Amiga/PC Games That Were Better On PC

[Steve]

Not sure if there is a thread like this - more than likely but what the hell.

I recently purchased Syndicate off eBay as it had the American Revolt disk with it. It was the Amiga version though and as I don't have an Amiga (I just like collecting the boxes and manuals, disks) I decided to give the PC version a try - the screenshots on the back of the box looked mighty impressive.

Well blow me if it isn't bloody awesome. Huge improvement in the graphics, much improved resolution and full of animations compared to the very static Amiga version. Why couldn't they put the same effort into the Amiga conversion - I bet it was developed on PC first as you can see all the effort went into that. It looks like the PC version is 640x480 as you can see so much more detail.

After only messing around with the Amiga version 20 years ago, I'm actually playing this game properly for the first time. It's brilliant - if a tad hard at times. It's almost a totally different game on the PC - much more enjoyable in my opinion.

I guess their other games were also better on the PC (Theme Park, Populous maybe?)

Also what the F was the CD32 version about? A lazy port of the A500 version? Why couldn't that have been like the PC version?

Interested in what you guys think. Anyone more a fan of the Amiga version?

[edd_jedi]

I hate to say it but aren't nearly all games released after about 1993 better on the PC? The vast majority of Amiga games are ECS so even later games (ie FOTAQ from 1995) are crippled with 32 colours. It's a shame that in 93/94 the lack of people willing to upgrade to an A1200 held game development up.

One that springs to mind is Theme Park, the Amiga AGA version is basically unplayable due to the slowdown. It's a brilliant game on the PC.

[Steve]

The obvious game in my mind that was much better on Amiga was Sensible World of Soccer. Sensible themselves said that the Amiga version was always the superior one. Most platform games were usually superior on the Amiga - and wasn't Worms DC more technically superior on the Amiga?

[Anakirob]

I hate to say it, as it's one of my favorite Amiga games, but the PC version of SlamTilt is that much more playable as it has a slightly larger screen which means you can see more of the table and maybe even the thing that you're aiming at. But I seem to recall it lacks the cool intro, and I can't compare the music as the copy I downloaded didn't contain the CDDA, it just played audio of whatever CD happened to be in the drive.

[Amigajay]

From Syndicate onwards Bullfrog made the PC version the lead platform, hence why its better in all ways, resolution, added animations etc
The Amiga version of Populous was the best imo.

Btw Theme Park AGA plays fine, i think saying its 'unplayable' is laughable tbh! Maybe your used to 50000 cycles via dosbox playing DOS games at lightning speed, they were far from it back in the day if your PC wasn't upto spec, but the AGA version was played perfectly fine back then.

[edd_jedi]

Originally Posted by Amigajay

Btw Theme Park AGA plays fine, i think saying its 'unplayable' is laughable tbh! Maybe your used to 50000 cycles via dosbox playing DOS games at lightning speed, they were far from it back in the day if your PC wasn't upto spec, but the AGA version was played perfectly fine back then.

I take it you haven't tried playing it with WHDLoad or installed on HD then? Neither of which work. It's well documented if you bother to search:

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=31499

You're right it works OK playing from floppy, but that hasn't appealed to me since about 1996.

[fryguy]

Kalas Puffs Expressen on PC was in VGA and had a also featured an animation when starting the level. The sound was of course worse than the Amiga version.

[Steve]

Originally Posted by Amigajay

From Syndicate onwards Bullfrog made the PC version the lead platform, hence why its better in all ways, resolution, added animations etc
The Amiga version of Populous was the best imo.

Btw Theme Park AGA plays fine, i think saying its 'unplayable' is laughable tbh! Maybe your used to 50000 cycles via dosbox playing DOS games at lightning speed, they were far from it back in the day if your PC wasn't upto spec, but the AGA version was played perfectly fine back then.

Yeah I played Theme Park back in the day on my unexpanded and later expanded A1200 and it was totally playable. Never tried the WHDLoad version though.

[Amigajay]

Originally Posted by edd_jedi

I take it you haven't tried playing it with WHDLoad or installed on HD then? Neither of which work. It's well documented if you bother to search:

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=31499

You're right it works OK playing from floppy, but that hasn't appealed to me since about 1996.

Why would i need to bother to search when i know it works fine on real hardware?

Its neither here or there if it runs like crap the way you play it, the original version plays fine.

[edd_jedi]

Well I guess if your definition of a game running fine on original hardware is one that was sold as HD installable but doesn't play from a hard drive, sure.

I even tried buying the later CD-ROM re-release which contains accelerator card fixes and again is sold as an HD installable game, that doesn't work either.

[Steve]

It does work from hard drive but if I remember correctly, requires 4meg of RAM to run.

Other games that had better graphics than the Amiga equivalent :

Eye of the Beholder I and II
Legends of Valour
Robinson's Requiem
Secret of Monkey Island
Monkey Island 2
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
TFX
Beneath a Steel Sky (did this use 256 colours on PC)

[gimbal]

Syndicate has always been weird for me. Technically the PC version is "better" because higher resolution, faster load speed and more animation - definitely.

And still the Amiga version looked more alive to me, the PC version's sharpness makes it look too cold. The Amiga version just felt more pleasant to duke around in visually, the graphics might be lower resolution but they have that more golden wash over them that makes it warmer.

[Seiya]

not alls, but between 1990-1991 mostly games are better on PC.
And if not better in color some of these are better in smooth and playability.
Of course it depends what kind of games.
For every simulations, 3D games (vectors or not) and RPG, the Pc are better than Amiga from 1990 to now, but In general Amiga is very better on Arcade/action e platform game
as far as 1995.
There are platform game very smooth with un Amiga 500 and the same game on PC require at teast 486DX2 with much memory

[Fiery Phoenix]

Lucasfilm games without a doubt (the iMuse system never worked properly on the Amiga) and for me the PC 'talkie' version of Indiana Jones and The Fate of Atlantis is just about the perfect point and click adventure game out there

[Seiya]

also for me. Takie version of Indy4 is great

[turrican9]

Originally Posted by Steve

It does work from hard drive but if I remember correctly, requires 4meg of RAM to run.

Other games that had better graphics than the Amiga equivalent :

Eye of the Beholder I and II
Legends of Valour
Robinson's Requiem
Secret of Monkey Island
Monkey Island 2
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
TFX
Beneath a Steel Sky (did this use 256 colours on PC)

Games like these, yes indeed. Once the adventure games started to come with 256 Colours VGA these types of games became better on PC VS Amiga. Also because PC had 1.44MB diskettes VS Amiga with 880KB and PC also had harddrive as standard in the 90s.

However, I still play the Amiga versions because of how much I love the Amiga. Also, I actually prefer adventure games like Beneath a Steel sky, Flight of the Amazon queen or those type of games with no voice acting. I kinda like to read the dialogue and use my imagination. It's part of the charm and the nostalgia.

[Daedalus]

Theme Park has a hard drive installer - I remember playing it just fine from the hard drive years ago, though it needed more RAM unless you booted without a startup-sequence and ran it from the shell. Big parks got pretty slow on the basic A1200 (the speed menu has an item marked A4000 only because of that), but once you had any sort of accelerator and some fast RAM it ran perfectly fine, and it was good to have a dedicated AGA version, which is what Syndicate should have had. Part of the reason Syndicate lacks detail in comparison to the PC is that it was made to work on a 1MB A500 - there'd be plenty more animation possible on a 1200 and more colours, though perhaps not the higher resolution.

[Amigajay]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

Theme Park has a hard drive installer - I remember playing it just fine from the hard drive years ago, though it needed more RAM unless you booted without a startup-sequence and ran it from the shell. Big parks got pretty slow on the basic A1200 (the speed menu has an item marked A4000 only because of that), but once you had any sort of accelerator and some fast RAM it ran perfectly fine, and it was good to have a dedicated AGA version, which is what Syndicate should have had. Part of the reason Syndicate lacks detail in comparison to the PC is that it was made to work on a 1MB A500 - there'd be plenty more animation possible on a 1200 and more colours, though perhaps not the higher resolution.

The CD32 planned version of Syndicate was said to have a higher resolution, then of course the situation with Commodore and Bullfrog pulled most Amiga stuff inc CD32 support, Mindscape took over conversions of Theme Park and Syndicate for the CD32 and released in early 95, though the latter ended up just being a port of the A500 version in the end.

[S0ulA55a551n]

Theme park AGA 100% installed and run on HD, played it loads back in the day on my £300 286mb HDD.

Syndicate i am sure was also HDD installable.

and no way was Monkey Island 2 better on Amiga, the CD version on PC is much better

[trixster]

PC Monkey Island 2 has quite a few more animations and a lot more colours than the Amiga version as well as more music.