Games Where the Amiga Version was the Best?
 

Maybe this has been asked before, but which Amiga games were considered to be the definitive (or 'best') version of the game? The Amiga started in the C64/Apple II era but lasted well into the IBM PC era as well. It has been my observation that the earlier Amiga versions are generally the best versions of a game because at the time the Amiga was so far ahead of the competition. However towards the end PC versions of the games tended to look/play a lot better since PC's had faster processors and VGA graphics (not to mention better coding in many cases).

So for which multi-platform games was the Amiga version the definitive version?

Off the top of my head:

... any LucasFilm / LucasArts adventure games (besides FM-Towns versions)
... Another World
... Flashback

Pang is better than the arcade version, which is highly unusual.

Silkworm, also better than the arcade version imho

Rodland, Lotus 1-3, Magic Pockets, Crazy Cars 3, Unreal

Shadow of The Beast

Cannon Fodder
The Chaos Engine EGA

Pirates!

Yeah there's probably hundreds that are better than there DOS counterparts from 85-92, the ones that are 'better' taking the crappy actual DOS out of the equation are flight sims and vector games, but then you needed a more expensive PC to get those framerates.

But anyway most Pinball games were better, awful scrolling on DOS, Lemmings is much better, 2 player mode, better music.

Again its always hard to compare against a non conform platform as the PC, if you could buy a VGA 386 pc for £399 in 1992 i'm sure i would have probably bought one for Wing Commander, flight sims etc but the simple fact is you couldn't, in the UK it wasn't until the MegaPC in late 1993 the first 386 was released for under £1000! So its like for like comparisons of games esp in hindsight when people play these games in dosbox at full settings, res, framerate and think it was the norm for every PC when in reality it wasn't is misleading, anyway sorry gone off topic a little.

Eye of the Beholder 1. In amiga there's an ending scene, while in PC there was just a plain text.

The reason I ask is that I have both an Amiga and a nice DOS PC that I split time between and I want to pick the best system to play each game.

All bitmap brother games - Gods, Speedball 2
Sensible games - Cannon Fodder, SWOS etc

Disagree about lucas-arts and dolphin software
Cruise for a corpse, flash-back, monkey island, indiana jones etc.

Most of them had vga 256 colour releases, hardrive installs on PC and proper midi support
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pdd2CNlcqn0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5cu5h_150Y

I saw a video a bit ago doing game comparisons that said the Amiga version of Snow Bros was the best out there..
It's on my list to try out, but i haven't tried it yet... So not sure..

desiv

This is very true as far as the gameplay is concerned.
On other aspects such as sound or graphics, the arcade version clearly retains the edge (which does not mean the Amiga version looks or sounds bad, rather the contrary) but it is true that this does not matter so much since the Amiga version is miles more enjoyable to play.

Is it really? I think they are fairly close but the arcade is full screen and boasts bigger sprites if I recall correctly. Both play equally well admittedly.

Also, I am shocked (:shocked) that you did not mention Dungeon Master! ;)

This is very true but only due to the sheer incompetence of the publisher of the MegaDrive and FM Towns versions since both machines were perfectly able to better the Amiga version without breaking a sweat. (Note that I am saying publisher not developer.)

True, the video comes from the RetroCore Battle of the Ports series and it is notable that Mark (the author) usually has a slight pro-ST bias and was quite happy to find a really good Amiga version. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMUn82uoIoM)

I will list a few of my favourite games, as clearly there are way to many software titles, in which a single thread could not hope contain ;)


Captive
While the Amiga version is far better than the Atari ST version sadly there is slightly more content on the PC (DOS) version, with a intro. Still I do prefer this game on the Amiga.

Desert / Jungle Strike
There are a lot of ports of this game - some translate very well to the hand-held (some not so much) - in all truth I have probably only played a handful of conversions, however I found the Amiga version, faster, smoother with better sound and effects.

Hired Guns
Generally better all round than the PC(DOS) version, to be fair graphically this isn't (if any) real discernible difference, but it kinda feel flat.


Unfortunate Few that are better on other systems

UFO: XCOM Enemy Uknown]
While I love the Amiga version, the PC(DOS) version of the game is better, however for musical score the PSx version has this (shame its buggy code lets it down).

Flashback
While this might put the cat amongst the pigeons - the Megadrive is clearly the definitive version of this game. In fact if memory serves this is the system it was designed for. But my good friends fear not, at the end of the day the Megadrive is a cost reduced A500 ;)

Super Street Fighter II Turbo
Sorry about this but the Amiga implementations of most (if not all) fighting games is pretty dire forcing everything into 1 or 2 MBytes really screws everything up - the SNES IMHO has this one in the bag


That is all I can think of at the moment - may add more later ;)

The 3DO version is great, then you have the playstation and saturn versions up to the dreamcast and playstation 2 versions which will be arcade perfect. However this game was never released on the snes or 16bit consoles, I think you mean SSF2 the new challengers? in which case the snes version has it I agree.

the best flashback version is not the Amiga or PC or Megadrive, is the MAC version, it runs in high res and is by far the best port, you can play it on the amiga using the emulators shapeshifter or fusion

SSF2T on A1200 expanded makes use of the specific hardware registers of the AGA machines.

It's rubbish because they have ported a kludge made on the PC version without which the game would never had been able to run on the IBM machines.

Problem : the guys behind the conversion never removed this kludge, and you have the result : missing frames, when those are in the files of the A1200 version !

Gametek were really jerks for not even making a musician convert the music for the disk version. Stupid beyond anything !

A case where it could have been great, and they fucked it big time !

The AGA version use 7 bitplans, and is in 128 colors.

@ReadOnlyCat

I don't think SotB's MD version could be better than the original due to MD's limited colour palette.