Amiga Games: Great Music, Shame About The Game!

[lordofchaos]

Some games are just bad, unplayable, broken or flawed, however sometimes the music or sound design is just so great it makes playing it worthwhile.

One game that comes to mind is Sly Spy: Secret Agent. The graphics are really quite nice and colourful, and it does a decent job of capturing the look of the arcade game. A real shame it moves so damn slow and movement feels so sluggish. The music on the other hand is superb and completely steals the show, so much so it's worth loading up just to hear it.

I`m sure there's loads of examples out there others can share.

[DamienD]

Personally I was extremely happy with the arcade port of this game and played it loads back in the day

Definitely one of the best Arcade --> Amiga ports; along with Ghosts 'N Goblins and Pang

[lordofchaos]

I admire your conviction and you clearly enjoyed the game, I`m not usually super fussed about frame rates, but find it far too slow and unresponsive for my threshold..

Pang. What an amazing game, one of my favourite conversions from the arcade, that and silkworm.. Ghosts 'N Goblins not to shabby either.

[Foebane]

I can think of a few:

Black Viper
Future Shock
Moonshine Racers

[-Acid-]

Black Viper isn't that bad, okay it's not great or anything but there is a lot worse out there.


I really like the title music on Flyin' High...pity the controls make the game a bit of a dog.

[Foebane]

Originally Posted by -Acid-

Black Viper isn't that bad, okay it's not great or anything but there is a lot worse out there.

Listen to the "game over" music on Black Viper, it's really melancholic and depressing, it really struck me how good the tune sounded. It really brings home the "earth is doomed" vibe of the whole game.

[Predseda]

Beyond the Ice Palace

[saimon69]

Among the usual suspects a lot of Follin works:
- Ghouls 'n' Ghosts
- Bionic Commando
- Puzznic
- L.E.D. storm
- Qix (actually decent)

One from Maniacs of Noise - very simple gameplay but minuscolous sprites and bad playability:

- Misterious Worlds (you could almost dance the title song on a discotheque)
[ Show youtube player ]

[saimon69]

Originally Posted by Foebane

Listen to the "game over" music on Black Viper, it's really melancholic and depressing, it really struck me how good the tune sounded. It really brings home the "earth is doomed" vibe of the whole game.

Nicola Tomljanovich, the author, for sure took its inspiration from a bunch of low budget B movies, especially those mad max wannabes and also post-nuclear horror movies like Rats! However, the main visual inspiration, at least for us italians, has been Hokuto No Ken, that was immensely popular in the end of 80s in Italy; some of the game introduction images are very reminescent in style to the anime end titles! (ok there is also a Side Arms visual citation)

Can be seen here (from an italian - wow, even from my area! - recording):
[ Show youtube player ]

[touko]

Final fight of course,and maybe double dragon 1 .

[gimbal]

Oof, so many.

Shadow of the Beast 1 and Wrath of the Demon. I absolutely detest the gameplay, so dull and repetitive and based on muscle memory. But the music and the graphics... it tastes like candy.

Back to the Future 3. The Amiga version is better than certain other versions, but its still not very fun. Really good tunes though.

Xenon 2 and Saint Dragon. Their slowness just breaks them for me. But the music, graphics and sounds are again fantastic.

Crack Down. Horrible floating camera, horrible speed, wonky hit detection and wall hugging mechanics. But the tunes... They're the kind of tunes that create rhythmic gameplay, you start to act based on the tune that is playing.

Garfield: Big Fat Hairy Deal. It's only one song on an endless loop that will eventually drive you bonkers, but its one of those tunes that you start humming or whistling. Game itself is not much to speak of, a weird but colourful puzzle collectathon.

Strider. The game needs no explaining how bad it is, but the music has that classic Amiga melancholy to it. Its a weird way to explain it but as a kid Amiga games would lean more heavily on my emotions whereas Nintendo and Sega games were usually just unicorns and rainbows. The same can be said for...

Ghost Battle. Ugh, enemies take soooo long to die and throwing weapons in an arc is just weird. But that odd music. It starts out gloomy and slow and then it becomes awesome.

Shadow Dancer and Toki. I have a pet peeve with single-hit-death games, I don't like em. Shadow Dancer and Toki are still awesome because of everything else.

Indiana Jones TLC (platformer). Not much music in this terrible port but what music there is gives off a really proper Indiana Jones vibe. I booted it up for another go just to be Indiana Jones, somewhat.

Dune. Heresy maybe, but the Cryo Dune game... I don't like it much. Even given the full talky PC cdrom version it just doesn't tell a proper story or has characters that hold my interest, something which was vastly improved upon by Cryo with their Lost Eden spiritual followup. But the music is legendary.


I'm just going to stop myself here, by no means is this a finished list

... okay one more.

Tom and the Ghost! I don't even really know how to play this game, I can walk, attack, pickup stuff, go up stairs and even manage to use the right items to keep Tom happy. But... I just don't know what to do to progress, just an endless sequence of dead ends. Didn't see a single youtube video yet of someone actually getting further than me. The music is excellent.

[Glen M]

There is some mention of ghouls and ghosts on here but I personally think the Amiga music and the fact that its different from the rest sucks. The classic theme is part of what makes the game.

[malko]

Death Trap : Nice gfx, great intro (with good music) but at the end "so-so" game with a bunch lot of random appearance of enemies.
I think this game and "Horror zombies from the crypt" have the goriest main character's death. Actually, that's what I thought BitD.

Originally Posted by gimbal

[...] Shadow of the Beast 1 [...]

ts, ts, ts

Originally Posted by gimbal

[...] Wrath of the Demon. [...]

Music is really SotB like.

[saimon69]

Originally Posted by malko

Death Trap : Nice gfx, great intro (with good music) but at the end "so-so" game with a bunch lot of random appearance of enemies.
I think this game and "Horror zombies from the crypt" have the goriest main character's death. Actually, that's what I thought BiT.


ts, ts, ts


Music is really SotB like.

SOTB and WOTD similarity, together with other Whittaker songs using same instrument sets, is what we call "Whittakeritis" - btw every musician sooner or later will fall into it due to find a set that work good for them, including myself

[lilalurl]

Originally Posted by gimbal

Dune. Heresy maybe, but the Cryo Dune game...

Before the Butlerian Jihad, there was the EABian Jihad. It all started when a felon, whose name shall never be spoken again, defamed the Cryo Dune game...

I guess it all depends on what you expect of the game. Because it is a mix of adventure and strategy it will probably never fully please fans of these. It might also depend on whether you played Dune II first or not.

[saimon69]

Originally Posted by Glen M

There is some mention of ghouls and ghosts on here but I personally think the Amiga music and the fact that its different from the rest sucks. The classic theme is part of what makes the game.

It has differences but did you went to hear the Amiga title song to the end?
I had never heard a song unravel like that in a computer game before...
[ Show youtube player ]

[lordofchaos]

Originally Posted by gimbal

Oof, so many.

Shadow of the Beast 1 and Wrath of the Demon. I absolutely detest the gameplay, so dull and repetitive and based on muscle memory. But the music and the graphics... it tastes like candy.

Back to the Future 3. The Amiga version is better than certain other versions, but its still not very fun. Really good tunes though.

Xenon 2 and Saint Dragon. Their slowness just breaks them for me. But the music, graphics and sounds are again fantastic.

Crack Down. Horrible floating camera, horrible speed, wonky hit detection and wall hugging mechanics. But the tunes... They're the kind of tunes that create rhythmic gameplay, you start to act based on the tune that is playing.

Garfield: Big Fat Hairy Deal. It's only one song on an endless loop that will eventually drive you bonkers, but its one of those tunes that you start humming or whistling. Game itself is not much to speak of, a weird but colourful puzzle collectathon.

Strider. The game needs no explaining how bad it is, but the music has that classic Amiga melancholy to it. Its a weird way to explain it but as a kid Amiga games would lean more heavily on my emotions whereas Nintendo and Sega games were usually just unicorns and rainbows. The same can be said for...

Ghost Battle. Ugh, enemies take soooo long to die and throwing weapons in an arc is just weird. But that odd music. It starts out gloomy and slow and then it becomes awesome.

Shadow Dancer and Toki. I have a pet peeve with single-hit-death games, I don't like em. Shadow Dancer and Toki are still awesome because of everything else.

Indiana Jones TLC (platformer). Not much music in this terrible port but what music there is gives off a really proper Indiana Jones vibe. I booted it up for another go just to be Indiana Jones, somewhat.

Dune. Heresy maybe, but the Cryo Dune game... I don't like it much. Even given the full talky PC cdrom version it just doesn't tell a proper story or has characters that hold my interest, something which was vastly improved upon by Cryo with their Lost Eden spiritual followup. But the music is legendary.


I'm just going to stop myself here, by no means is this a finished list

... okay one more.

Tom and the Ghost! I don't even really know how to play this game, I can walk, attack, pickup stuff, go up stairs and even manage to use the right items to keep Tom happy. But... I just don't know what to do to progress, just an endless sequence of dead ends. Didn't see a single youtube video yet of someone actually getting further than me. The music is excellent.

That's more than I can remember. One thing we can take from this I suppose, no shortage of musical talent passing through the Amiga era. Even the successful games with questionable gameplay choices (I`m looking at you Shadow Of The Beast) had awesome soundtracks.

[gimbal]

And I had to stop myself The list of good games with terrible music is a lot shorter!