What are games that are better on the Amiga than the DOS

[SSJTrunks69]

Hello Amigamers (pun intended lmao), i'm looking for games that are better on the Amiga than the DOS. Better graphics, gameplay, and music. Could you please reply me the examples? Thanks!

[Foebane]

The way I see it:

Audio-wise, all Amiga games are superior. Many PCs of the time didn't even HAVE sound cards, or would be basic sound inferior or equal to Paula, or just had a beepy speaker.

Graphics-wise, all of the PC games that used the exact same Amiga graphics (for A500 games) are superior because on the Amiga, there would be custom hardware for scrolling, sprites, etc. leading to a smoother experience, whereas the PC had to do everything in software and was not smooth at all, unless the PC was powerful.

It all really depends on the Amiga games being released around 1988 to 1992, really. That's when the PC started to catch up to the Amiga.

And to be honest, ALL games at least RUN out of the box on Amiga, unlike the PC where you have to fiddle around with configuration files to free up enough memory.

[Master484]

Indeed, when it comes to early games (released before 1992 or so), the Amiga version is almost always better in every way.

There are countless of examples, but this video gives a good general idea:

[ Show youtube player ]

Early DOS PCs with CGA or EGA graphics and poor sound capabilities simply had no chance against the custom hardware of the Amiga.

Also many of the best Amiga games, especially those games that were designed specifically for the Amiga hardware, were never released for DOS PCs.

Good examples of these would be the Shadow of the Beast trilogy, Lotus 2, Battle Squadron, Hybris, Agony, Kid Chaos, Ruff 'n' Tumble, and so on.

Also some "Amiga original" games weren't converted to DOS until years later. For example Turrican 2 was released at 1991, but the DOS version didn't came out until 1995, when the PCs had finally become powerful enough to beat this 1986 super computer.

[Foebane]

Originally Posted by master484

when the pcs had finally become powerful enough to beat this 1986 super computer.

1985.

[Torti-the-Smurf]

There are two videos on YouTube called
AMIGA vs PC (dos) games &
AMIGA vs PC (dos) games 2

Those videos should give you a pretty good sample of those games.
In the 80 the AMIGA was just on another Level. I will never forget that we had a PC back then.. (1986) that was considered "State of the Art".
In 1987 i saw the Amiga and my Jaw dropped so HARD that i sold the PC right away. The Amiga will always have a special place in my heart, really .

[d4rk3lf]

Another thing that is not mentioned is that Amiga could go directly on TV (therefore much cheaper so you don't have to spend money on monitor).
And TV place a little bit blur on each pixels, so it's almost like hardware antialias.

That's why I though games in my friend A500 are bigger res, then games on my friends PC 386, back in the day, but they really didn't had bigger res, it's just a TV magic thingy.
On PC, pixels were huge and horrify looking.

[SquawkBox]

It makes more sense to compare Amiga games to their counterparts on 16-bit consoles, but basically Sierra (and Lucasarts to a lesser extend) didn't bother optimizing their games for the Amiga so the famous series, Police Quest, King's Quest etc. should give you more gratification when played on a DOS machine (or through ScummVM). Personally, Space Quest IV on the miggy (less campy) is a guilty pleasure of mine, but the majority will disagree.

EDIT : Ah, but I see you asked the other way round. Oh, well, you'll find out soon enough, I am positive .

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by Master484

[ Show youtube player ]

Great video

...and it's by our friend laffer; may you rest in peace

Some of those PC versions are more than cringe worthy

[Torti-the-Smurf]

@ SquawkBox
That makes sense, because of those sweet,sweet Custom Chips and considering that the OCS came out 1985 is just astonishing.

Games like: Lionheart, Elfmania, Kid Chaos, BC Kid, Turrican 2, Super Star Dust and STUFF (REAL AMIGA GAMES) on Hardware that was released in 1985 ? THATS CRAZY !!!
(ok ok, those game need 512KB-1MB but still)

Sierra games are another Story imho - those slow and ugly......well, they fixed that with Kings Quest VI,wich run smooth even on a Amiga 500 with 1MB. Harddisk was nice to have tho

I will always love you AMIGA and those heartless 8-Bit, ATARI ST and PC Ports will nevery take away from youre true beauty

[Master484]

Altered Beast for PC-DOS (VGA graphics) :

[ Show youtube player ]


Maybe we should feel lucky for getting that usual lazy AtariST conversion instead.

[ Show youtube player ]

[Gilbert]

I imagine most Amiga games were better thna the DOS versions. I remember my friend showing me Double Dragon on DOS and was appalling. Haven't played the Amiga version - but if it's worse than that - something went terribly wrong

[Foebane]

Originally Posted by Master484

Altered Beast for PC-DOS (VGA graphics) :

[ Show youtube player ]

Seriously, that is VGA?? They did bugger all with it!

I can only assume that VGA gave the coders 100% palette control like Amiga graphics do, unlike EGA.

[jotd]

2 examples:

Pang has an horrible version on MS-DOS
Bitmap Brothers games on MS-DOS are 16 colors too so apart from the sound, superior on the Amiga, games like Cadaver, Xenon 2 and Magic Pockets, Speedball II are 100% identical on MS-DOS.
But for instance Gods has rainbow copper effects on amiga, but not on MS-DOS

Most of the time, sound is better on the miggy because it's built-in, when MS-DOS games supported soundblaster for the relatively rare lucky owners and also people which were able to configure the proper irq and shit So comparing audio isn't really fair for old MS-DOS games.

I remember that Sensible Soccer/SWOS had an amazing scrolling on VGA too. Looked 100% identical to the miggy version.

When games were ported from ST/Amiga to MS-DOS they rarely bothered to make it 256 colors anyway.

[Foebane]

Originally Posted by jotd

Bitmap Brothers games on MS-DOS are 16 colors too so apart from the sound, superior on the Amiga, games like Cadaver, Xenon 2 and Magic Pockets, Speedball II are 100% identical on MS-DOS.

I thought BB Amiga games were 32 colours?

If not, GODDAMNIT! It's yet another LCD consequence of having to put up with the inferior Atari ST!

[jotd]

@Foebane exactly. The only BB games that are > 16 colors are Chaos engine, CE2, and Speedball 2 AGA/CD32 versions

Gods has technically more colors on screen (copper). AFAIR the Atari had a similar effect but not sure. Basically Steve Tall was a genius pulling the scrolling and all on Atari. But unfortunately, they ported the game on Amiga without changing much.

The fact that it appears to have more than 16 colors is because of the extremely well chosen palette and super graphics. Note that Gods palette changes slightly between the levels too.

[DaveTaylor]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

Another thing that is not mentioned is that Amiga could go directly on TV (therefore much cheaper so you don't have to spend money on monitor).
And TV place a little bit blur on each pixels, so it's almost like hardware antialias.

That's why I though games in my friend A500 are bigger res, then games on my friends PC 386, back in the day, but they really didn't had bigger res, it's just a TV magic thingy.
On PC, pixels were huge and horrify looking.

That's not only the case on TV screens. I had 2 different Amiga monitors back in the time. And there were never such giant mega pixels like I saw on my friends PC. I could only laugh about Mr. Threepwood and everything else consisting of big squares on Dos.

[d4rk3lf]

@DaveTaylor

Yeah, it's because Commodore monitors were, pretty much, constructed the same way as regular TV, if I am not mistaken?

[khph_re]

Originally Posted by DaveTaylor

That's not only the case on TV screens. I had 2 different Amiga monitors back in the time. And there were never such giant mega pixels like I saw on my friends PC. I could only laugh about Mr. Threepwood and everything else consisting of big squares on Dos.

It didn't help that CGA/EGA games were 320x200, proper PAL Amiga games are 320x256, sometimes with overscan. Of course, more colours blends the pixels as well.



Concerning the Sierra games, when I was a kid I couldn't understand why they were so but ugly. I didn't really understand porting back then!

[gimbal]

It'd be easier to do the other way around as in the era of EGA graphics and adlib sound the PC versions of games were frequently well below par, but I think there already is a thread for that...

[Foebane]

Originally Posted by khph_re

It didn't help that CGA/EGA games were 320x200, proper PAL Amiga games are 320x256, sometimes with overscan. Of course, more colours blends the pixels as well.

Most Amiga games, at first, were developed with 320x200 (resulting in the infamous black border at the bottom fifth of the screen in PAL territories) because the developers wanted to cater to the NTSC markets, too. Later on, companies like Team 17 just gave up on the whole NTSC thing and made their games with the full 320x256 PAL resolution, with overscan if desired, because they deduced that the Amiga NTSC market was no longer viable.

In fact, 99% of Amiga demos are PAL, too, except for frustrating exceptions like Fairlight's "Love", which switches between PAL and NTSC frequently, making it practically unrecordable (from personal experience with my VHS).