The Amiga's gaming legacy is pretty amazing when you think about it

[lionagony]

Yesterday on here I came across a mention that Team 17 are listed on the London Stock Exchange. I was amazed to hear that and it got me thinking about the Amiga's legacy. I took a huge break from gaming pretty much from 97 until 2022 so having gotten back into it so hard this year it's very interesting to see how things shook out looking back at it all. These are some of the major legacies I've observed, since I took such a break I'm sure I've missed many and would love for people to add on.

Firstly would the Playstation 5 exist without the Amiga? Psygnosis who rose to fame with the Amiga were one of if not the main companies behind many of the launch titles on the PS1 like Wipeout (Some elements of the game were inspired by Matrix Marauders, an Amiga game released by the Liverpudlian studio in 1990) from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wipeou...o_game_series)) Psygnosis had one of the most extensive catalogues on the console. Without this support maybe the PS1 wouldn't have been the success it was. Then you had Core Design who also rose to fame on the Amiga and Gremlin who had a lot of PS1 titles. Obviously this is just speculation and many of the Japanese companies had great games that might have had the PS1 be a success regardless but it's intriguing to think about.

What are some other household names that have an Amiga background?

1) Grand Theft Auto - Take Two Interactive are also on the Nasdaq and obviously GTA was created by DMA Design who started on the Amiga. The link is possibly even stronger in that the programmer of Crime Inc https://amiga.abime.net/games/view/crime-inc alleges that his Amiga game was plagiarised by Rockstar North and they even settled with him.

2) Tomb Raider

3) Worms

4) Lemmings

5) Crash Bandicoot - Traveller's Tales who started on the Amiga went on to do the Crash Bandicoot series and other big titles like Lego Star Wars and other Lego games. Edit: I mistakenly thought Traveller's Tales did the first
Crash Bandicoot games but they actually didn't do any until the PS2
6) Warcraft - the first Warcraft game was partly inspired by Lemmings https://archive.ph/20170906105422/ht...s-and-lemmings

Many Amiga games have been rebooted and/or remastered in the modern era. Shadow of the Beast came out for PS4, Another World and Gods were remastered, Speedball 2 came out for mobile and Steam, Worms games are still coming out, Zool was remastered, there are still SWOS tournaments to this day, Ruff N Tumble got remade for PS4, Xbox One, PC and Switch as Rad Rogers, Bloodhouse has put out modern Stardust games, Putty Squad was remade for all modern systems, Lionheart was recreated on PC, Agony was remastered with the Unreal engine, etc.

It's more nebulous but Cinemaware games like Defender of the Crown, Rocket Ranger and It Came from the Desert which originated on the Amiga may have helped inspire the movie type game experiences of today. So the DNA of the Amiga is in many things even in modern society, pretty amazing for an almost 40 year old computer. What did I miss?

[dreadnought]

I'm pretty sure Sony would manage just fine even without Psygnosis but, ok... nevermind that

Hunter - yet another open world/GTA style desing pioneering link
Midwinter - see above
Bullfrog's games - nuff said
Corporation - precursor to System Shock, Deus Ex and "intelligent FPS" genre overall
Speedball - future sports at its best
Kick Off/Sensible Soccer- manic arcade + freeform football style (were they first or Pro Evo?)
Another World - revolution in gameplay storytelling
The Clue - pioneering heist simulator
Nuclear War/Cannon Fodder/North & South - an innovative "comedy war" angle
The Settlers - has shown strategy games can be chilled and have AAA looks

[alkis21]

Will Wright, designer of The Sims, has mentioned playing Little Computer People and receiving valuable feedback on The Sims from its designer, Rich Gold.

[lionagony]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

I'm pretty sure Sony would manage just fine even without Psygnosis but, ok... nevermind that

Hunter - yet another open world/GTA style desing pioneering link
Midwinter - see above
Bullfrog's games - nuff said
Corporation - precursor to System Shock, Deus Ex and "intelligent FPS" genre overall
Speedball - future sports at its best
Kick Off/Sensible Soccer- manic arcade + freeform football style (were they first or Pro Evo?)
Another World - revolution in gameplay storytelling
The Clue - pioneering heist simulator
Nuclear War/Cannon Fodder/North & South - an innovative "comedy war" angle
The Settlers - has shown strategy games can be chilled and have AAA looks

Great list, especially Bullfrog's God games, that definitely influenced things and the Corporation influence is interesting to me since that's not a genre I really follow.

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by alkis21

Will Wright, designer of The Sims, has mentioned playing Little Computer People and receiving valuable feedback on The Sims from its designer, Rich Gold.

LPC first came out in 1985 and got ported to ST/Amiga in 1987. So it's hard to say what did WW play it on (he only says it was "long time ago").


That said, Midwinter was also released on ST first and on Amiga a year later. Kick off is another ST-first. Though you could argue these games got bigger exposure on Amiga.

[lionagony]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

LPC first came out in 1985 and got ported to ST/Amiga in 1987. So it's hard to say what did WW play it on (he only says it was "long time ago").


That said, Midwinter was also released on ST first and on Amiga a year later. Kick off is another ST-first. Though you could argue these games got bigger exposure on Amiga.

According to HOL https://amiga.abime.net/games/view/sim-city even though Sim City was conceived as Micropolis on the C64 the actual game Sim City had parallel development on the Amiga and Macintosh so I award the Amiga at least a half to a third point of legacy making for that

[Megalomaniac]

Very hard to say. If the Amiga hadn't existed, would those developers have originated those games on another system? Maybe straight to PCs, or more focus on the ST, or the Archimedes, or Macs, maybe the Konix Multisystem would have happened? Would working on a different system have changed what they made and how Playstation-ready they'd've been?

What the Amiga definitely did was to keep development costs and barriers to entry low during the late 80s and early 90s, allowing new developers to emerge before university games design degrees were an alternative route, and before PCs were affordable and accessible enough for newcomers to start on. Many great Amiga development teams were made of people who started in the 8-bit era - such as Psygnosis and Core who did go onto great things later, as well as Graftgold and Sensible who didn't - but plenty of others got their start on the Amiga, from Team 17 to DMA Design to Digital Illusions

If the Playstation had flopped due to not having Psygnosis or Core, would the Saturn or N64 have done better to replace it? Would (eg) Shenmue, SoulCalibur, Goldeneye have been more successful without having to compete with the Playstation? Maybe we'd have the Nintendo 4096 or Sega Alpha Centauri instead?

[DisasterIncarna]

when i think of modern space type sim games like Homeworld/etc i always think back to Milenium 2.2 & Deuteros, tho the ST had them as well so not really "Pure Amiga Origins".

[sokolovic]

Also Fumito Ueda started on the Amiga (and the first proof of concept of Ico was made on an Amiga 4000).

[lionagony]

Originally Posted by Megalomaniac

Very hard to say. If the Amiga hadn't existed, would those developers have originated those games on another system? Maybe straight to PCs, or more focus on the ST, or the Archimedes, or Macs, maybe the Konix Multisystem would have happened? Would working on a different system have changed what they made and how Playstation-ready they'd've been?

What the Amiga definitely did was to keep development costs and barriers to entry low during the late 80s and early 90s, allowing new developers to emerge before university games design degrees were an alternative route, and before PCs were affordable and accessible enough for newcomers to start on. Many great Amiga development teams were made of people who started in the 8-bit era - such as Psygnosis and Core who did go onto great things later, as well as Graftgold and Sensible who didn't - but plenty of others got their start on the Amiga, from Team 17 to DMA Design to Digital Illusions

If the Playstation had flopped due to not having Psygnosis or Core, would the Saturn or N64 have done better to replace it? Would (eg) Shenmue, SoulCalibur, Goldeneye have been more successful without having to compete with the Playstation? Maybe we'd have the Nintendo 4096 or Sega Alpha Centauri instead?

Great questions. I forgot about Digital Illusions, that's another nice addition. One interesting question about Psygnosis and the PS1 is without Wipeout would the Playstation have made gaming cool? I often here it referenced that the dance music in Wipeout was very influential and they started putting gaming kiosks in nightclubs etc. after that. If the Amiga never existed and hence Wipeout never existed would gaming remain on the periphery of the mainstream and not be close to the $200 billion industry it is today?

[lionagony]

Originally Posted by DisasterIncarna

when i think of modern space type sim games like Homeworld/etc i always think back to Milenium 2.2 & Deuteros, tho the ST had them as well so not really "Pure Amiga Origins".

HOL does say Deuteros was an Amiga Original https://amiga.abime.net/games/view/d...ext-millennium

[lionagony]

Originally Posted by sokolovic

Also Fumito Ueda started on the Amiga (and the first proof of concept of Ico was made on an Amiga 4000).

Cool, I'd never heard of that game so did a search and came across this https://blog.amigaguru.com/shadow-of...tion-to-amiga/ that implies Parappa the Rappa might have been made on an Amiga: "The interesting thing about this story is that Amiga was actually a thing in Japan for some years, several TV shows were made entirely on Amiga, several huge 3DO and PlayStation games (Parappa The Rappa anyone?) were made on Amiga and while we do know that there are a lot of Amiga love in the world it’s always fun to read that the European Demoscene sold Amiga’s in Asia."

Anyone know if that was true and maybe what other 3DO and Playstation games he was referring to?

[Adropac2]

the truth is many still play Amiga and more than just a little. It's just such a great experience still

[demoniac]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

Nuclear War/Cannon Fodder/North & South - an innovative "comedy war" angle

As much as I enjoy Nuclear War, it was originally a card game.

[petran]

Add also the Amiga and Sega connection that was very important for the European market


https://segaretro.org/Amiga

[gimbal]

"Firstly would the Playstation 5 exist without the Amiga? Psygnosis who rose to fame with the Amiga" - because the Amiga existed at the time. If it hadn't, that does not immediately imply Psygnosis would have never existed, or would have had different ideas about how to design their games.

I do want to believe Psygnosis, not the Amiga, had some part to play in the success of the PS1. For sure. If Psygnosis would have existed without the Amiga... can't say. We don't live in that timeline.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

Speedball - future sports at its best

Both Speedball games are 'ST originals'. For me pretty much all the Bitmap Brothers games feel like they belong on the Amiga, but the truth is that they were made on the ST first up to The Chaos Engine.

About Psygnosis and the PlayStation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...on_video_games
One could argue that Psygnosis did shape the image of the early PlayStation era, but overall didn't contribute thst much to its success.

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by gimbal

I do want to believe Psygnosis, not the Amiga, had some part to play in the success of the PS1. For sure. If Psygnosis would have existed without the Amiga... can't say. We don't live in that timeline.

Psygnosis was formed after the demise of Imagine Software, which was a well-known 8-bit developer. That's why Brataccas, their first game was built around assets of the infamous Bandersnatch. They didn't just appear out of the blue, and later also had released games on many different platforms, with just a handful of Amiga exclusives.

So, I guess it's safe to say they would exist without Amiga too, even if it was their main platform at the time. For example Ultimate, another very big Spectrum dev, later on went straight to Nintendo and formed Rare.

Originally Posted by TCD

Both Speedball games are 'ST originals'. For me pretty much all the Bitmap Brothers games feel like they belong on the Amiga, but the truth is that they were made on the ST first up to The Chaos Engine.

True, so it depends on how precise one wants to be with such lists. Like I said earlier, I guess some of these games could be perhaps excused even if not true Amiga originals, because they were Amiga icons and had bigger impact than ST. But I guess Atari fans would disagree (probably rightly too)

Originally Posted by TCD

About Psygnosis and the PlayStation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...on_video_games
One could argue that Psygnosis did shape the image of the early PlayStation era, but overall didn't contribute thst much to its success.

Wipeout really had a big cultural impact in the early days and definitely helped Sony to gain audience, especially amongst the cool crowd which didn't want to have much to do with "childish" games from Nintendo et al.
But ultimately scenarios where PSX tanks without Psygnosis are rather silly when you look at that list, even in the early years.

Overall I'd prefer we could for once concentrate on games and companies themselves than get bogged down in yet another "what if" exercise....but that's just me

Speaking of which, I think Lost Patrol deserves a shout too. The harsh survival gameplay and hybrid elements make it a stand out title (the latter admittedly inspired by Cinemaware) but I also think using the digitised footage could be a first? It certainly blew my mind when I saw it at a local computer fair, and alongside DotC it made Amiga a must-have for me.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

Overall I'd prefer we could for once concentrate on games and companies themselves than get bogged down in yet another "what if" exercise....but that's just me

It's not just you

Bundesliga Manager started on the Amiga. Not sure about the rest of the world, but that game was huge here in Germany.

[sokolovic]

Originally Posted by TCD

Both Speedball games are 'ST originals'. For me pretty much all the Bitmap Brothers games feel like they belong on the Amiga, but the truth is that they were made on the ST first up to The Chaos Engine.

About Psygnosis and the PlayStation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...on_video_games
One could argue that Psygnosis did shape the image of the early PlayStation era, but overall didn't contribute thst much to its success.

Are they really ST original ? Every reedition of these games are the Amiga version.
I think that they are cross developped on both machines but the lead version was the Amiga one.