As an action fan I tried every commercial Amiga game, here are my 303 keepers

[tommywiz]

WOW!!! You have played all of these?

[Anubis]

No, he said he play more, but those he liked.

[Megalomaniac]

With action games you can probably get a decent idea of whether they're any good within 15 minutes (with strategy games and RPGs you'd need longer), but even 300 of them would take 75 hours, so it's quite an undertaking, especially as they're not all as good as (IMHO most of) the ones here.

[lionagony]

This was funny. Last night I was continuing to go through the Mega Drive catalogue and am now at the D's. The game I've been by far the most impressed with in terms of graphics and animation was Daze Before Christmas. [ Show youtube player ] I'd never seen it before so was reading up on it and it turns out the artists used Amigas to create the game. https://www.timeextension.com/news/2...shouldnt-exist I guess I could just sense the Amiga-ness of it and that's why it looked so good.

[Photon]

It's subjective, of course, and each will have their own list of maybe not hundreds of favorites, depending on what the criteria for making the list is. Some titles here are not worth playing, and some great ones are obviously missing (according to me).

I think my criteria are: long or short, the game provided a challenge, and simple or deep, it wasn't so frustrating I didn't have a good time for the time I invested in it. Well, then and now.

I think playtime is revealing what each person really thinks (given some games require more time than others). Doesn't mean you can't fire it up and have a go.

Glad you found some favorites.

Amiga really has a wealth of games to explore, with few gaming platforms as rivals. I would say arcade got close during the 80s, and now since around 2013-14 PC surpassed it. As in, for most platforms we mostly got re-runs of arcade or some previous platforms, and much less games. C64 still has a big bunch. Late NES after "you must lick boot to contribute to platform" (c) Nintendo ended. (Don't see many of those on lists though.)

[lionagony]

I had a lot of time over the last few weeks so have now already tried the entire Sega Genesis/Sega CD/Sega 32X catalogue. The first thing I'll say is I never want to see another sports game again! I have since revised my Amiga list to 311 games. So what is the total of Sega games I would keep as an action fan? 190. If you take away the games already on my Amiga list (56 marked with a *) then you have 134 Sega games. The 190 total includes 167 from the Genesis, 16 from Sega CD and 7 from Sega 32X.

Overall there were obviously plenty of good games on Sega but I think it's a little bit of clever marketing to refer to games as "console quality" when there are a lot of bad quality games on consoles too, for example, Home Alone 2, Awesome Possum, Heavy Nova, Fighting Masters etc. I'm not sure if it was just my emulation but there was noticeable slowdown and flicker on some games too. Since graphics are important to me some of the ones that caught my eye the most were Daze Before Christmas, Tinhead and most of the Disney games. So here is my full list, next I'm going to conquer the SNES full catalogue.


Adventures Batman & Robin, Adventures Mighty Max, Aero Acrobat 2

Air Buster, *Aladdin, Alien Soldier

Arrow Flash, ATP Tennis, Batman: The Video Game

Batman Forever, *Battle Squadron, Battle Tech

Beauty & Beast:Roar of Beast, BioHazard Battle, Blades Vengeance

*Bubba N Stix, *Bubble & Squeak, Castle of Illusion

*Chuck Rock, *Chuck Rock 2, Comix Zone

Contra Hard Corps, *Cool Spot, Cut Throat Island

Darius, Daze Before Christmas, Demolition Man

*Desert Strike, Donald Maui Mallard, Doom Troopers

Dragon:Bruce Lee Story, Dynamite Heddy, Earthworm Jim

Earthworm Jim 2, Ecco:Tides of Time, Ecco the Dolphin

Elemental Master, Fantasia, *Fatal Rewind

FIFA 98, Fire Shark, *Flashback

*Flink, Flintstones, *Formula One

Frank Thomas Baseball, Gaiares, Garfield

Gargoyles, *Gods, *Golden Axe

Great Circus Mystery, Greendog, Grind Stormer

Gunstar Heroes, Hellfire, *Humans

Insector X, Int Superstar Soccer, James Bond 007

*James Pond, *James Pond 2, *James Pond 3

Jennifer Capriati Tennis, *Jimmy White Snooker, Joe & Mac

Judge Dredd, Jungle Book, *Jungle Strike

Jurassic Park, Kid Chameleon, *Legend of Galahad

*Lemmings, *Lemmings 2, *Lion King

*Lost Vikings, Lost World, *Lotus Turbo Challenge

*Marble Madness, Mario Lemieux Hockey, *Mega Bomberman

*Mega SWIV, *Mega Turrican, Michael Jackson Moonwalker

*Mick & Mack, Mickey Mania, *Micro Machines

Micro Machines 2, Mr Nutz, *Mr Nutz:Hoppin Mad

*Ms. Paman, MUSHA, NBA Hang Time

NBA Live 98, Newman Haas Indy Car, NHL 98

*Out of This World, *Pac-Mania, Pete Sampras Tennis

Phelios, Pink Goes to Hollywood, Pinocchio

Pocahontas, Pringles, Puggsy

Raiden, Ranger X, Red Zone

Revenge of Shinobi, *Risky Woods, Ristar

Robocop vs Terminator, Sagaia, *Sensible Soccer

Shinobi III, *Skeleton Krew, *Snow Bros

Sol-Deace, *Soldiers of Fortune, Sonic & Knuckles

Sonic, Sonic 2, Sonic 3

Sonic 3D Blast, *Speedball 2, Spirou

Splatterhouse 2, Steel Empire, Street Fighter 2

Streets of Rage, Strider, *Striker, *Super Hang On

*Super Skidmarks, Truxton, Taz:Escape from Mars

TMNT:Hyperstone Heist, Smurfs, Smurfs 2

Thunderforce III, Thunderforce IV, Tinhead

*Toki, *Total Football, Toy Story

*Turrican, Twin Cobra, Twin Hawk

Twinkle Tale, Urban Strike, Vapor Trail

Vectorman, Vectorman 2, Viewpoint

VR Troopers, Whip Rush, Wings of Wor

*Wiz N Liz, *Wolfchild, World of Illusion

*Worms, X-Men 2, *Xenon 2

X-Perts, Xeno Crisis, Zero Kamikaze Squirrel

Zero Wing



(SEGA CD)



Adventures Batman Robin, Android Assault, Batman Returns

Cadillacs & Dinosaurs, *Heart of the Alien, Keio Flying Squadron

Lords of Thunder, *Microcosm, *Ninja Warriors

Novastorm, Robo Aleste, Silpheed

Sonic CD, Soul Star, Terminator

*Wonder Dog



(SEGA 32X)



Doom, Knuckles Chaotix, Kolibri

Star Wars Arcade, Tempo, Virtua Racing Deluxe

World Series Baseball

[gimbal]

Originally Posted by lionagony

The first thing I'll say is I never want to see another sports game again!

Dangerous statement. Even darts is called a sport

I've never been a connoisseur of sports games but a more modern take on Brutal Sports Football I would not say no to.

[lionagony]

Originally Posted by gimbal

Dangerous statement. Even darts is called a sport

Going through the games alphabetically I have to say it was daunting getting through the "N's" with NBA this, NFL that, NHL this, NCAA that. I can't imagine most people would ever have more than one or two games from each sport although it should be said the Amiga has 150 soccer games! https://www.lemonamiga.com/games/lis...list_spectrum=

[gimbal]

Well yes but actually no, there are also quite some management games in that list Still. A lot.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by lionagony

...although it should be said the Amiga has 150 soccer games!

Depending on who you ask it is even worse than that https://hol.abime.net/hol_search.php...enre_theme=170

[Megalomaniac]

Sports games always tend to be the last thing that still sells on a dying system, and even fairly poor ones tend to sell okay, hence why there are so many, and very few are any good.

I'm guessing that generally, if you can only have either Amiga or Megadrive version of a game you'd usually prefer the original version - though ideally with Amiga sound and music?

[lionagony]

Originally Posted by Megalomaniac

I'm guessing that generally, if you can only have either Amiga or Megadrive version of a game you'd usually prefer the original version - though ideally with Amiga sound and music?

Most times if they are on both lists I plan to go back and play the Amiga one more mainly because it's my first love. There are a few exceptions though, Joe and Mac is a lot better on Genesis and so is Puggsy. I can't play the Amiga version of Puggsy because Traveller's Tales looks like they didn't put much effort into it even though they owed their start to the Amiga which always annoys me. I view it as disloyalty. Now that I'm starting to go through the SNES catalogue I see there is a lot of Genesis/SNES overlap and for those I will probably mostly return to the SNES versions because the graphics are generally a lot better.

[Minuous]

It would be more useful if you stated what sort of system you played them on, eg. via WHDLoad, ADFs, real floppies, savestates, etc. as it certainly makes a difference regarding loading times etc.

I have to wonder how much you really played these games, I suspect it was not for long enough to really form an accurate impression of the quality. Eg. Who Framed Roger Rabbit, if you'd played it more than once and had to reboot every time and wait for it to reload I doubt it would be in your list.

[lionagony]

Originally Posted by Minuous

It would be more useful if you stated what sort of system you played them on, eg. via WHDLoad, ADFs, real floppies, savestates, etc. as it certainly makes a difference regarding loading times etc.

I have to wonder how much you really played these games, I suspect it was not for long enough to really form an accurate impression of the quality. Eg. Who Framed Roger Rabbit, if you'd played it more than once and had to reboot every time and wait for it to reload I doubt it would be in your list.

Everything was played using Retroarch on my Android TV using an X-Box controller. For the Amiga I used an hdf file rom set so no loading times.

[sokolovic]

Originally Posted by lionagony

Everything was played using Retroarch on my Android TV using an X-Box controller. For the Amiga I used an hdf file rom set so no loading times.

Considering that you can play without disk swapping on a normal Amiga, it doesn't seems weird to me to test every game with the best configuration possible.
This why the Amiga is also great, because you can use easily modded version of the games on a genuine machine.
Many games are greatly improved with whdload.

[Megalomaniac]

Personally, although I'm happy to play modified versions if it improves the experience, I can only form my opinion of a game based on how the released version performed on real hardware. If it was hard drive installable or took advantage of accelerators, I can factor that in (it's a shame reviewers usually didn't, with hindsight), but if someone's hacked the code to add savestates or multi-button controller support, or removed a difficult boss or a harmful bug, or unlocked support for accelerated systems, let alone trainers, that can't influence how good I think it is.

[CCCP alert]

I played Uridium II yesterday and I had forgotten how cool a game it was, has all the lovely slick feel of the original C64 version but that Amiga level 1 in game music is really really funky and obviously it has better graphics. Speech is also 'sexy' which is not something you can say about the speech in most games