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

[TCD]

Originally Posted by gimbal

It had a save feature though, CTRL+S when you see scrolling text, CTRL+L when you see the king. But yeah. Didn't know about that at the time because for some reason backup copies don't come with a manual...

This. Now I know that of course. I guess you could call that an effective 'you won't finish the game without the manual' protection

[Lilura]

Originally Posted by Dastardly

I ended up looking forward most to the games of The Bitmap Brothers.

Yes, even though they were mostly ST ports, the Amiga versions of Bitmap games were often better, if only slightly. The star on the Speedball 2 playfield, the meatier sound and music, and so on.

I have fond memories of most Bitmap games. And I admitted to playing Xenon 2 to death back in the day even as I criticized its shortcomings only recently.

I would say that Gods was their best game; that game was magic.

[dirkies]

One interesting omission of this thread question for those early adopters is perhaps: when you got your Amiga in 86-88, how long did it take until you booted up the JUGGLER demo (and was blown away by it) ?

[Megalomaniac]

While they're not to my tastes at all, it's not hard to see why games like Shadow of the Beast and Wrath of the Demon would dazzle someone with an 8-bit (or indeed an ST) and attract people into buying an Amiga, regardless of their gameplay merits. Although most early Bitmaps games did get 8-bit versions, they have a layer of innovation to them. Speedball is pretty much a whole new genre, with inventions like the bribing, and Xenon II has digitised music, huge enemies and a very advanced shop/weaponry system. Gods was never feasible for smaller machines though - it sees them take the ambition level even higher with the adaptive AI and carefully-integrated puzzles. Plus the Bitmaps' image made them rock-star developers, and they had a house style in terms of artistic vision and colour scheme that helped with brand loyalty, even if the games varied in genres.

I'm one of these people for whom non-interactive demos never hold much appeal - show me the effects being used in a game and I'll be impressed. Still, The Juggler was a killer app in its own way - only Amiga made it possible, dare I say it.

[Dunny]

Originally Posted by Megalomaniac

While they're not to my tastes at all, it's not hard to see why games like Shadow of the Beast and Wrath of the Demon would dazzle someone with an 8-bit (or indeed an ST) and attract people into buying an Amiga, regardless of their gameplay merits.

Gotta also bear in mind that some stellar examples aside, 8bit games were terrible in the main. Nobody had a clue as to how controls should work, movement, rudimentary physics etc - all of that was being worked out by the game devs of the day.

SOTB, having come from a Spectrum where most of the games ran at 17fps and below, was bloody great fun to play, as was Xenon II.

(Speedball was a different kettle of fish entirely though, and superb despite the sequel).