What Are the Best Five Amiga 500 Games?

[Dastardly]

1. Chaos Engine - By the time this was announced I was already a big fan of the Bitmaps and so read everything there was about its upcoming release. The wait seemed excruciating, but the wait was worth it. Completed it with every character and I still feel like I haven't discovered everything.

2. Gods - IMO still one of, if not THE best looking game on the Amiga. I'm a big Dan Malone fan, but Mark Coleman absolutely created a visual masterpiece here. It still amazes me what he achieved with such a limited palette. It seems to divide a lot of people between those who can't bear the scrolling and its relatively slow speed and those that love it. No matter what new device I get that is capable of running some sort of Amiga emulation, Gods is always the first thing that gets played.

3. Speedball 2 - Not a fan of most sports games, but Speedball 2 is almost perfect. Amazing graphics and sound, superb gameplay, both single and multi, one disk and hardly any loading. What more could you want?

4. Cadaver - This type of game suits me perfectly. Kick back and take your time. Puzzles that are tough, but not insane, great graphics and awesome atmosphere. As you climb the floors of Castle Wulf you really get a sense of the characters and the story and it becomes a 'real' place that exists in your mind. I have never completed it and have been stuck on level 4 since the early 90s, but I won't cheat and, hopefully one day, I'll finish it.

5. Rainbow Islands - There's something about RI that just keeps pulling me back to it. Nauseatingly cute, but so playable and with loads of depth with all the collectables. It never feels unfair either. When I lose it's because I'm not good enough. I've never got past toy island so I'm clearly not great at it, but it's so good I keep going back to it.

5 isn't enough!

[Gilbert]

Great lists - and to anyone who put Interceptor or Gods in their lists - very good choices!

Here's my list :

1 Player Manager
2 Populous
3 Dungeon Master
4 Gods
5 Lemmings

I think the Amiga just excels at the deeper style of game. It actually annoyed me I couldn't think of more arcade-style games that I would rate in the top 5. Gods gets in there because it really works for me but I can see how other people might not like it. The next closest I got was R-Type which I think is a very good conversion for the time. I used to play that a lot and it played a lot like the arcade. Very underrated conversion

Originally Posted by Avanze

Alien Breed
Dark Seed
Pinball Dreams
Nighthawk F-117A Stealth Fighter
Worms

I'm going with Amiga originals across genres in this case.

Dark Seed is still the scariest game ever. The way the screen flashes slightly (interlaced?) makes it even more disturbing

[mrv2k]

1. Pinball Fantasies
2. Microprose F1GP
3. Damoclese
4. Blues Brothers
5. Starglider 2

[lilalurl]

Off-topic, but in case you guys don't know, you can do automatic numbering on lists on vbulletin.

Enter each item on a line, then select every one of them and click on the Ordered list button (on the same line as the Bold Italic Underline buttons).

1. a
2. b
3. c
4. d
5. e
6. f

[Gilbert]

Originally Posted by lilalurl

Off-topic, but in case you guys don't know, you can do automatic numbering on lists on vbulletin.

Enter each item on a line, then select every one of them and click on the Ordered list button (on the same line as the Bold Italic Underline buttons).

1. a
2. b
3. c
4. d
5. e
6. f

I didn't know that but I think most people find it hard to rate the games in order - that's why I said it was rule to see if I could make it happen - but I failed

[StingRay]

Goal!
Kick Off 2
Sensible Soccer
Wings
Lotus 2

[Thorham]

1. Dungeon Master + CSB
2. Dungeon Master + CSB
3. Dungeon Master + CSB
4. Dungeon Master + CSB
5. Dungeon Master + CSB

[saimon69]

1) Powder (because. )
2) Turrican II
3) Lotus II
4) Apidya
5) Battle Squadron

[Nobby_UK]

Tough Question:

Syndicate (one of the few games I finished + replayed)
Speedball 2
Monkey Island 1 or 2
Sensi Soccer/SWOS
Lotus 1 or 2 or Stunt Car Racer

[Twiggy]

1. SWOS
2. Cannon Fodder
3. Heimdall 2
4. Lemmings 2
5. Populous

[gridrunner-xy]

1. IK+
2. Defender of the Crown
3. Speedball 2
4. Lasersquad
5. FA18 Interceptor

[DanScott]

actually, I ony posted a list of my own games before.. so here's a list of games that I think are some of the better ones on Amiga 500

1) Turrican 2
2) Hybris
3) Battle Squadron
4) Zany Golf
5) Marble Madness


Definitely not enough love shown in general for Zany Golf!!!

[Antiriad_UK]

I find it fascinating that so many people (and me) have Hybris and Battle Squadron so high up and they were early games. For me it was the music. I did a version of Battle Squadron's game over music a few months back because I just think it's perfect. But looking at codetappers web page on how they use sprites elevates it even more.

[DanScott]

Originally Posted by Antiriad_UK

I find it fascinating that so many people (and me) have Hybris and Battle Squadron so high up and they were early games. For me it was the music. I did a version of Battle Squadron's game over music a few months back because I just think it's perfect. But looking at codetappers web page on how they use sprites elevates it even more.

The music in Hybris was awesome!!! But more than that, it was also a really playable game too

[Antiriad_UK]

Originally Posted by DanScott

The music in Hybris was awesome!!! But more than that, it was also a really playable game too

1987 too!?
Here was the note for note remake I did for Battle Squadron high score:
https://www.autoitscript.com/files/a...nHighScore.mp3
(I still think the original Amiga one is better, even though I used a 2020 PC to emulate the sounds )
I may do a proper remix when I get time as I think it's such a perfect piece!

[Maffi]

1. Battle squadron
2. Jumping Jackson
3. Dune 2
4. Street fighter 2
5. Projekt x

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by Gilbert

I think the Amiga just excels at the deeper style of game. It actually annoyed me I couldn't think of more arcade-style games that I would rate in the top 5. Gods gets in there because it really works for me but I can see how other people might not like it. The next closest I got was R-Type which I think is a very good conversion for the time. I used to play that a lot and it played a lot like the arcade. Very underrated conversion

Same for me, strangely enough.
When the Amiga released, I thought we'd be showered with amazing action games that look out of this world.

In the end there was maybe a handful of arcade games that were playable and fun.
R-Type was the first arcade game on the A500 along Silkworm and Ninja Warriors where I remembered having fun playing it. Then Turrican1 came along.

It's weird when you know now how capable the hardware is actually.

My top 5:

* Elite (weird colours, but finally a playable frame rate compared to on C64 before)
* R-Type (amazing conversion for the time, remember playing this with friends a lot)
* Interceptor (my game of summer of 1988)
* Bard's Tale 1 (looked to beautiful. Its graphics made me fall in love with the 16 bit machines)
* Warhead (first space sim with missions&story line that I know of)

More of the early games, since I used to play more in that time. Later on I didn't catch up anymore what's new and what not.

[Lord Aga]

1 Hired Guns (the best game ever made. 4 player co-op is pure madness)
2 Dune II (the daddy of RTS)
3 Chaos Engine (fast paced action shooter that constantly keeps you on your toes)
4 Parasol Stars (cutesy platformer but with great depth once you really get into it)
5 Traps n Treasures (an extremely well polished game that can go toe to toe with the best console games. Doesn't get enough recognition.)

[stevelord]

For me, these are what I would say are the best overall for 1mb A500s. Not necessarily the ones I constantly come back to, but certainly in terms of overall brilliant games I don't think there's any here that aren't excellent.

1. Stunt Car Racer
2. Dune
3. Alien Breed: Tower Assault
4. Prince Of Persia
5. Turrican II

If it were best overall without the limit my list would be completely different. Also if I did this again my list would be completely different. There's just so many incredible games.

[Gilbert]

Originally Posted by gridrunner-xy

1. IK+
2. Defender of the Crown
3. Speedball 2
4. Lasersquad
5. FA18 Interceptor

This is my favourite top-5 so far. IK+, Interceptor and Lasersquad. All incredible games!

Originally Posted by Antiriad_UK

I find it fascinating that so many people (and me) have Hybris and Battle Squadron so high up and they were early games. For me it was the music. I did a version of Battle Squadron's game over music a few months back because I just think it's perfect. But looking at codetappers web page on how they use sprites elevates it even more.

I enjoyed Hybris but wouldn't be in my top 20. As for Battle Squadron I could never get into it. It looked really good and was very slick and smooth but the gameplay left me cold. Also the power-ups in those games never seemed that impressive or satsfying. It was like they were limited because it had to run at 50fps. Xenon II had those huge side lasers and missile launchers you could get. It's a slower game but more fun.

Originally Posted by Steril707

Same for me, strangely enough.
When the Amiga released, I thought we'd be showered with amazing action games that look out of this world.

In the end there was maybe a handful of arcade games that were playable and fun.
R-Type was the first arcade game on the A500 along Silkworm and Ninja Warriors where I remembered having fun playing it. Then Turrican1 came along.

It's weird when you know now how capable the hardware is actually.

My top 5:

* Elite (weird colours, but finally a playable frame rate compared to on C64 before)
* R-Type (amazing conversion for the time, remember playing this with friends a lot)
* Interceptor (my game of summer of 1988)
* Bard's Tale 1 (looked to beautiful. Its graphics made me fall in love with the 16 bit machines)
* Warhead (first space sim with missions&story line that I know of)

More of the early games, since I used to play more in that time. Later on I didn't catch up anymore what's new and what not.

I think the problem with the Amiga is that most developers tried to make the graphics good and didn't always worry that much about the gameplay. The screenshots looked great in adverts and maybe that was enough to sell the game. I like Chaos Engine and it's a good looking well made game but put in on the 16bit consoles (As they did) and it becomes a fairly standard game on those in terms of the actual gameplay. But on the Amiga a game like that stands out...

Great list btw - agree Elite on Amiga is very playable and a great game - but yes has a very gaudy colour scheme!