Who needs a console when you have an Amiga 500?

The home computer that played host to everything from Speedball to Rainbow Islands hits the big 3-0, but which of its games still hold up today?

Back in July 1985 the Commodore Amiga 1000 was the state-of-the-art in home computing. Back then IBM-compatible PCs and Apple computers were too expensive for ordinary families, but most people could afford an Amiga – or its arch rival the Atari ST. But it wasn’t until the release of the Amgia 500 two years later that Commodore really hit it big, as the humble grey box became the UK’s favourite home computer. And by association one of the most important video game formats of the 16-bit era.



Or at least that’s how we saw it. Although the Amiga was a major force in the UK and Europe its success in America was more fleeting, and many of its games are barely remembered by the rest of the world. In fact, since a lot of the games were made in Europe, for a primarily local audience, many American and Japanese gamers have never even heard of them. Which is why the upcoming reboot of Shadow Of The Beast is such an unexpected rarity.


But as recognisable as Shadow Of The Beast may be to former Amiga owners it’s not amongst our favourites on the system. But the following 11 are. (It was supposed to be a top 10 but we threw Sensible Soccer in as an extra, since although we have no interest in football we do recognise it as a legitimate classic.)

But much as we loved them we have left out games we think of primarily as PC titles, such as Dune II, UFO: Enemy Unknown (aka XCOM), and Civilization. Although we have included Secret of Monkey Island, so we’ve broken our rule there anyway. Still, it’s our list so we’ll do what we want. But we are definitely interested in hearing about your Amiga memories, and what you think were its best games.

1. <strong>Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe</strong> (1990) Normally we have no interest in sports games but Speedball 2 is so good it even made fans of us. A mix of rugby, ice hockey, and Rollerball this future sport has the perfect mix of skill, violence, and the gorgeous graphics and sound that accompanied all Bitmap Brothers games. People have been trying to update and remake the game for years, but it’s never worked as well as it did on the Amiga. Not even the Mega Drive version released around the same time.

2. Rainbow Islands (1990) One of the best things about the Amiga was just how varied its line-up could be. From PC ports of studious flight sims to this: a near arcade perfect port of one of the cutest Japanese coin-ops of all time. Cute to look at anyway, in reality it’s a rock hard platformer that is filled with wonderfully unique ideas; from the rising water level that pushes you ever upwards to what is undoubtedly one of the most versatile weapon systems in any video game: a rainbow that you can use to create your own platforms, trap enemies, or simply explode their cute little guts out all over the screen.

3. The Secret Of Monkey Island (1990) LucasArts in the early 90s were an absolute powerhouse, and before they started to diversify into Star Wars and other action games their graphic adventures were second to none. Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade, Loom, and Indiana Jones And The Fate Of Atlantis, were all great but it was The Secret Of Monkey Island that remains their most beloved, and funniest, game. It’s also the one that worked best on the Amiga, with the sequel being just as good but requiring 11 different discs to run (which you had to constantly swap between, because hard drives weren’t really a thing back then).

4. Cannon Fodder (1993) British developer Sensible Software were always the bad boys of the Amiga scene, and managed to upset several tabloids by using a poppy to promote their uniquely odd top-down shooter. Cannon Fodder may look like a real-time strategy to modern eyes but it was more of a straight action game, as you led your hapless squad of soldiers to their almost inevitable deaths. But despite all the controversy it was actually a pretty effective anti-war game, as you watched the hill on the menu screen slowly fill up with new gravestones – making you surprisingly guilty about the death of every new recruit.

5. Warhead (1989) Although the Amiga did play host to a rather minimalist port of Elite, and the disappointing Elite II, we always preferred this long forgotten classic. Released a year before Wing Commander, Warhead managed to create the entire space combat simulator genre from scratch, with a believably complex control system, proper story-based missions, and some impressive 3D graphics for the time. There was never any official follow-up but developer Glyn Williams did go on to make the two Independence War games as spiritual sequels.

6. Flashback (1992) The stark beauty of Another World’s cinematic graphics were always impressive but the gameplay was always pretty shallow, and it doesn’t really stand up today. But the follow-up (but not sequel) Flashback is a genuine classic. At first it seems a relatively straightforward, and gorgeous-looking, 2D platformer but it actually has some surprisingly complex gameplay and even experiments with open world exploration. It was a great influence on the Oddworld series, although unlike those games its recent remake was awful.

7. Lemmings (1991) They might be called Rockstar North now, but the creator of Grand Theft Auto originally named his company DMA Design and started off with 2D shooters Menace and Blood Money. But the studio’s first big hit was this classic puzzler, where you had to get a troupe of suicidal lemmings to safety over the course of a 100 levels. Sony has the rights to the series now but has never done anything much with it, which is a shame because it’s a great example of the sort of game that worked perfectly on the Amiga, with its mouse and keyboard controls, but never quite as well on consoles.

8. Stunt Car Racer (1989) Sir Geoff Crammond is arguably best known for his Formula 1 games, but this decidedly non-realistic racer is arguably his best work. The idea is very simple: you, for reasons that went thankfully unexplained, are racing around on roller-coaster like tracks and… you better not fall off. Somehow the half broken physics, that often saw you ricocheting weirdly around the course, only added to the fun. The game was also the number one reason to invest in a null modem cable and connect up two Amigas for some two-player action.

9. Exile (1991) This is actually a port of an old BBC Micro and Acorn Electron game, and it never looked like much even back in 1991. It was however a game massively ahead of its time, with a huge open world map that you were free to explore and experiment with however you wanted. The game didn’t give many clues as to what you were meant to do, which is probably why it was never a bigger hit, but it had a proper physics engine, believable artificial intelligence, and totally non-linear gameplay.

10. Hunter (1991) When the creator of No Man’s Sky talks about how unambitious the last few generation of video games have been he’s referring back to games like Hunter. Despite the Amiga’s extremely modest 3D graphics it was filled with open world games that gave you complete freedom to go anywhere, drive anything, and shoot everything. Hunter was probably the most accomplished, but there was also the two Midwinter games, Damocles, Starglider 2, and Cybercon 3. Not all were great games, but at least they were aiming high.

11. Sensible World Of Soccer '96/'97 (1996) For the first several years of the Amiga’s life the premier football game was Dino Dini’s Kick Off series. But Sensible Software always felt they could do better, and with the Sensible Soccer series they proved it. And although we still preferred Speedball 2 even we appreciated the game’s breakneck speed and elegantly simple controls. To be honest, by 1996 most people had given up their Amiga in favour of a PlayStation or N64, but Sensible keep producing new variants every year, with the later version adding in player manager elements as well.

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