Amiga's most iconic game characters?

[malko]

Originally Posted by Photon

[...]
We can still do that, though. See e.g. AmigaLive's Kickstarter.

Even if I am a bit afraid about some (c) issues that may rise with such a project (hope there won't be any ), that's a really cool idea !

[Mick]

Originally Posted by gimbal

Amiga Action #34, right on the cover:

https://amr.abime.net/issue_107

And you nailed it

Good find.

Did they have those magazines in the Netherlands?

I think I just randomly bought Amiga Action, Amiga Power, Amiga Format and perhaps some others whenever I could blag one, bearing in mind I was about 9 when that magazine came out. Whenever we would go in WHSmith or some other newsagent I'd be straight over to the Amiga magazines.

[gimbal]

Originally Posted by Mick

Did they have those magazines in the Netherlands?

I didn't find it, I recognized it Pretty unforgettable bit of overselling a game that is. Besides the ludicrous 96/97% score of course.

I think most of them went overseas, but eventually a coverdisk was dropped from it to save on costs. In the small town I lived I had access to Amiga Action and Amiga Power and eventually when Amiga Action and Amiga Power disappeared somewhere in 94, CU Amiga came in their place. I'm sure in the larger chains there would have been a larger selection available but I was too young to have a need to set foot in them.

[Megalomaniac]

Marble Madness and Shadow of the Beast are iconic Amiga games, early demonstrations of the machine's power outstripping any other available system then, killer apps even. Both are at their best on the Amiga (at least as home games, MM's arcade machine is perhaps better). But iconic characters? One's a ball and the other's nameless and relatively characterless (and the sprites are the only vaguely weak audiovisual point of SotB). Those games didn't need memorable main characters to be appealing to people.

Likewise, quite apart from Zool's issues as a game, the character himself was utterly dull and uninteresting. It didn't help that they didn't seem to know whether he was an ant or an aiien. Even the console versions, with gameplay improvements and an animated intro, sank without trace against Sonic or Mario or Donkey Kong or Kirby or even Bubsy. Kids attracted to console-style platformers could have been much more taken with characters like Titus (despite him being a replacement character), or Superfrog, or Putty, or Tearaway Thomas, maybe even the guy in Prehistorik - quite apart from them probably all being better games. I sadly suspect that the Amiga magzines reviewed the game they WANTED to be paying, not the game they were playing.

[CCCP alert]

[QUOTE=Megalomaniac;1693286]Marble Madness and Shadow of the Beast are iconic Amiga games, early demonstrations of the machine's power outstripping any other available system then, killer apps even. Both are at their best on the Amiga (at least as home games, MM's arcade machine is perhaps better). But iconic characters? One's a ball and the other's nameless and relatively characterless (and the sprites are the only vaguely weak audiovisual point of SotB). Those games didn't need memorable main characters to be appealing to people.

To be fair Mario in NES Super Mario game sprites didn't have any more sophistication in the game/interaction with players. I chose the Marble Madness marble as the Amiga Boing Ball was a recognisable simple symbol of Amiga but yes not much personality to it lol.

[dreadnought]

Not every memorable character has to be a cute'n cuddly mascot in the vein of Sonic or Kirby. One of the great thing about Amiga games was that they were often more mature than console fare. The Beast perfectly epitomises that trend, what with its alien-ish design, surrounded by an air of danger and mystery. I'm not a big fan of SotB as a game, but there's no denying it's an Amiga milestone which features an iconic character.

[CCCP alert]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

Not every memorable character has to be a cute'n cuddly mascot in the vein of Sonic or Kirby. One of the great thing about Amiga games was that they were often more mature than console fare. The Beast perfectly epitomises that trend, what with its alien-ish design, surrounded by an air of danger and mystery. I'm not a big fan of SotB as a game, but there's no denying it's an Amiga milestone which features an iconic character.

Rodney Matthews style Rastan clone for sure.

[Megalomaniac]

To be honest the two paragraphs in my last post were meant as two separate comments.

A 'dark' brooding character can indeed be memorable on the Amiga, though I don't think the character you play in SOTB is one - Alestes in Agony perhaps, maybe even the Walker despite it being mechanical? Most of the great mature brooding Amiga games (Wings, Moonstone, Another World) don't have especially memorable main characters somehow. Conrad Hart in Flashback perhaps?

Separately from this, I don't think the Zool character succeeded in the aim to be cute and consoleseque as well as several others (console and to an extent Amiga), and I don't think it would have been a console-beater even if the gameplay had been amazing

[gimbal]

Zool was on consoles. It didn't exactly become a massive franchise despite that fact.

[TCD]

It wasn't for a lack of trying though