
Amiga 500
Around the time of NES and the arcade, the Amiga 500 entered my life. The arcade stood for awesome graphics and quality but was limited to it's typical arcade genre of games. The Amiga had amazing innovation of gameplay in combination with awesome powerful hardware considering it's time. NES could not compete with any of this, yet the Amiga never became that very big in the US as it was in Scandinavia.
Amiga | NES | |
---|---|---|
Computation power | Very good1 | Bad2 |
Resolution | 320x2563 | 256x240 |
Colors | 32 on screen, Palette of 4096 | 53 fixed colors, 25 each scanline4. |
Graphics power | Very good, arbitrary | Bad5 |
Memory | 512Kb, 512Kb expansion6. | 2Kb |
Sound | Very good7 | Bad8 |
Unit price | 699 USD | 129.95 USD |
Game Prices | Cheap | Expensive |
After the total letdown of the Atari 600XL, I wanted to buy a machine that was really good and nothing second hand. So instead of buying a C64, I waited and bought an Amiga, even though I knew absolutely nothing about it. The only thing I've heard was that some kid had bought a computer which was much better than a C64 and that made me go to a shop and buy the only thing I thought it might be.
When I came home and for the first time inserted a disk in the floppy drive, I became really scared as the drive roared like a lion and gnarled like an angry pig. I thought I'd made a huge mistake like put the disk upside down but it was supposed to sound like that.
I was 12 years old and knew very little English. This was my road towards learning even if I wanted to or not. I remember having bought "Bards Tale" and it said "Insert Save Game Disk". As I had only gotten 1 disk with the game, I put that one into the drive. Then it said: "Disk is not formated. Do you want to format? Yes/No. As the game did not start up when I pushed no, I felt that the only option left was to push yes. After that experience I got a bit better understanding about what a formated disk was.
What a supercomputer the Amiga really was. The graphics was awesome, the sound was awesome and best of all, the games were totally awesome! It felt like no end to the game developers imagination. So very many new kind of games appeared that was nothing like the games I played before. I meant to write a small list, but that was not really possible with all the great games on the Amiga.
Favorite Games | ||
Name | Developer | Year |
---|---|---|
Defender of the Crown | Cinemaware | 1986 |
The King of Chicago | Cinemaware | 1987 |
Ports of Call | Aegis | 1987 |
Fire Power | Silent Software, Inc. | 1987 |
Shadowgate | Mindscape | 1987 |
Kings Quest – Quest for the Crown | Sierra | 1987 |
Kings Quest 2 – Romancing the Throne | Sierra | 1988 |
Kings Quest 3 – To Heir Is Human | Sierra | 1989 |
Kings Quest 4 – The Perils Of Rosella | Sierra | 1990 |
Space Quest – The Sarien Encounter | Sierra | 1987 |
Space Quest 2 – Vohaul's Revenge | Sierra | 1988 |
Space Quest 3 – The Pirates of Pestulon | Sierra | 1989 |
Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards | Sierra | 1987 |
Police Quest – In Pursuit Of The Death Angel | Sierra | 1987 |
Gold Rush! | Sierra | 1988 |
Heros Quest aka Quest for Glory | Sierra | 1989 |
Hybris | Cope-Com | 1989 |
Quest for Glory II | Sierra | 1990 |
Test Drive 1 | Distinctive Software | 1987 |
Test Drive 2 – The Duel | Distinctive Software | 1989 |
ECO | Denton Designs | 1988 |
Gone Fish'n | Unknown9 | 1988 |
F-18 Interceptor | Electronic Arts | 1988 |
International Karate +10 | Software Studios (Activision) | 1988 |
Captain Blood11 | Exxos | 1988 |
Barbarian | Kixx | 1988 |
Battle Chess | Interplay | 1988 |
Sim City | Maxis | 1988 |
Prince of Persia | Broderbund | 1989 |
Budokan – The Martial Spirit | Electronic Arts | 1989 |
Elite | Mr. Micro | 1989 |
Stunt Car Racer | Micro Style | 1989 |
Oil Imperium | reLINE | 1989 |
North & South | Infogrames | 1989 |
Shadow of the Beast | Reflections Interactive | 1989 |
Kick Off | Anco | 1989 |
Turrican12 | Factor 5 | 1989 |
Turrican II13 | Factor 5 | 1991 |
Populous | Bullfrog | 1989 |
Populous 2 | Bullfrog | 1991 |
Nuclear War | New World Computing | 1990 |
Panza Kick Boxing14 | Futura | 1990 |
Best Of The Best: Championship Karate | Futura | 1993 |
Silk Worm | Tecmo | 1990 |
James Pond | Vectordean | 1990 |
Wings | Cinemaware | 1990 |
LotusEsprite Turbo Challenge | Magnetic Fields | 1990 |
Loom | Lucasarts | 1990 |
Eye of the Beholder | Westwood Studios | 1990 |
Super Cars | Magnetic Fields | 1990 |
Super Cars 2 | Magnetic Fields | 1991 |
Street Rod | P2K | 1990 |
Street Rod 2 | P.Z.Karen Co. Development Group & Logical Design Works | 1991 |
Black Crypt | Raven Software | 1991 |
Lemmings | Psygnosis | 1991 |
Monkey Island | Lucas Arts | 1991 |
Moonstone - A Hard Days Knight | Mindscape | 1991 |
Another World | Delphine Software | 1991 |
Utopia | Celestial Software | 1991 |
Mega Lo Mania | Sensible Software | 1991 |
Deuteros – The Next Millennium | Activision | 1991 |
Elvira: Mistress of the Dark15 | Horrorsoft | 1991 |
Indiana Jones and the fate of Atlantis | Lucasarts | 1992 |
Lure of the Temptress | Revolution Software | 1992 |
Dune | Cryo | 1992 |
Dune 2 | Westwood | 1993 |
Goblins | Coktel | 1992 |
Goblins 2 – The Prince Buffoon | Coktel | 1993 |
Goblins 3 | Coktel | 1994 |
Pinball Dreams | Digital Illusions | 1992 |
Pinball Fantasies | Digital Illusions | 1993 |
Pinball Illusions | Digital Illusions | 1995 |
Cannon Fodder | Sensible | 1993 |
Simon The Sorcerer | Adventure Soft | 1993 |
Flashback | Delphine Software | 1993 |
Worms | Team 17 | 1995 |