're stuck with this 16 colour, restricted view area game instead of a true Amiga port that takes up the full screen or uses overscan, has dual playfields or 32/64 colours and super fast, smooth scrolling like the Amiga was capable of.

[Cammy]

These are a couple of 2-button joysticks I have for my Amigas. The good thing is the Python can be switched between 2 and 1 button mode, so you can use both buttons as the main fire button in 1-button games. Also, here are some of the 2-button control pads made for the Amiga market:

http://www.thosewerethedays.de/items/joysticks/spectravideo_quickshot_professional_qs-130f_620x660.JPG
http://www.thosewerethedays.de/items/joysticks/quickshot_proefessional_2-player_board_qs-128f_620x660.JPG
http://www.thosewerethedays.de/items/joysticks/quickjoy_amiga_hyperpad_sv_136.jpg
http://www.thosewerethedays.de/items/joysticks/action_pad_am_logic3.JPG

As for games that take advantage of 2-button controllers, let me just quickly think off the top of my head:

Agony
Joe & Mac: Caveman Ninja
Desert Strike
Lionheart
Aladdin
Yo! Joe
Street Fighter II
Hired Guns
Mortal Kombat II
Fightin' Spirit
Banshee
Zeewolf
Flashback
Super Street Fighter II
Alien Breed: Tower Assault
Super Skidmarks
Snow Bros.
Virocop
XTreme Racing
Bubble and Squeak
Speris Legacy
Exile
The Lion King
Skeleton Krew
Arabian Nights
BC Kid

There are plenty more but it would take me ages to think of them all. Maybe we need to make a permanent list of games that support 2-buttons controllers?

[Cammy]

That reminds me, two of the best arcade ports ever made on the Amiga never even came out! Snow Bros. and Liquid Kids.

[Cammy]

Give in to temptation.

[Cammy]

Can I just offer some advice to those people modifying their Sega pads to work on Amigas.

DO NOT USE THE C BUTTON!!! This is Fire 2 on the Amiga and is used by many games! If you are going to assign a button to be used as the UP direction for your games, please use A! It's unused and not connected for use on Amigas, so changing it won't effect any Amiga games, but changing C will make all those great games that already were designed for 2-button pads to not work properly! The B button as we all know is Fire 1 on Amigas.

You can modify a Sega pad so that all seven buttons (on a 6-button+Start pad) will work with Amiga games that support such a modified Sega pad. Some Amiga games make use of a modified 3-button pad (so A,B,C and Start work) and at least one game supports all the buttons.

There was a thread started about control pad and joystick modification here but it went nowhere, please feel free to bump it and continue the conversation because we need to spread awareness about Amiga control methods, especially as old joysticks become harder to find but we can still get Sega pads brand new.

Check here for more details - http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=50705

Of course there's still the Competition Pro, a joystick with four buttons on it that all do the same thing (Fire 1). But that's okay, because it has a switch on it to disable two of the buttons. (??) These are still in production and are great for Commodore 64s and 1-button Amiga games.

Now, WHDLoad! It already has the ability to remap keystrokes to button presses, but it's not global, it depends on the slave author to add the extra code to the install. Many WHDLoad games already have 2-button/CD32 pad patches applied, and you can now use a jump button in games like Ruff 'n' Tumble and New Zealand Story, as well as activate special weapons from a button rather than a key in Golden Axe and Battle Squadron, among other games. If there's a game that you think needs to have the keys remapped to 2-button or CD32 pads, let the author of the slave know and they might update it for you!