When you first bought an Amiga, what games were you looking to play?

[Lilura]

"Great Expectations"

As we all know the Amiga came out in 1985, its Lorraine VLSI designed by the legendary Jay Miner of Atari 8-bit fame. Not many salespeople could describe the Amiga well in 1985-86, it was the original alienware, so there was a lot of mystery surrounding what it could do and how far it could be pushed.

As early as 1986 observations were being made on the slowness of Amiga-games releases. I'm talking games that actually tapped the Amigas custom chipset (think Hybris of 1988). And so this gave early Amigans a lot of time to think about the games they were waiting for. And whine a bit while waiting.

This is just about the Amiga as a computer game machine.

What games did you buy an Amiga for?
What games did you want to see more of when you bought an Amiga?
What expectations did you have for the Amiga as a computer game machine?

I'm most interested in the expectations of 1985-87 Amigans, but I don't mind if you bought an Amiga after 1988.

I'm talking genre or style of game. Your expectations for the Amiga games catalogue.

For example:

Were you looking for 16 bit arcade-action games, such as shoot 'em ups -- Games that the Amiga's chipset excelled at starting in 1988?

... looking for adventure games, such as those from Cinemaware, Sierra and LucasFilm?

... hoping to see new types of games, such as Populous, Lemmings and the like?

Many may respond, "all of the above." And that's fine. The Amiga games catalogue turned out to be versatile and mult-faceted.

But I'm most interested in specific preferences, those who were looking for specific types of games, those whose gaming preferences were formed by their C64, Speccy or Atari 8 bit years, those who were focused on specific genre and know that genre inside and out.

[chip]

Pinball Fantasies

[Zak]

Planetside

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[Megalomaniac]

I got an Amiga, moving up from a Spectrum +2, in 1991 at age 10. At that age it was mostly arcade-style games I wanted, and buying a £400 system that was in its pomp with a barrage of amazing new games in every imaginable genre almost every month, that continued. I was certainly intrigued by Monkey Island, Eye of the Beholder and Mega-Lo-Mania, but they didn't jump off the page to the extent of Lotus 2 and Robocod, which weren't conceptually that different from Turbo Outrun or CJ's Elephant Antics which I'd bought for the Spectrum. Indeed, some of the top Amiga games of 1991 (Lemmings, SWIV, Rod-Land, Turrican 2) did have Spectrum versions, largely playing much the same but on a different plane for audio-visuals. As I've mentioned before, a lot of the early 'killer apps' for the Amiga (most Cinemaware, Hybris, Marble Madness, Faery Tale Adventure, early Psygnosis etc.) were largely forgotten by 1991, unavailable and not necessarily considered among the best games anymore, and didn't really enter my thoughts as I gradually progressed from purely liking action games into also loving Civilization and Monkey Island 2 - all part of evolving from 10 to 14, I guess.

Had I been in a position to have been buying an Amiga in 1986 for $1500 however, I suspect my experience would be much more similar to when I finally moved on from Amiga to PC, a £1000ish PC aged 15. It was largely new styles of games, or major evolutions of existing ones, that I wanted then, and I suspect I'd've felt the same had I been born in 1971 and gone from C64 to A1000 in 1986. Two differences though - a vast catalogue of games making use of 1996 PC hardware already existed, and the Amiga was dead and buried. Going from C64 or Spectrum to Amiga in 1986 would be the opposite on both of those points. Clearly, the leap in performance from A500 to Pentium was much greater for 3D (and pure number-crunching Championship Manager style) than for 2D, but a combination of system expense, my age, and the time in which PC games had been evolving while Amiga ones largely didn't keep up, meant that I largely wanted something new.

From Doom to TIE Fighter, Command & Conquer (admittedly a descendent of Dune 2) to Pro Pinball, there was so much new to experience. The first game I bought, slightly randomly, was Earthsiege 2 - big mech combat, so a style I hadn't come across on the Amiga, and indeed from a company (Sierra) whose Amiga games I'd largely overlooked.

Admittedly I did buy Civilization 2 and Grand Prix 2 fairly early on, and found both to be massive leaps from Amiga games I'd loved, and would have probably jumped at a Mega-Lo-Mania 2 had it been made. Still, for whatever reason I passed on getting 3D Lemmings, didn't get Screamer which was the closest equivalent of the Lotus games, and doubt that updates of Rainbow Islands or SWIV would have grabbed my attention (despite loving the Amiga games being referenced there), even with all the audiovisual advances and gameplay enhancements in the world. I'd entered a whole new world, and I was largely too young for nostalgia or cynicism. How times would change....

[gimbal]

We we're eying Dragons Lair at the time because it looked phenomenal.

In hindsight I'm very glad we didn't actually get it and we got several cheaper action games which supported multiple players instead.

[wiz12]

Sensible Soccer, K240 and Civilization. These three games to me were amazing at the time, there were many other great games too but mainly just these three.

[TCD]

There wasn't a specific set of games that made me want to 'upgrade' to an Amiga. When I saw it 'in action' everything about it felt 'better' to me. I can remember that the first day I had an Amiga I played Budokan for like an hour and even if I did notice that the game kinda sucks the presentation just blew me away

[Lilura]

Originally Posted by TCD

There wasn't a specific set of games that made me want to 'upgrade' to an Amiga. When I saw it 'in action' everything about it felt 'better' to me. I can remember that the first day I had an Amiga I played Budokan for like it hour and even if I did notice that the game kinda sucks the presentation just blew me away

Understandable and relatable. Defender of the Crown of 1986 is another one due to its no. of on-screen colors and palette range, which most certainly distinguished the Amiga from the 8 bits in terms of presentation.

I'd be interested in hearing from 8 bit veterans of certain genre as well.

People that had developed an affinity for certain genre on the 8 bits.

For example, imagine coming off the likes of C64 Paradroid, Gyruss, Iridis Alpha, Sanxion and Uridium (shoot 'em up masterpieces)... and then you have access to the likes of Defender of the Crown, The Pawn, Marble Madness and Chessmaster 2000.

Completely different games, genre, catalogue... it's established and on the verge of unassailablity vs. slowly emerging in a fledgling state.

And that lasted up to a couple years. And in those couple years the C64 games catalogue went into overdrive whereas the Amiga was only starting to flex via the likes of Hybris of 1988.

I want to emphasize that I am only talking about computer games. I acknowledge that in 1985-86 the Amiga hosted revolutionary productivity software. And of course a preemptive multi-tasking GUI OS.

[Megalomaniac]

I suppose this is why, in the 'home computer' era, I would have been reluctant to be an 'early adopter'. Replacing a C64 with an A1000 in 1986 meant missing a lot of great C64 games, and having a long wait for a really rounded catalogue of great Amiga games. By the time the Amiga was being fully exploited in all genres, it was significantly cheaper and slightly more powerful. Initially you may have envied the games available for the ST, and by the time that gap in quality of software catalogue was closed, the Archimedes launched here - more powerful than the Amiga on paper, but ultimately undersupported - and the Genesis / Mega Drive wasn't far off. Likewise, a lot of the best Vic-20 games were released after the C64 launched, and a lot of the best Amiga games were released after some of the PC games which made us think it was time to move on.

[Zak]

When I think about it then what I always seeked in computer games was either hand-eye-coordination practices or alternative realities. And while the first category was not bad on our old Spectrum 48k, the second category seemed a bit technically limited there. That's why I enjoyed Defender of the Crown so much, because it looked so immersive with it's graphics.