Amiga Games

Amiga Games - Panza Kick Boxing - Classic Commodore Amiga Game

2012-01-10T16:06:00.002Z

Panza Kick Boxing
This is a classic game on the Commodore Amiga, that for me never quite got the recognition it deserved.

Released by the French company Loriciel in 1990, this game was met with mainly positive reviews, but for some reason never quite acheived the same level of fame as the likes of Body Blows or (the admittedly excellent arcade game) Mortal Kombat.

Still, for those that played it back in the day it must surely be up there with the best of the beat-em-up gaming genre from the 8-bit and 16-bit era. We're talking the likes of Way of the Exploding Fist, Full Contact and Barbarian.

It was also endorsed by Andre Panza (hence the name of the game) who was champion kick-boxer at the time.

One of the best beat em ups on the Amiga

What set this apart from other beat em up arcade games of the era was the customisability available to the player as well as a variety of fighters and moves to choose from.

Once a fighter was selected you were able to customise him with various moves. Each fighter could be equiped with thirteen moves picked from a total of fifty five - allowing the player to experiment with different fighting styles and techniques.

All of the moves available for selected were geniune moves from the real art making the game a geniune representation of kick-boxing appealing to fans of the real art and gamers alike.

Train your fighter to the max

You also had to train your game character; you could choose the amount of strength, stamina (resistance) and speed training (reflexes) prior to a fight with various exercises in the gym hall. This would determine how much damage you could doll out, how much punishment you could take as well as your speed around the ring.

A round-kick to the face is always a stinger

The actual arcade action in the game was well implemented too. Each fighter was very well animated and moved in a life-like manner. Punches and kicks were textbook perfect and there great in-fight moments as a fighter was doubled up from a blow to the ribs or dollops of spittle would fly from a hook to the head. Great stuff!

The aim of this classic game was to fight your way from the bottom of the rankings to the top to eventually take on and defeat the champion. With a huge variety of moves to pick from, increasing your fighters skill and superb animation this was a game that would keep you coming back for more.

All in all this was a great game that not even the referee's annoying voice could spoil!

That's a slightly camp top for a kick-boxer

We recommend getting hold of the real Amiga hardware - but if not then download an Amiga emulator and download Panza Kick Boxing. Alternatively you could try and play it online.

Please see our other Amiga retro game reviews - all links are listed in alphabetical order. Cheers guys.

GENRE: Arcade Game
RELEASE DATE: 1990
RELEASED BY: Loriciel
DEVELOPER(S): Nicolas Massonnat, Marco de Flores, Michel Winogradoff
PRICE: £24.99 - UK

Classic Arcade Action on the Commodore Amiga:

Classic Games, Arcade Games, Amiga Games

Amiga Games - Richard Hewison - Project Mangager and Games Tester

2011-09-16T09:34:00.002+01:00

Richard Hewison
Richard Hewison worked as project manager and games tester during the 8-bit and 16-bit era's on machines such as the ZX Spectrum and Commodore Amiga.

With a vast library of titles under his belt including classic games such as Beneath a Steel Sky, Cannon Fodder, Sensible Soccer, Stunt Car Racer and Speedball II he has project managed and play tested some of the most recognisable games to grace best 16-bits in history.

Richard was more thank kind enough to take me through his days working in the gaming sector on the Commodore Amiga...

One of the greatest games ever...

1: Hi Richard. First of all how did you get into the games industry - and when did you make your first foray into this area?
Short version - I happened to know someone who managed to get a job at TelecomSoft and just a month or two later he called me to let me know there was a tester's position that had become available. I went for the interview and got the job!
Long version - I was writing a regular Adventure helpline column and computer game reviews for the computing section on BBC2's teletext service CEEFAX in the mid-1980s.

The section was called NEXT and was edited by a guy called Martin Cooper.

I started by posting the mode 7 teletext pages on 5.25" floppy disks to the editor at BBC Television Centre every couple of weeks, and I then started subscribing to Prestel & Micronet so I could upload the pages via a 1200 baud modem connected to our BBC Micro. Heady stuff!

Anyway, I made friends with a number of other subscribers on Micronet and Prestel who were adventure game fans. I was a full time student by then, doing Business Studies and specialising in Business Computing (as it was back in the mid-80s!).

I saw an advert in Popular Computing Weekly in early 1987 for a job at Rainbird Software in central London. I applied, got as far as an interview, but was ultimately unsuccessful. Fast forward six months or so and I was now an unemployed student but busy trying to get a job in 'the industry'.

I got interviewed for a job at EMAP in London (writing for Computer & Video Games magazine) but didn't get that job either. I did get a few reviews published though as some kind of compensation.

It was shortly afterwards that one of my Micronet & Prestel buddies managed to get a job working at TelecomSoft. I was of course very envious having failed to get a job at the same company the previous year, so I told him to let me know if any jobs came up.

A few months later and I'd only just started a new job when my friend phoned up out-of-the-blue and told me that a game testers job had just been suddenly vacated and I should get in there before they have the chance to advertise the post.

I did this the very next day and was interviewed in London the following week. They called my home to offer me the job before I'd even got back. Oddly, it turned out that I knew the previous post holder (who had been sacked). Sometimes it's a small world!
You could say this was all pre-ordained though, as I had done some early games testing for Kevin Toms' Addictive Games back in 1983/84.

I was constantly pestering him by letter to do a BBC version of Football Manager, so in the end I like to think he caved in and did one, then phoned me up and asked me to play-test it. This I did and was rewarded with a free copy when the game was finished.

2: Did you spend much time working in the 8-bit scene? If so - which games did you playtest or project manage and on which machines?
Ignoring my brief games testing stint in 1983/84, I was joining the industry when 8-bit was on its last legs in early 1988. I had been a BBC user, then bought a Spectrum and then persuaded a friend to sell me his Commodore 64 in 1986.

I considered myself a naturalised Speccy user (owning both a rubber-keyed 48k model and the souped-up Sinclair 128k+ when that came out in Feb '86) so once that became known at TelecomSoft, I got to critique and test the 8-bit conversions of the 16-bit games like Starglider 2, Virus, Carrier Command and so on because I still cared enough about those platforms to try and make the conversions worth doing.

I even got to contribute some artwork into Carrier Command (one or two of the icons in the ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC versions are mine) and I contributed the stars and the space clouds on the Starglider 2 Spectrum loading screen! Ahem... I'll get my coat!
I was involved in lots of 8-bit stuff in general. The very first game I ever professionally tested at TelecomSoft on my very first day was Graftgold's highly underrated 'Intensity' which was published by Firebird.

I also play-tested classic games such as; Soldier of Fortune, Dynamic Duo, Savage, Virus, Starglider 2, Carrier Command, Corruption, Fish!, 3D Pool, P47, Mr Heli, Action Fighter, Exploding Fist +, G.I. Hero, Rainbow Islands, Betrayal, Stuntcar Racer, Rick Dangerous, Samurai Warrior, and Star Trek: The Rebel Universe (which Commodore User magazine amusingly credited me as being the programmer when I wrote their two-page players guide in an early '89 issue).

At Mirrorsoft, I managed the 8-bit and conversions of Bloodwych, Predator 2 and Robozone for C64, CPC and Spectrum.

3: When did you move into the 16-bit market?
I didn't 'move' into 16-bit; it was already there when I arrived in early 1988! I had bought myself an Atari 520STFM about six months earlier and was busy playing Magnetic Scrolls adventures and Dungeon Master on it before I started working in the industry.
4: What was best - the Amiga or the Atari ST?
Well, at first I would definitely say the Atari because you could actually do useful stuff with TOS and Gem without the need for a hard drive or two floppy drives. Trying to do anything useful on an Amiga A500 via Workbench 1.3 with just one floppy drive was almost impossible!

However, the Amiga was technically superior and although the ST had the early advantage, I think the Amiga took over within a few years.

Certainly the A1200 with an internal hard drive and a second floppy became a very useful machine in the early 90s once the ST/STE/Falcon had pretty much died a death. It wasn't until near the end of my stint that ST conversions of games were not being considered.

5: Can you tell us some of the titles you worked on during the Commodore Amiga years?
Lots!
As a tester - Starglider 2, Virus, Savage, Corruption, Fish!, Verminator, 3D Pool, Action Fighter, Rick Dangerous, Druid II: Enlightenment (Pete Molyneux's first ever game!), Oriental Games, Elite, Whirligig, Flying Shark, Mr Heli, P47, Quartz, Rainbow Islands, The Sentinel, Tower of Babel.

As a Project Manager - Predator 2, Robozone, Blade Warrior, The Final Battle, Sensible Soccer (before and after it went to Renegade), Cannon Fodder (before it went to Virgin), Legend (before and after it went to Mindscape and I also wrote the manual and the Adventurer's Handbook), Lure of the Temptress (before and after it went to Virgin) and some unpublished titles including Duster, Terrarium, Drop Soldier.

I also tested Reach for the Skies (before and after it went to Virgin), did rudimentary testing on a slew of Cinemaware titles including Wings, It Came from the Desert (the pre-prod disks came from the duplicators labelled as 'It Came from the Dessert' which made us laugh!), Ant Heads, TV Sports Boxing and a little bit of Roller Babes I seem to recall too.

Also got to do some testing on Cadaver, Speedball 2, Flipit & Magnose, Back to the Future II and III, The Killing Cloud, Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles, Overlord, Dino Dini's Goal! (I wrote the manual as well), Battletoads, Beneath a Steel Sky, Liberation: Captive 2 (I also wrote the manual), Dune II, Elf Mania, Frontier: Elite II, KGB (I'm listed as a KGB agent in the end credits!), Worlds of Legend: Son of the Empire (I also wrote the manual), Rise of the Robots... which I probably shouldn't be admitting too!... and probably a few more besides that I've blotted from my memory!

6: Which titles give you fond memories and why?
Quite a few - on 8-bit I loved Intensity. Starglider 2 and Virus because they were pretty cutting edge back then on 16-bit. Rainbow Islands was just a terrific conversion and it was so hard to see us do all the work and then Ocean snatch the publishing and the glory afterwards.

Legend was a terrific little RPG with a wonderful magic spell casting system. Sensible Soccer and Dini Dini's Goal! were both terrific footie games (but I actually prefer Goal! out of the two). Dune II was special although the Amiga conversion was really only playable on an A1200.

Frontier was almost great but suffered from trying to do too much on hardware that wasn't quite up to it.

7: Conversely which titles give you less than fond memories and why?
Quite a few of these too! Where do I start?

On 8-bit Dynamic Duo was a mess and should have been a budget release not a full price Firebird title, G.I. Hero was just awful and had no real game in it at all (and I got lumbered with testing it because nobody else could face doing it!). Robozone was a great idea that got watered down so much as development went on that in the end it was a huge disappointment.

I had a much better idea for the Predator 2 game design but it was all decided before the project was given to me and shoot 'em ups were never my thing. There's a reason why Terrarium was cancelled - it was terrible - and the list could go on and on but I'll stop there and try and be a little diplomatic.

8: Can you tell me any coders you watched working and just thought 'wow'?
Well, I didn't do too much 'watching' because I was based in the publisher's office and we didn't have many/any in-house programmers. I'd say that the guys who impressed me with their work were Geoff Crammond, Sensible Software, Ross Goodley, Dino Dini and the guys at FTL.
9: Do you play any the games you tested or project managed these days?
Yes, thanks to the wonders of emulation and my web sites I get to revisit the good/bad old days on a regular basis. I don't get much time to play games at all due to work and family, but when I do I nearly always go back to the 8-bit and 16-bit games rather than boot up modern PC, Wii or PS3 stuff.

At the time you can't wait to see the back of most games once they're finished, but now with years between the pain and the game I actually quite like playing most of them to varying degrees!

10: Can you tell us what you have been up to since the Amiga scene faded in the mid 1990s?
I went freelance for a while (Virgin, Domark, Mindscape, Renegade, Abbey Road etc), then worked for Sony CEE for a while on the new Sony PSX console (this was back in mid-1994 the year before it's launch) then got out of the games industry all together.

I then decided to set up my Bird Sanctuary web site all about TelecomSoft and I'm planning to do one all about Mirrorsoft too. I also get to write on a semi-regular basis for Retro Gamer magazine and have done articles about TelecomSoft, Beyond, Virgin, The Electronic Pencil Company, Hewson, Mirrorsoft and a whole load of other publishers and developers over the last 6 or 7 years.

It's a great excuse to get back in touch with some of the people I used to work with and it gives me an excuse to research the period of computer gaming (the 1980s and early 90s) which I honestly believe were the most innovative and exciting in the UK.

Once again many thanks to Richard for taking the time to talk to me about his Amiga days.

Classic Games, Arcade Games and Amiga Games

Amiga Games - Outrun - Classic Commodore Amiga Game

2011-08-31T13:27:00.001+01:00

Out Run Amiga
Ahhh now this is one the most iconic arcade games of all times. Who else can remember the thrill of sitting in the Out Run cabinet, the 3D graphics racing towards you, hydraulics lurching you in all directions and the sterio-tastic Magical Sound Shower pumping in your ears?

Out Run (by Sega) was a fantastic beat the clock arcade racing game, and a conversion to the Commodore Amiga was always on the cards.

But could such a large and graphically intensive game be converted to the Amiga?

Well, yes is could have been converted quite well in the hands of talented developers- but what we got from US Gold (and Probe software) was only Out Run in name, not in playability.

The loading screen to Out Run - the best part of the game

Out Run was released for the Amiga by US Gold in 1989 and was met with a mostly negative reception.

I'll get this out of the way first; the Spectrum 128 (or +2 and +3) versions were actually superior to the Amiga offering despite it coming out two years earlier and of course only having 8-bits of processing power and 128K of RAM to play with.

Even the AY music was better than the approximation to the arcade music we were given on our favourite 16-bit beaut, I'm getting angry all these years later (again) just thinking about it...

Crashed and burned huh Mav.....

Gameplay
This game (the original arcade game anyway) placed you in the driving seat of a Ferrari Testarossa convertible with a stunning blonde in the passenger seat (female players had to pretend it was a right-hand-drive vehicle ;-)), to race around a series of tracks at breakneck speed.

As you neared the end of a track (assuming you did not run out of time) then you would take the left or right fork to move onto the next track - each one branching into a different area. This continued until you either ran out of time or you reached the end of the whole 'race'.

What really p1ssed me off about this version is that it completely fails to capture the spirit or feel of the original Sega game - the graphics are flat, the 3D effect poor and the sense of speed.... Well there is no sense of speed.

The Amiga is capable of so much more and this version here smacks of a quick and lazy port over. We never expected it to match the arcade game perfectly, but the Amiga was capable of getting pretty close to it.

Even when it's moving you don't feel the wind in your hair

This was a major disappointment for Amiga gamers back in '89 and was yet another quick and crappy conversion of a good arcade original.

We recommend getting hold of the real Amiga hardware - but if not then download an Amiga emulator but do not bother to download this game. Alternatively you could try and play it online, but seriously, just fire it up on MAME or even play the Speccy version.

Please see our other Amiga retro game reviews - all links are listed in alphabetical order. Cheers guys.

GENRE: Arcade Game (3D Racing)
RELEASE DATE: 1989
RELEASED BY: US Gold
DEVELOPER(S): Probe Software
PRICE: £19.99 (UK)

A very poor conversion of a classic arcade game:

Classic Games, Arcade Games and Amiga Games

Amiga Games - The Light Corridor - Classic Commodore Amiga Game

2011-08-03T12:50:00.001+01:00

The Light Corridor Amiga
This classic game was released for the Commodore Amiga in 1990 by Infogrames. I suppose it could be classed as a sort of clone of the classic arcade game breakout with a massive twist.

It was now a 3D vector graphics breakout style game, and very good it was too.

This game was released at a time when the 8-bit to 16-bit transition was gathering pace and a 16-bit machine such as the Amiga was the ideal machine for a game of this type.

If you liked breakout and puzzle games then you wouldn't go far wrong with this one...

Prepare To Enter The Light Corridor....

The aim of the game was to navigate your way along 'The Light Corridor' (taking the 1st person view).

Equipped with a translucent 'raquet' you had to guide the metallic sphere along the heart of the corridor by using your raquet to continuously keep it 'in play'. As you can tell it really was breakout or Arkanoid in 3D.

Avoiding the walls and the traps, you had to collect the bonuses on offer and battle your way along, until eventually you would see the light, at the end of the tunnel. :-)

The game was spread over four stages and in classic arcade style there were plenty of powerups to collect and nasties to avoid.

After chillin' to the smooth intro music it was time to enter the game...

At the beginning of the game you had to release the ball and watch if fly down the corridor until it struck a wall or similar obstacle. At this point it would bounce back towards you and you had to 'hit' it thus sending it back 'away' from your viewpoint again.

The player moved along the game-corridor during the time the ball was in flight (you could stop and start as and when you wished). The colour of the walls also changed to show your progression through the levels.

The object of the game was to reach the end of the corridor without allowing the ball to miss the raquet and 'hit' the player. If this happened, as you may guess, it was the loss of one life.

Obstacles such as moving elevator-style doors and sliding blocks ensured that navigating your way was quite difficult and the game was all about quick reflexes and timing.

There were also nice powerups to be had to help you on your way such as 'sticky sphere' (ooerr), multi-balls, speedup etc etc. All of the usual arcade game powerups were in here.

Those Pesky Corridors...

It must also be said that this classic game was extremely customisable.

You could run the 'raquet' at normal or fast speed which was nice, but the real boon was being able to create your own game levels to play through.

The game had an in-built editor that allowed you to create corridors and then save them to disc. Now just how cool is that?

This was a great feature at the time and added a lot of longevity to the game.

All in all this is a bit of cult classic game that offered something a little different to home gamers back in the day and it still plays pretty well all of these years later.

We recommend getting hold of the real Amiga hardware - but if not then download an Amiga emulator and download this game. Alternatively you could try and play it online.

Please see our other Amiga retro game reviews - all links are listed in alphabetical order. Cheers guys.

GENRE: Arcade Game (3D Breakout)
RELEASE DATE: 1990
RELEASED BY: Infogrames
DEVELOPER(S): Vincent Pourieux, Carole Arachtingi, Dominique Girou, Sandrine Nove-Josserand, Didier Chanfray -- Music by Frédéric Mentzen
PRICE: £24.99 (UK)

Welcome To The Light Corridor.... Classic Amiga Gaming

Arcade Games, Classic Games and Arcade Games

Amiga Games - Operation Wolf - Classic Commodore Amiga Game

2011-06-30T11:02:00.002+01:00

Operation Wolf Amiga
I've been a little quiet on here lately mainly due to conducting programmer interviews over on my ZX Spectrum Games site (with Mark R Jones of Ocean Software) but it's back into those classic 16-bits again with a decent conversion of a once popular arcade game, Operation Wolf.

When this came out for the Commodore Amiga (along with the ZX Spectrum, C64 and Amstrad CPC 464) late in 1988 home computer conversions of arcade games were still popular.

The original arcade game by Taito had been more popular than neon blue lighting effects in a James Camron flick - with gamers loving the pseudo 3D viewpoint and control via the force feedback cabinet mounted uzi machine gun.

Time to kick some butt

The arcade game (at the time) featured state of the art graphics (large animated enemy soldiers, helicopters, tanks, sizeable buildings with breakable windows etc) and superb sterio sound.

Couple this with the actual uzi machine gun you used to play it with and you were onto a sure fire winner. Converting such a game to a 16-bit machine was never going to be that easy - and Ocean software stepped up to the task.

It was possible to replicate the large full colour graphics on the Amiga quite well, so Ocean decided to go for a similar look - and it ended up working pretty well but just not quite as smooth as the arcade original.

The game began with you (as a double-hard crack commando with 'enemy mow down capabilities' in the realm of John Matrix) being parachuted into hostile territory to locate an enemy concentration camp and free the captives.

I eat Green Berets for Breakfast

You began the game with seven clips of ammunition and five grenades - so straight away you had to get used to short controlled bursts.

The mission was split into six sections which matched those of the arcade game.
The sections were as follows:
Communication Setup, Jungle Area, Jungle Village, Powder Magazine, The Concentration Camp and finally the Airport.

On each level the landscapes slowly panned from right to left before you in first-person perspective as looked down your gun-sights (represented by a cross-hair).

That beardy bloke doesn't stand a chance

As the game landscape scrolled before you soldiers parachuted downwards or ran into the action firing away at you, whilst helicopters, boats and tanks also arrived to make things really interesting.
Vehicles required a barrage of shots to be destroyed - but could be taken out in one go with one of your precious rocket propelled grenades. The characters from the arcade game were re-created pretty faithfully - those huge Schwarzenegger type badguys who appeared right in front of you were even included. Waaahhh!

On later levels some enemies wore kevlar jackets and had to be hit with a headshot to dispatch them. Also requiring fast reactions were the daggers and grenades lobbed at you, these could be shot out of the air to prevent them from hitting you and reducing your energy.

To the side of the playing screen was the ammo counter, a damage meter and three icons. The latter told you how many men, tanks, boats and so on had to be destroyed before the current level was cleared.

Extra ammo and grenades were available (by shooting them as they appeared on-screen) and a power up was available which gave you double rapid fire and unlimited bullets for around ten seconds. This was always good for a laugh as you mowed down huge amounts of the enemy with ease.

There were also items which would reduce your damage level by a few points - which could make all the difference in completing a level.

Apart from human targets various animals appeared (like birds and pigs) from time to time and shooting them would occasionally give you an item of food to boost your energy or extra ammunition. Just how shooting a pig yields more ammunition is anyones guess, but for some reason I never even questioned it back then!

Shooting any prisoners, villagers, nurses etc took a fair bit of your energy away - so you needed to be accurate in your shooting.

I'm the demolition maaaaaan!

The Amiga also managed to represent the cut-scenes from the arcade game pretty accurately, and all of the voice samples were replicated too.

All in all this was a decent enough version of the arcade game, but without that force-feedback Uzi it just wasn't the same.

But that's it, I am finished..... here.

We recommend getting hold of the real Amiga hardware - but if not then download an Amiga emulator and download Operation Wolf. Alternatively you could try and play it online.

Please see our other Amiga retro game reviews - all links are listed in alphabetical order. Cheers guys.

GENRE: Arcade Game
RELEASE DATE: 1988
RELEASED BY: Ocean Software
DEVELOPER(S): Christophe Gomez, Benoist Aron, Phillipe Chastel, Marc Djan, Jean Baudlot
PRICE: £24.95 (UK)

Sweat it out with some Classic Arcade Action:

Arcade Games, Classic Games and Amiga Games

Amiga Games - Alien Breed - Classic Commodore Amiga Game

2011-05-18T08:47:00.004+01:00

Alien Breed Amiga
In Amiga Games no-one can hear you scream...

Well that is if I am playing Alien Breed from Team 17.

Team 17 were known for producing quality games for the Amiga, and this one was no exception.

It had it all; superb gameplay, excellent graphics, top notch music, brilliant sound effects and a claustrophobic and terrifying atmosphere.

The game would go on to spawn several excellent sequels, but this is where the alien horror all began for us Amiga gamers...

The game was a classic arcade top down eight way scrolling run 'n gun game which owed a little debt to the arcade classic Gauntlet.

The game was set within 'Intex Space Research Centre - Number 4' where you as a character named Johnson stepped into action to see why no contact could be established with the base.

In two player mode (which was brilliant fun) a character named Stone was also along for the ride.

Basically you had to negotiate your way through each level, killing lots of aliens, collecting money, keys and ammunition.

All of this led to the completion of a particular task allowing you access to the next level, but first let's talk about the games presentation...

The loading screen was simple yet effective.

Anyone familiar with the Alien movies knew what lay ahead - and once the game loaded and you got an earful of one of the greatest ever tunes composed for the Amiga you were into excitement overdrive.

The atmospheric and downright scary theme-tune to Alien Breed:

This quality continued with the game itself.

The background graphics were superb to look at with each level complete with huge spaceships, compact corridors, tiled floors and computer terminals. There were neat little signs around pointing out certain areas, fire doors, moving machinery and air ducts. All of these features made it seem as though you really were on a research station on some distant planet.

On top of this the character and alien sprites moved realistically and the in-game sound effects and speech were a pure joy.

"Player One Requires Ammo" still gives me the chills to this day.

There were lots of neat touches in this game that added to the overall class and polish, moving it from being a good game to great.

Dotted around the levels were Intex computer terminals which you could log onto. The way the developers created the screen menu and the soft female voice samples used which announced "Welcome to Intex systems" was a stroke of genius.

On deeper levels the screen would crackle and break up as you logged on which really added to the already creepy atmosphere.

You could use these terminals to view a map of the current level and also to purchase items such as extra ammunition and weapons.

Being able to upgrade your weapons added a lot to the game - it was fun blowing those aliens away with your new powerful flame-thrower.

Also as you progressed through the game different aliens would appear - and they would also begin to popup through the floor. Sneaky bast*rds!

Throughout the game there was also a steady background 'hum' which was almost heartbeat like, which again added to the overall opressive atmosphere.

I remember the first time I flicked the switch to escape from the second level and the same soft spoken 'Intex systems' voice announced to me that destruction was imminent as the whole screen darkened to a deep red colour and an ominous warning klaxon began to sound.

With only sixty seconds to haul ass to the escape elevator it was nerve jangling stuff. If you didn't make it there in time it was game over man, game over.

I have to say that two player mode was a real blast. You could really plan your way around with one player covering the other and doubling up on firepower in those heavily infested areas.

The only niggles I have with this gaming classic is the fact that you can only shoot in the direction you are facing and the re-spawning aliens can get a bit much some times.

Aside from this, as far as top down arcade games go this is a total classic. The one were it all began.

We recommend getting hold of the real Amiga hardware - but if not then download an Amiga emulator and download Alien Breed. Alternatively you could try and play it online.

Please see our other Amiga retro game reviews - all links are listed in alphabetical order. Cheers guys.

GENRE: Arcade Game
RELEASE DATE: 1991
RELEASED BY: Team 17
DEVELOPER(S): Rico Holmes, Stefan Boberg, Peter Tuleby, Andreas Tadic, Allister Brimble
PRICE: £24.99 (UK)

Classic Arcade Action - Play It In The Dark:

Are you interested in space games? Then you should have a look at Bigpoint's Battlestar Galactica or try some sim games or a fantasy game!

Classic Games, Arcade Games and Amiga Games

Amiga Games - Pinball Dreams - Classic Commodore Amiga Game

2011-04-22T11:31:00.002+01:00

Pinball Dreams Amiga

I was never a fan of pinball games until this came along for the Commodore Amiga.

With wonderful graphics, nice music and superb physics this classic game came straight out of the amusement arcades was (and still is) a joy to play.

Digital Illusions gave us Amiga gamers this title in 1992 and it was certainly something a little different from the mainstream, and once more the good old Amiga gave us pure arcade atmosphere in the comfort of our own homes...

There were four pinball tables within this game to play through, each with it's own flashing lights, bonuses and power-ups.

The tables were superbly designed and contained authentic clicks, blips, whirring noises and any other bells and whistles you can think of that made you feel as though you were actually on a real pinball table.

The attention to detail was fantastic. The ball moved around in a realistic manner and even the initial launching of the ball onto the table was power adjustable, you could belt it in at fult pelt if you wanted or gently ease it onto the table, it was all down to you.

With the myriads of bonuses on each table there was plenty to get your teeth into here. Letters to light up, targets to hit, sticky points which allowed you to aim the ball.... you could even tilt the table via the space bar! Too much tilting resulted in your 'turn' being revoked though.

This classic Amiga game was a masterpiece of programming and design. Each table was excellently crafted, the sound effects were spot on, the ball physics were astonishingly realistic and the differing in-game music per table kept things fresh.

It was also possible for up to eight players to take part in the game, allowing you to host your very own mini pinball tournaments which was great fun. Food, drink and pinball dreams was a great way to while away a cold evening in Carlisle I can tell ya!
If you like pinball, and even if you don't, this game is still very playable and addictive. Try it, you may even become a pinball wizard like me..... ;-)

We recommend getting hold of the real Amiga hardware - but if not then download an Amiga emulator and download Pinball Dreams. Alternatively you could try and play it online.

Please see our other Amiga retro game reviews - all links are listed in alphabetical order. Cheers guys.

GENRE: Arcade Game (Pinball)
RELEASE DATE: 1992
RELEASED BY: 21st Century Entertainment
DEVELOPER(S): Digital Illusions
PRICE: £25.99 (UK)

Classic Arcade Action:

Classic Games, Arcade Games and Amiga Games

Amiga Games - Bombjack - Classic Commodore Amiga Game

2011-04-06T08:06:00.013+01:00

Bombjack Amiga
Tehkan (now Tecmo) had created this popular arcade game in 1984 and it already been converted to most 8-bit machines in 1986.

A 16-bit conversion was always on the cards and Bombjack arrived on the Commodore Amiga in 1989 - and whilst it was a playable game it was also a little disappointing.

ZX Spectrum Bombjack had been an awesome conversion, but on the Amiga we were treated to a lazy Atari ST port, which of course would just not do...

In this (by 1989 a retro arcade game) you controlled Jack - a 'superhero' who could leap incredibly high and gracefully glide to the ground.

He could diffuse bombs too by simply touching them - I suppose that's why he was called Bomb Jack. Anyway - in this arcade game a load of bombs (depicted in a cartoon style - black 'balls' with a fizzing lit fuze) had been placed in famous locations all around the world.

Just why is anyones guess!

The locations were:
The Sphinx and pyramids
The Acropolis
Neuschwanstein Castle
Miami Beach
Hollywood (LA)

The object of the game was to 'diffuse' the bombs and defeat the various enemies on each screen, with screen having one of the famous locations as a backdrop. The screens matched up with the original arcade game quite well.

Each of the screens usually had platforms on it too - you couldn't jump through these platforms but you could land on them and walk across them if you wanted to - giving a nice mix of arcade action and classic platform gaming.

Various nasties populated each screen such as robots, birds and deadly snails (yep, deadly snails!) which would take one of your three lives on contact with you.

You had to manouver around these nasties by leaping and 'floating' around the screen, you could also change direction in mid-air which was pretty cool.

Once you had collected/diffused the first bomb (they never exploded, no matter how long you let them fizzle away) another one's fuse would ignite.

You could collect them all in the order that they 'lit up' - but it didn't really matter if you didn't bother, you could still complete each game screen no matter in what order you collected them.

If you did collect them all in order a bonus was put your way. Collecting all twenty three in the active state resulted in a whopping 60,000 bonus points. Wahey!

Either way - once all the bombs on screen had been collected, you moved on to the next screen. Every so often a disk bearing the letter P arrived onscreen (A powerup which was familiar to all Commodore gamers) - collecting this immobilised the enemies and turned them into stationary smiling faces (for a few seconds - Pac Man style)which could be collected for yet more points. Wahey again!

An E disk added an extra life, while a B disk added points and increased the value of any subsequent bombs collected.

Once you had visited all of the screens and in true arcade game tradition, you were whisked back to the beginning - with the platform layout altered and the nasties even nastier.

I have to say that I enjoyed this arcade game and loved the ZX Spectrum version, but the version we got for the good old Amiga was a little flat.

It was still playable enough and captured some of the spirit of the original arcade game - but it just wasn't as good as it should have been.

With a little more effort this would have been the definitive home version of the arcade game, but it turned out to be just another 'decent conversion'. A real opportunity missed.

Still, give this old Commodore Amiga game a go, it certainly has a level of retro charm.

We recommend getting hold of the real Amiga hardware - but if not then download an Amiga emulator and download Bombjack. Alternatively you could try and play it online.

Please see our other Amiga retro game reviews - all links are listed in alphabetical order. Cheers guys.

GENRE: Arcade game
RELEASE DATE: 1989
RELEASED BY: Elite
DEVELOPER(S): Paradox Software
PRICE: £25.99 (UK)

Not quite a classic Amiga Game:

Classic Games and Amiga Games

Amiga Games - Body Blows - Classic Commodore Amiga Game

2011-03-22T07:54:00.011Z

Body Blows Amiga Those famous Commodore Amiga coders Team 17 (who authored many a great game) gave us a rival to Street Fighter in 1993 with Body Blows.

All of the usual features for an arcade style beat em up were in there; varying fighters, special moves and differing backgrounds as you progressed through the game.

Now Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat were very good arcade games (And Mortal Kombat ended up being a very good Amiga Game) - could Body Blows go toe to toe or would it be finished off after three short rounds?

Like any good game of this type it offered two modes of play. Single player mode pitted you against the computer (after you had chosen your fighter) making you fight against six increasingly difficult opponents before finally taking on the hardest of them all 'Max'.

Give Max a kicking and your victory was complete.

Multi-player mode with a bunch of friends was also possible, allowing two, four or even eight players to take part in a knockout tournament. Great fun.

In classic arcade fashion (which Commodore gamers were familiar with) each fighter was blessed with a plethora of moves with lots of punches, kicks and flying attacks available to each.

Of course each character had special moves too which could be real fun - see 'Cossack' and his Superdrill move for example.

Another good feature in this game was that it allowed you to put the same characters against each other (which required a cheat in Street Fighter to accomplish) for a real evenly matched battle.

Great combo-attacks could be executed after a fair amount of practice too and huge bonus points were awared for winning a bout without taking a single blow - a perfect victory.

For me as usual you usually ended up with a couple of fighters that you preferred and stuck to those when playing the game.

I remember Max being a real b*stard to beat - I don't think I ever did as far as I remember.

All in all this game was well recieved when it was released. It was a well polished game with decent characters which were nicely drawn (and pretty big), great looking four way scrolling backdrops, nifty in-game speech and great music both in-game and on the title screen.

Some of the special moves were very well done too - the ninja who sort of 'dissolved' into thin air ('Shadow!') was rather cool at the time!

Team 17 were synonymous with quality and they delivered a fine arcade game in the beat em up genre to us Amiga gamers. It perhaps lacked a little soul - but once you got the hang of it this game was well worth playing.

It kept me occupied until MK came out anyway - and was one of the better beat em ups in Commodore gaming history.

The only real downside to the game was the disk swapping and long load times between levels - but we can forgive it that as the game could be played on a standard Amiga 500.

We recommend getting hold of the real Amiga hardware - but if not then download an Amiga emulator and download Body Blows. Alternatively you could try and play it online.

Please see our other Amiga retro game reviews - all links are listed in alphabetical order. Cheers guys

GENRE: Arcade game (Beat em up)
RELEASE DATE: 1993 RELEASED BY: Team 17
DEVELOPER(S): Allister Brimble, Cedric McMillan Jnr, Alex Garnier, Nik Harbor, Daniel J Burke
PRICE: £25.99 (UK)

Classic Arcade Action:

Arcade Games, Classic Games and Amiga Games

Amiga Games - Xenon - Classic Commodore Amiga Game

2011-03-09T13:20:00.009Z

Xenon Amiga
Once again the Bitmap brothers came up trumps with a slice of classic arcade action with Xenon in 1988.

The Xenon series ended up being regarded as classic games on the Commodore Amiga and the first game in the series was extremely playable and also featured some excellent music courtesy of musical genious David Whittaker.

Like any good arcade style shoot em up there was a back story to explain why you were pitched in battle against a bunch of bad guys...

From the moment that Captain Xod's face appeared on the vid-com, you just knew he was in a spot of bother. As the only other ship in the sector it was up to you to go to his aid. Cue Sector One!

So - you had to fight your way through the many game zones whilst collecting essential supplies for the fleet. At the end of each sector you have a chance to refuel and reload ammunition - but only after you have defeated the end of level 'boss'.

So there you have it - a classic arcade game back story . In the game you had to negotiate four sectors, each of which were divided into four game zones. A nice voice-over (by a bloke wearing shades) announced each sector as you progressed through the game.

In a nice twist had a choice of two craft which could be changed at will depending on the environment. You were in control of a ground craft which was capable of eight-way movement as well as a faster jet-fighter.

It was up to you to select the appropriate craft to negotiate the current obstacles and you also had to be prepared to switch between them rapidly. Certain types of your opponents were ground based and some were airborne - meaning that only the right craft could destroy certain enemies you faced.

In true arcade gaming tradition there were powerups aplenty. Certain weapons could only be collected and used by the fightercraft and vice-versa. Shooting the aliens and their weapon emplacements revealed power cells which could be collected to give you some much needed extras.

The powerups available to the player were:

A ARMOUR - Granted total invincibity for 15 seconds
F FUEL - There were two types of fuel cell. Those with one orange band restored five fuel units; those with three gave you a full tank
H HOMING - Gave homing missiles for 15 seconds
L LASER - Armed your fighter with lasers
G GUN - Canceled the lasers (boo!) and reverted to normal bullets
P POWER - Increased the range of your shots
R RATE - Sped up your ground craft
S SIDE - Armed fighter with side firing lasers
W WINGS - A can of red bull. Only joking, gave you wing-tip weapons
Z ZAP - No, not a copy of the magzine. Two types of zap pills. A single orange band zapped all aliens on the screen; a triple band zapped aliens and emplacements
Balls - Up to three rotating balls that followed you and replicated your fire pattern. What a total balls up

To be honest this game was quite tough and one for the seasoned arcade gamer, although with practice and learning you could find a 'knack' to taking on the various waves of the enemy.

Each time you were hit you lost at least a unit of fuel which was used to recharge your shields. If you collided with any of the aliens you suffered substantial damage and consequently used up more fuel.

If your fuel ran out you lost a life and had to restart from the beginning of the current game zone. Some aliens required more than one hit to destroy and some were indestructable - all of the traditional arcade gaming elements were here.

In keeping with this gaming tradition you would face off against a single large opponent roughly half way through the current level. This was a 'Sentinel', a supposed fully sentient enemy. As usual you had to find out the vulnerable points and concentrate your fire upon it - it was the only way to destroy these big bad boys.

Colliding with a 'Sentinel' was instantly fatal, and if that wasn't bad enough at the end of each section you had to take on another larger and more dangerous 'Sentinel' than the one you faced at the halfway point!

If you succeeded in defeating the end of level boss you were refuelled and re-equipped for the next game zone, but you lost any weapons you had collected in the previous section. Harsh!

We recommend getting hold of the real Amiga hardware - but if not then download an Amiga emulator and download Xenon. Alternatively you could try and play it online.

Please see our other Amiga retro game reviews - all links are listed in alphabetical order. Cheers guys

GENRE: Arcade Game
RELEASE DATE: 1988
RELEASED BY: Melbourne House
DEVELOPER(S): Steve Kelly, Mike Montgomery, David Whittaker
PRICE: £19.99 - UK

Classic Arcade Action:

Classic Games, Arcade Games and Amiga Games

Amiga Games - Hybris - Classic Commodore Amiga Game

2011-02-25T08:47:00.006Z

Hybris Amiga
This classic arcade game was released for the Amiga in 1989 by Discovery Software.

I only discovered this game recently but for me it's one of the greatest vertically scrolling shooters I ever played on the Amiga - I like it a lot.

It was also the precursor to the excellent Battle Squadron (which was developed by the same programmers) - both of which are must play games.

This game is pretty standard arcade gaming, but it's just so playable...

The thing about this game was that when it was released really good shmups were thin on the Amiga ground.

We'd already been treated to the decent Menace and Xenon, we had the decidedly average Blood Money and Xenon II and Silkworm (both good games) were released around the same time. As far as arcade type games go that was about it, we were yet to be treated to the likes of SWIV.

To be fair this game was not the most impressive graphically (not that it looked bad or anything it just looked kind of average) - but as soon as you picked up your joystick the gameplay wrapped it's arms around you and gave you a big hug.

This was pure playability at it's vertical scrolling best. In classic arcade fashion you could move your craft in all directions and could collect icon powerups which appeared on the screen every now and again.

One point really enhanced the gameplay though: On collection of a powerup you could 'waggle' your joystick to make the weapon take on new (temporary) destructive powers. This feature could be used three times per powerup making tactical use important, but it really added an extra element to the game.

Couple these powerups with the perfectly balanced playability (which I would describe as hard but fair) and you were onto a winner. The game (in classic arcade gaming tradition) also allowed a player continue when all lives were lost - which again added to the playability.

I have to mention the in-game music too which is bloody marvellous. Paul Van Der Valk composed a piece of music that accompanies the game perfectly and stays in your head for days afterwards.

Hybris in-game music:

You were also able to customise the game to a degree by altering the rate of enemy bombs, changing the duration of powerups and so on. All good stuff.

The only downside was the plain-ish graphics (which scrolled nice and smoothly) - but when the game was this good it mattered not a jot.

Hyrbis is a classic arcade shooter that still plays well today.

We recommend getting hold of the real Amiga hardware - but if not then download an Amiga emulator and download Hybris. Alternatively you could try and play it online.

Please see our other Amiga retro game reviews - all links are listed in alphabetical order. Cheers guys

GENRE: Arcade game
RELEASE DATE: 1989
RELEASED BY: Discovery
DEVELOPER(S): Martin Pederson, Torben Bakager Larsen, Paul van der Valk
PRICE: £19.95 - UK

Classic Arcade Action:

Classic Games, Arcade Games and Amiga Games

Amiga Games - Menace - Classic Commodore Amiga Games

2011-02-15T07:41:00.007Z

Menace Amiga
You know, this is one of those classic arcade games that just exudes charm.

It was released for the Commodore Amiga in 1988 by Psygnosis and was developed by good old DMA design (who went on to create Blood Money).

For me it is one of the good 'early' horizontal scrolling shmups for the Amiga that was playable, good to look at with great sound effects and a pumping soundtrack. Read on if you fancy a spot of danger, danger, danger...

The planet Draconia must be destroyed! Infiltrate this artificially created planet and blow it and every alien slimeball there away. So there is the games 'plot' - shoot first, don't even bother asking questions.

Let's be honest here, this game took 'inspiration' from the famous arcade games such as R-Type, Nemesis and Salamander - but it proved that coin-op gaming could be reproduced in your own home.

With six levels to play through the game offered a decent challenge. The graphics were nicely drawn and scrolled by smoothly enough. In true classic arcade gaming tradition you were able to power up your craft by destroying waves of nasties which would leave a token for you to collect.

You could shoot the token to change the powerup type from Guns to Lazers to Outriders and more. A nice voice over informed you of what you had just collected. I can still hear 'Outrider' in my head all these years later...

So, the weapons powerups was pure R-Type, and in more arcade game necessities there was always an end of level boss to deal with. Each boss was tough to kill and always had a weak spot for you to aim for.

Whilst there are better soundtracks to Amiga games there is something just bloody good about this one. The tune is almost jolly, but keeps the action going and really suits the game perfectly.

The spot FX are decent enough too with nice shooting sounds and explosions, but the voice overs and the end of level 'Danger, Danger....' really were superb back in the day. Eerie and 'menacing'.

What more can I say? It's six levels of pure blasting mayhem from the golden era of scrolling shooters. I loved it then and still like it now.

If you are a good arcade gamer then this one will be relatively easy for you to complete, but it is playable, easy on the eyes and ears. It also paved the way for the likes of Team 17's Project X and is a true classic game from the late eighties.

We recommend getting hold of the real Amiga hardware - but if not then download an Amiga emulator and download Menace. Alternatively you could try and play it online.

Please see our other Amiga retro game reviews - all links are listed in alphabetical order. Cheers guys

GENRE: Arcade game
RELEASE DATE: 1988
RELEASED BY: Psygnosis (On their Pysclapse label)
DEVELOPER(S): Dave Jones, Tony Smith, Dave Whittaker
PRICE: £24.95 - UK

Classic Arcade Gaming:

Classic Games, Arcade Games and Amiga Games

Amiga Games - Agony - Classic Commodore Amiga Game

2011-01-31T13:22:00.015Z

Agony Amiga
This is a classic arcade game for the Commodore Amiga from Psygnosis which featured all of the ususal features from the publisher:

Beautiful box art (which quite often had little to do with the game itself!), fantastic atmospheric music, beautifully drawn cut-scene images and good in-game sound effects and music.

Some of the arcade games from Psygnosis tended to be a little hit and miss, but just like their early actioner Menace this shmup tended to be more hit than miss...

So let's take a lengthy dip in the atmosphere of the highly polished Agony...

Those beautiful cut-scenes

Before getting into the game proper, I have to comment on the intro music; it must be amongst the best ever created on the Amiga, and many Amiga gamers hark back to it again and again.

It is incredibly well composed and really highlights the capabilities of the Amiga's sound hardware.

The Intro Music To This Classic Arcade Game:

So, the game music set you in the mood for some classic arcade style action, and in the main, the game delivered to you nicely.

You took the part of a (superbly animated) owl, flying over a multi-layered parallax horizontally scrolling background - all of which was beautifully drawn.

The first level even incorporated a raging see which scrolled slowly by in the distance - putting this game up there with Shadow of the Beast for jaw-dropping visuals.

The visuals were right on the money

The game was pretty much standard fare, it was a case of shoot first (and shoot fast!) to cut through each level, killing as many nasties as possible and avoiding the myriad of weird and wonderful creatures.

In true classic arcade style there were powerups to collect (in the form of potions) which would give you a more powerful shot, a floating sword which would 'float' above you (giving a modicum of protection) and so on.

There were enemies that would come at you from unexpected places, and of course those end of level bosses which took a fair amount of damage before being overcome.

Once you got over the sumptious graphics the limited gameplay became apparent. It was actually a pretty simple shmup that lacked variety in the gameplay stakes.

Not that it makes it a bad arcade game by any means (this is still a good computer game), but when you compare it to the likes of SWIV or Apidya the gulf in class jumps up and beats you over the head with a stick.

Oh, and after a while the in-game music can tend to get on your tits too.

The game was not overly tough or long either, with six reasonable sized levels to play through, and most accomplished gamers (especially those of us who revelled in arcade games) could complete the whole game in a matter of days.

For me it falls short of the top, top shmups on the Amiga, but is still a good game in it's own right. The intro music is amongst the best ever created on the machine, and the game environments (and in between level scenes) are a joy to behold.

Each level did look quite different from the last, so kudos goes to the developers for ensuring the level design throughout the game changed as you made progress - one of the key points to any good shooter.

Despite it's relatively simple gameplay it also managed to be suitably atmospheric due to the game sprites and backgrounds having the right 'fantasy' look, evoking images of netherworlds, mythica creatures and mystical lands.

More mystical lands to make your way through

If you like arcade games and scrolling shmups then you can't go far wrong. Whilst not being the best of it's type on the good old Amiga it's certainly far from being the worst, and there is no doubt that it this game is worth a look.
We recommend getting hold of the real Amiga hardware - but if not then download an Amiga emulator and download Agony. Alternatively you could try and play it online.

Please see our other Amiga retro game reviews - all links are listed in alphabetical order. Cheers guys

GENRE: Arcade game
RELEASE DATE: 1992
RELEASED BY: Psygnosis
DEVELOPER(S): Yves Grolet, Frank Sauer, Marc Albinet
PRICE: £25.99 - UK

Classic Arcade Action:

Classic Games, Arcade Games and Amiga Games

Amiga Games - Silkworm - Classic Commodore Amiga Game

2011-01-21T08:22:00.018Z

Silkworm Amiga
Since I was playing SWIV last week, let's have a look at the prequel to that game, which was the hugely popular classic arcade game Silkworm.

This game was originally released by Tecmo and was converted to most home formats of the era. Just like SWIV I am looking at the ZX Spectrum version on our brother blog, ZX Spectrum Games if you fancy making a comparison with the Amiga version.

Anyway, this must go down as one of the best horizontal shmups for the Amiga, and is a firm favourite amongst many retro gamers. Let the classic arcade action commence...

The Amiga conversion was given to us in 1989 and really matched up to the arcade original well. These are the types of games that the Amiga excelled at - talented coders could replicate the arcade gameplay to a tee.

The cool aspect of the game was being able to play as a helicopter or a jeep (more difficult) and also the two player co-op mode, with one player taking a vehicle each.

The game featured dual layer parallax scrolling and to be fair the sprites matched up to the arcade version pretty well. All of the classic arcade game features are in here: large bosses to overcome, weapons powerups, enemies that would 'pop up' and surprise you... the list goes on.
The dual fire was especially great for wiping out hordes of bad guys, the heli and jeep could cut a swathe through the enemy targets with ease.

The sound effects in the game were great with suitably meaty explosions, ricochet sounds, weapons firing and so on. These effects gave the game a proper 'arcade feel' and fans of the coin-op liked the conversion - the Amiga had done it justice.

As you progressed through the game the background scenery changed too. You went from hills and greenery, through red-orange rocky deserts, across blue oceans (complete with battleships) and even grey rocky landscapes. If you were blessed with Jack Burton-esque reflexes then you would end up inside the enemy base - the metallic grey/blue walls scrolling nicely by.

The enemy sprites changed as the game progressed too giving the game yet more variety.

Playing as the helicopter was generally regarded as being easier than playing as the jeep as the latter would have to destroy or jump over obstacles in it's path.

When playing in two player co-op mode each player had to 'cover' the other which made the gameplay more interesting and fun.

For instance the helicopter could only fire forwards, so the jeep would have to cover the rear with it's swiveling gun turret. However, when covering the rear the jeep was vulnerable from frontal attacks, so the helicopter would then have to provide covering fire for it. Saving your best buddy from death felt like a super achievement!

All in all Silkworm is a true classic arcade game that was converted very well to the Amiga. For me it is a super example of how to develop a horitzontal shooter correctly. Simple yet fun gameplay, great sound effects, varied enemies and that magical 'one more go' factor. Nice.

This was a superb Amiga game and a good follow up to the original arcade game. If you own an Amiga and you like shoot em ups then this is a must have title.

We recommend getting hold of the real Amiga hardware - but if not then download an Amiga emulator and download this game. Alternatively you could try and play it online.

Please see our other Amiga retro game reviews - all links are listed in alphabetical order. Cheers guys

GENRE: Arcade Game
RELEASE DATE: 1989
RELEASED BY: Virgin Games
DEVELOPER(S): Random Access
PRICE: £19.99 - UK (Then £7.99 re-release)

Classic Arcade Action:

Arcade Games, Classic Games and Amiga Games

Amiga Games - SWIV - Classic Commodore Amiga Game

2011-01-04T16:33:00.013Z

SWIV Commodore Amiga
Now this classic game is heralded as one of the 'must have' shmups for the good old Commodore Amiga - and I have to agree.

I am playing this and the ZX Spectrum version simultaneously, you can see it at my ZX Spectrum Games blog for a comparison or at SWIV ZX Spectrum.

I have to say though that the Amiga absolutely excelled at this type of game - it was like having an arcade machine in your own home when you played shmups of this quality.

So, this game was of the tried and tested top down vertical scrolling variety and was one where it all just came together nicely.

It was the sequel to the hugely popular arcade game Silkworm, and for me it beat the first game hands down.

SWIV stood for Special Weapons Interdiction Vehicle and allowed you (just like the first game) to play as the helicopter gunship or as a fully armoured battle tank.

Each vehicle had it's advantages and disadvantages - for example the heli did not have to avoid any ground based obstacles but could only fire forwards.

The tank could crash into pot-holes and buildings, but you could rotate it's field of fire. Nice.

It could also jump over some of the ground based obstacles - but beware jumping into enemy helicopters!

The graphics in this game were mighty impressive. Huge sprites scrolled smoothly across the game zone, gun emplacements popped up sneakily from the ground and large motheships would take off (leaving 'crop circles' behind in a great touch) to try and take you down.

Tall buildings and enemy air units cast shadows on the ground giving the game a proper sense of depth. All in all the graphics and sound effects were top notch and kudos goes to the developers for creating such a playable technical marvel.

The game was further enhanced by the two player option. With one as the heli and the other as the tank it was great fun blasting away at the bad guys, plotting your route as you went.

The usual arcade game power ups were there to be had such as triple fire, shields, multi-cannons and so on.

The only gripe I have (or had) with SWIV is the lack of in-game music. When you look at the music to accompany the likes of Apidya then this one sounds a little sparse. Still, with the graphics shifting along so nicely we can forgive the developers for leaving out a sound track.

The game was over when you lost all of your lives or if you defeated the boss at the end of the final level. Each level had bosses to overcome (naturally), but despite being difficult they could be overcome with a bit of practice.

That's the key to a great shmup - the levels are hard but fair.

This was a superb Amiga game and a good follow up to the original arcade game. If you own an Amiga and you like shoot em ups then this is a must have title.

We recommend getting hold of the real Amiga hardware - but if not then download an Amiga emulator and download SWIV. Alternatively you could try and play it online.

Please see our other Amiga retro game reviews - all links are listed in alphabetical order. Cheers guys

GENRE: Arcade game
RELEASE DATE: 1991
RELEASED BY: Storm
DEVELOPER(S): Dan Marchant, Ronald Pieket Weeserik, Ned Langman, Andrew Barnabas
PRICE: £24.99 - UK

Classic Arcade Action (Helicopter):

Classic Arcade Action (Jeep):

Arcade Gaming for 2 players

Classic Games, Arcade Games and Amiga Games

Amiga Games - Smash TV - Classic Commodore Amiga Game

2010-12-15T20:42:00.014Z

Smash TV Amiga
Now this really is a cult classic arcade game.

Smash TV was an arcade conversion of the 1990 Williams game and was released for the Commodore Amiga in 1991 by good old Ocean Software.

The arcade game 'plot line' borrowed heavily from the movie 'The Running Man'; in the game you took part in a futuristic game show based on ultra violence, mass weapons, destruction, big prizes, lots of cash and 'total carnage'.

Let's get this out of the way first; this game was a total scream. With it's tacky game-show host, voice samples shouting 'Total carnage... I love it', over the top violence and crazy body count it took the arcade game to a whole new level.

For one or two players you took part in this futuristic game show laying waste to hordes of 'bad guys' collecting money and prizes from the game arena. Armed with a powerful hand gun you could mow down the masses with ease. For the first few screens that is.

As you progressed the bad guys became a lot tougher. Mr Shrapnel took a few hits before being dispatched and when he did shrapnel would fly out in all directions, meaning he could still kill you after you had killed him!

As you made your way through the game zones there were the usual arcade game style powerups to collect. Rocket launchers, grenade launchers, double fire, 'fast feet', lazer shields to name but a few would help you to mow down the masses. These powerups were temporary of course.

There were four game zones to fight through, with each one divided up into around a dozen screens. At the end of each zone you had to fight a tough end of level boss (such as Mutoid Man), with each boss requiring a lot of hits to be destroyed.

Bad guys died nicely in over the top blood splatter animations - made all the funnier as you could be collecting electric toasters, video machines and board-games whilst laying waste to baseball bat wielding thugs.

One aspect of the game that could make it or break it was the control method. Ideally one player needed two joysticks. One to control your characters movement and one to control the direction of fire.

On later levels this was an absolute necessity as you could back away from a huge group of bad guys whilst simultaneously mowing them down. Being able to fire in the opposite direction to which you were moving was the only way to survive and without this control method you didn't stand a chance.

So, with the good old Amiga only having two joystick ports you needed a joystick splitter for proper two player action. Playing with the keyboard just wasn't the same.

Control method aside - if you had a stick splitter then the game was superb for two players. Playing in co-op mode was brilliant fun giving you twice the mayhem and the ability to mercilessly murder a sh*t load of on screen bad guys.

It also meant that taking on the end of level bosses was a little easier as you could strategically attack from two sides. This game is probably one of the best two player games I ever tried on the Amiga anyway.

As usual for an arcade game extra extra lives were awared for the scoring of a lot of points, and there were also bonus sub-games to build up your points and cash totals.

The game was over when you lost all of your lives or if you defeated the boss at the end of game arena four. A tough game that was beatable with a bit of practice.

This was a very good Amiga game and a good converion of the arcade original. With a little tweaking it could have been a true classic, but as it stands this game is well remembered by Amiga gamers.

We recommend getting hold of the real Amiga hardware - but if not then download an Amiga emulator and download a this arcade game. Alternatively you could try and play it online.

If you have an Amiga then grab a copy from Ebay - you could always buy that for a dollar! ;-)

Please see our other Amiga retro game reviews - all links are listed in alphabetical order. Cheers guys

GENRE: Arcade game
RELEASE DATE: 1991
RELEASED BY: Ocean Software
DEVELOPER(S): Zareh Z, Mark Knowles, Tony Williams, K Johannes
PRICE: £7.99 - UK

Classic Arcade Action:

Classic Games, Arcade Games and Amiga Games

Amiga Games - Renegade - Classic Commodore Amiga Game

2010-12-13T12:35:00.011Z

Renegade Commodore Amiga
Well it's time to have a look at a crappy Amiga game; so here we go with the unforgiveably bad Renegade.

This arcade game had been a huge hit on the likes of the ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC 464 and Commodore 64 with all machines being treated to an excellent version. Arcade gaming at it's finest.

The ZX Spectrum version of Renegade was an extremely playable and addictive arcade game / beat em up - so surely the Commodore Amiga version would be better still? Not quite...

The backstory to the game had you (as the 'Renegade') moving across town to meet up with your girlfriend Lucy.

As soon as you step off the train a group of thugs decide to try kick the sh*t out of you. You must fight off the attackers and move through five levels of action to reach your lady love.

The five levels were:
The Station
The Pier
The seedy back streets
The main street
The meeting place

Your character was handily well versed in martial arts and street fighting, which gave you a chance when making your way through the levels. If you didn't switch off through boredom and frustration that is.

In each 'location' there was a different type of gang, from unarmed brawlers, hells' angels armed with chains, to whip wielding ladies of the night. Ahem.

Our hero could punch, kick, flying kick and even knee opponents to send them sprawling. In a slight difference to other beat em ups, it was possible to dish out more 'violence' than normal.

For instance you could grab an assailant by the shoulders and knee them in the groin repeatedly. Nice. You could also knock an attacker to the ground and get on top of them and punch them in the face over and over again.

These touches in the game were a lot of fun on the 8-bit versions, but it was so badly implemented on the Amiga it didn't even seem violent. It should have set it apart from other arcade games / beat em ups on the Amiga but I'm afraid to say it didn't.

In classic arcade tradition there was usually a 'boss' attacker on each level who you would have to defeat to progress to the next part of town. The bosses were way tougher than the normal gang members, as you might expect.

The environments were really poorly drawn and managed to be devoid of any atmosphere that you would expect from seedy areas at night time. The characters were poorly implemented and badly animated, for the Amiga it just was not acceptable.

There was a nice variety of enemies to battle (such as hell's angels on bikes who would try and run you down), but the backgrounds, characters and sound effects were so poor it was more of a chore than a pleasure.

The game was completed once you reached your meeting place with Lucy and defeated all of the enemies there. If you got that far then I really do doff my cap to you - I finished this game on the ZX Spectrum but the Amiga version bored the crap out of me.

I could go on but I won't. This game disappointed me a lot back then, and looking at it now it's one of the worst games I have ever played. It's almost as bad as The Adventures Of St Bernard. Almost.

It's a shame that with a LOT of tweaking it could have been a true classic Amiga game. As it stands this game is well remembered by Amiga gamers for all the wrong reasons. Even at £7.99 it wasn't worth it.

We recommend getting hold of the real Amiga hardware - but if not then download an Amiga emulator and download a different game. Alternatively you could try and play it online.

Please see our other Amiga retro game reviews - all links are listed in alphabetical order. Cheers guys

GENRE: Arcade game (Beat em up)
RELEASE DATE: 1992
RELEASED BY: Imagine
DEVELOPER(S): Bill Barna, Wayne Blake, Tim Follin
PRICE: £7.99 - UK

Not so classic arcade action:

Classic Games, Arcade Games and Amiga Games

Amiga Games - Project X - Classic Commodore Amiga Game

2010-12-02T15:40:00.009Z

Project X Amiga
Here we go with yet another polished arcade game inspired by that classic shoot em up that ate your 10p's, Nemesis.

The unimagitively titled Project X was releasd for the Commodore Amiga in 1992 and was developed by the mostly good, Team 17 Software.

Graphically beautiful with nice sounds effects and a decent soundtrack, this arcade game had all the ingredients to be a classic in the genre. Sadly is just fell short just a little...

In the usual arcade game fashion there were a number of levels to play through, lots of powerups to collect and three different ships for the player to choose from at the beginning of the game.

The aim of the game was to navigate each of the four levels (which scrolled from right to left) and destroy the 'boss' once you had reached the end.

All of the usual powerups were in there, increase craft speed, increase firepower (which could be guns, plasma, lazers or magma cannons), install 'side shots', homing missiles or invoke a handy 'stealth' mode.

Nice voice-overs would tell you which 'powerup' item you were on (the game used the Nemesis style of powerup selection) and then which selection you had chosen.

The voice-overs were pretty neat and I remember on the second level the computer would tell you 'beware, storm!' moments before a lightning strike would fork the sky. It was all highly polished stuff.

Despite the superbly drawn backgrounds (level two was very pretty), nice variety of powerups and crafts, the decent sound effects and cool voice over effects the game just lacked a certain something. The absence of an in-game soundtrack was noticeable by it's... absence, especially when compared to the likes of Apidya. You did get end of level 'boss' music and in-between level music though.

On top of all of that this game was insanely difficult. Now I regard myself as a pretty good arcade gamer, having completed the likes of Green Beret on the Speccy, Menace, First Samurai and Smash TV (to name a few), but I could never get past Level 3 on this one.

The real flaw to the game was the fact than when you lost a life most of your powerups which you had worked so hard to accumulate, were stripped away from your craft. On level 2 and onwards it was almost pointless to continue as your underpowered craft was hopelessly outmatched by the hordes of aliens which swarmed across the screen.

If the loss of a life had been a little more forgiving then the game would have been a lot more playable. It has all the elements in there: Great presentation, lovely backdrops, smooth scrolling, suitable arcade style sound effects and great weapons to mix and match. Some of the attention to detail was fantastic too; take level three where the lava and fire actually attracts your homing missiles, this was brilliant programming.

There was even a nice fast scrolling bonus stage (if you imagine Scramble without the enemy ships then jacked up on steroids you'll get the idea).

It's a shame that with a little tweaking it could have been a true classic Amiga game. As it stands this game is well remembered by Amiga gamers but most will have a few other shmups that they prefer.

We recommend getting hold of the real Amiga hardware - but if not then download an Amiga emulator and download Project X. Alternatively you could try and play it online.

Please see our other Amiga retro game reviews - all links are listed in alphabetical order. Cheers guys

GENRE: Arcade game (shoot em up)
RELEASE DATE: 1992
RELEASED BY: Team 17
DEVELOPER(S): Andreas Tadic, Rico Holmes, Stefan Boberg, music by Allister Brimble & Bjorn Lynne
PRICE: £25.99 - UK

Classic Arcade Action:

Classic Games, Arcade Games and Amiga Games

Amiga Games - Frost Byte - Classic Commodore Amiga Game

2010-11-18T12:55:00.009Z

Frost Byte Commodore Amiga
A platform / puzzle game that first appeared on the 8-bit machines such as the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC 464 late in 1986.

It finally made it's way onto our beloved Amiga in 1988, and whilst never being a blockbuster hit it did offer something different to play. Taxing, frustrating yet addictive at the same time, this game must surely go down as a cult classic game.

This flick screen platform game/arcade game was nicely styled with icicles and igloos for you to explore. You being the hero of the game 'Hickey' (a Kreezer no less), had to slinkabout to rescue his race from the monsters that now inhabited the planet.

Okay, so in this classic game you played the part of a slinky (although some though of it as a bendy frankfurter!) and in another slight difference from the norm sweets also played their part in the game.

These tempting morsels gave Hickey extra powers such as extra high jumping ability, move faster or being able to fall further.

The gameplay was based on brains and puzzle solving rather than fast paced arcade action. Negotiating the screens took a test of timing and positioning. You ended up spending more time waiting for the right moment to move than blasting away at the nasties.

It was not so easy to time a step when Hickey had to arch up and over. Dodging baddies could be difficult until you got the hang of the physics of the game.

With a little perseverance though you could learn how to judge the jumps, and then it was all a question of finding out what you needed to get through to the next screen.

Plenty of shocks that lay ahead as you searched for your five imprisoned friends. You could pick up items (such as bullets) and then use them to take out some of the bad guys. Different items were strewn around the screens, so in true arcade adventure style experimentation was required when picking them up and using them.

This wasn't the sort of game that was raved about but if you did get into it then you could end up being sucked in.

It was certainly a bit different from other platform games (the slinky main character was nicely animated too) and it did have that one-more-go factor.

It was not a blockbuster game, but for fans of arcade adventures it was certainly something worth playing.

Not bad overall but for an Amiga game it did tend to lack a lot of overall polish and did not take advantage of 16-bit power.

We recommend getting hold of the real Amiga hardware - but if not then download an Amiga emulator and download this game. Alternatively you could try and play it online.

Please see our other Amiga retro game reviews - all links are listed in alphabetical order. Cheers guys

GENRE: Arcade game / Puzzle Game / Arcade Adventure
RELEASE DATE: 1988
RELEASED BY: Mikro-Gen
DEVELOPER(S): Julian Jameson, Dave Armstrong, I Waugh
PRICE: £14.95 then £2.99 budget re-release(UK)

Classic Arcade Action...

Classic Games, Arcade Games and Amiga Games

Amiga Games - Blasteroids - Classic Commodore Amiga Game

2010-10-25T16:26:00.011+01:00

Blasteroids Amiga
Ahh, now this is so retro, it's classic retro. It's golden age retro gaming.

It was already part of classic gaming folklore when it was released in 1987. This was an update to the then already classic Asteroids.

Asteroids was old hat by 1987, but this was a nice update for your Commodore Amiga, and if you were a fan of the original arcade game then you couldn't go far wrong with this one...

Let's have a quick look at a simple yet playable game that graced most home computers at the time...

The gameplay for this arcade game is basically the same as for the original asteroids - the player (or players as the game was for one or two players) controlled a spaceship viewed from 'above' in a 2D representation of space.

The ship was controlled by rotating it and using thrust to give the ship forwards momentum (in the direction it was pointing). To slow down or completely stop moving, the player had to rotate the ship to face the direction it came from, and generate the right amount of thrust to nullify its momentum. The inertia effect was very cool, and once you got the hang of it some rather splendid moves could be made by the player.

The ship had a limited amount of fuel to generate thrust. This fuel came in the form of 'Energy' that was also used for the ship's shields which protected it against collisions and enemy fire. Once the energy supply was deleted the ship was kaput.

The ship could shoot to destroy asteroids and enemy ships. The ship could also be transformed at will into 3 different versions, namely the 'Speeder', the fastest version, the 'Fighter', which had the most firepower, and the 'Warrior', which could take more of a pounding.

The conversion from the arcade original to the Commodore Amiga was pretty well done and on the whole the game remained faithful to the coin-op version. All of the powerups were in there, including:

Shields - gave a limited amount of protection, indicated in HUD .
Blasters - gave the ship double shots, nice!
Extra Shot Power - Allowed shots to penetrate everything, nicer!
Ripstar - Caused the ship to spin furiously, firing in all directions.
Extra Fuel Capacity - increased fuel capacity, indicated by the HUD. Depleting fuel reserves to critical with this increased capacity reverted the ship to normal fuel capacity. Boooo.
Booster - increased movement speed for all ship forms. Cool!
Crystal Magnet - attracted loose Power Crystals to the ship. Cooler!
Cloak - ship turned invisible to enemies, preventing them from detecting the ship.

The only real issue with the game was the fact that it was basically a souped up version of Asteroids. No matter how many bells and whistles there were, different ships, powerups, 2 player co-op mode and pretty-ish backdrops, games had moved on a lot since the likes of Asteroids had first wowed us.

So - the game was fun to play, especially with 2 players, but after a while it did tend get a little repetetive.

I would say that the game was overpriced when it was released too, at £24.99 it was probably about a tenner too much.

We recommend getting hold of the real Amiga hardware - but if not then download an Amiga emulator and download Blasteroids. Alternatively you could try and play it online.

Please see our other Amiga retro game reviews - all links are listed in alphabetical order. Cheers guys

GENRE: Arcade game (Shoot em up)
RELEASE DATE: 1987
RELEASED BY: Mirrorsoft
DEVELOPER(S): Teaque Sofware
PRICE: £24.99 (UK)

Arcade Games, Classic Games and Amiga Games

Amiga Games - Mortal Kombat - Classic Commodore Amiga Game

2010-09-30T16:31:00.006+01:00

Mortal Kombat Amiga
Surely one of the greatest ever game programming achievements on the Commodore Amiga?

Probe Software converted the original arcade game to our favourite 16-bit machine, and to be fair, they did a damn good job of it.

Mortal Kombat had been maligned for being overly violent (blood in a computer game - gasp!), which made it even more popular down the arcades. With it being more popular than Mr Pop from ular, a conversion to home computers and game consoles was always going to happen.

I'm just glad that Probe put some real effort into it and avoided the route of the lazy port.

The arcade game was great because of the variety of characters, the wide range of moves the player could execute, the hidden special moves, the well drawn backgrounds and the superbly animated almost photo-realistic game characters.

Well, on the Amiga it was all pretty much there. Each fighter, the different backgrounds, the special moves...

What was most impressive about this arcade game was the fact that it was playable. The characters were nice and responsive, the moves were easy execute and the fights were fun (and violent).

Each character was quite different too (apart from Scorpion and Sub-Zero obviously!), and it wasn't just a case of the same character with a different 'skin'.

There were notable differences between the fighters; being able to freeze people as Sub-Zero was always worth a laugh, Scorpion and his 'Get over here!' was equally funny, Johnny Cage and his 'cool' shades etc etc...

The difficulty level ramped up nicely as you progressed through the game too. Each fighter was generally more difficult than the last - and if you were any good you would eventually face the weird Goro in the final showdown.

Finish Him!
Of course everyone remembers being able to finish off a fighter with a fatality move. Figuring out how to execute the moves was part of the fun of the game - but you did not have to in order to complete the game. That was the beauty of Mortal Kombat - they added great extras into an already playable arcade beat em up.

I never ever managed to figure out the finishing moves for all of the characters, but I did complete the game.

Sometimes the game was best played against a friend. It was extremely playable in 2 player mode - beating the sh*t out of each other had never been so much fun.

The only real downside to the game was the disk swapping and long load times - but we can forgive it that as the game could be played on a standard Amiga 500 - a great programming achievement.

So that's it, you have FINISHED IT! - Go play it again.

We recommend getting hold of the real Amiga hardware - but if not then download an Amiga emulator and download Mortal Kombat. Alternatively you could try and play it online.

Please see our other Amiga retro game reviews - all links are listed in alphabetical order. Cheers guys

GENRE: Arcade game (Beat em up)
RELEASE DATE: 1994
RELEASED BY: Midway, Acclaim
DEVELOPER(S): Probe Sofware (Gary Liddon, Paul Carruthers, Richard Costello, Jason Green, Lee Ames, Allister Brimble
PRICE: £29.99 (UK)

Classic beat em up arcade gaming:

Classic Games, Arcade Games and Amiga Games

Amiga Games - Lethal Zone - Classic Commodore Amiga Game

2010-09-03T08:30:00.009+01:00

Lethal Zone Amiga
This game is a lesser known title (in the arcade game genre) on the Commodore Amiga.

As far as I'm concerned, this was a hidden gem of a game that was better than a lot of full price offerings. It was a PD game developed by Infernal Byte Systems and published by Amiga Fun - and it later was given away free as a magazine cover-disk.

So, you could get your hands on a nice little horizontal shoot em up for free. Welcome to the Lethal Zone.

The game was a tradional and classic arcade shmup. Horizontally scrolling for right to left it placed you in control of nifty fighter craft which you could move in all directions around the screen.

In classic arcade fashion you could collect powerups, which were double fire, a powerful beam lazer and extra fuel.

There was nothing radical in the game, it was blow the crap out of wave after wave of nasties, avoid crashing into the scenery (and on-off lazer barriers) and take down the end of level bosses.

The graphics were nicely drawn and had that cool metallic look that the Amiga was becoming famous for. The game also featured a decent in game soundtrack (which changed from level to level) and good sound effects - overall it was of a higher quality than most other PD games or free cover-disk offerings.

The only drawback to the game was the limited powerups you could collect and the fact that the game was very short.

An accomplished arcade gamer could complete this after a few goes - and the game did actually 'end' once you had destroyed the final big boss. No going back to level one here.

All in all this is a nice little game that will have passed many Amiga user's by. But if you are into the classic arcade games such as R-Type or Nemesis then look this one out.

A nice little game that had a lot of charm.

We recommend getting hold of the real Amiga hardware - but if not then download an Amiga emulator and download Lethal Zone. Alternatively you could try and play it online.

Please see our other Amiga retro game reviews - all links are listed in alphabetical order. Cheers guys

GENRE: Arcade game (horizontal scrolling shmup)
RELEASE DATE: 1991
RELEASED BY: Infernal Byte Systems
DEVELOPER(S): Andreas Lautensack, Thobias Prinz, Frank Lautensack
PRICE: Not sure, a couple of quid probably. Then free as a magazine cover disk.

A full playthrough - it's short-lived yet classic arcade gaming:

Arcade Game and Amiga Games

Amiga Games - Uridium 2 - Classic Commodore Amiga Game

2010-08-27T16:51:00.012+01:00

Uridium 2 Commodore Amiga
One of the best arcade shmups on both the Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum was given the sequel treatment on the Commodore Amiga.

Uridium 2 was released in 1993 and was a more than worthy follow up to CraftGold's original from the mid 1980's.

For horizontal scrolling arcade action, the Uridium games were up there with the best - and the Amiga was the perfect piece of kit for the likes of this classic game.

So, in 1993 Andrew Braybrook (a Commodore 64 programming legend) created this for our favourite 16-bit machine. What a thoroughly nice chap...

The whole story to the this arcade game ran on similar lines to the first one (see Uridium ZX Spectrum), meaning those nasty aliens in their huge dreadnoughts were back. Once again they wanted to tap into planetary cores and drain them of valuable minerals to use as fuel for their behemoth ships.

Of course this would destroy the planet, and we can't have that now, can we?

So, here you came to save the day again. Just you and your trusty Manta fighter standing between mankind and alien anihilation. Sounds pretty epic to me.

One tiny ship against a bunch of huge battlecruisers seemed a little unfair - but the nimble Manta was capable of outwitting each ships defences and bringing those mothers down.

You had to skim the surface of the dreadnought and blast away the surface defences, evade homing mines and also take out waves of enemy fighters. Sometimes narrow 'gaps' in the ships structure had to be negotiated by flipping the manta onto it's side, allowing it to squeeze through unscathed.

In true arcade game fashion power-ups were available for destroying complete waves of bad guys, which would give you temporary shields, air to surface bombs, and various weapons upgrades. Aside from the improved graphics and sound over the original game, this added some nice variety to the action.

Once you had destroyed enough fighters and surface installations it was time to land your craft and enter the ships reactor core...

Here you would don a backback and go E.V.A to destroy the ships core which sent the whole thing into meltdown. Nice change of backing music here too. There was also the chance to pick up a power-up at this point which you would take into the next level (dreadnought).

The surface of each ship was lined with gun turrets, docking bays (where ships would sometimes sneak out of and try to shoot you), radar jammers, homing mine launchers and high walls which you had to avoid at all costs.

The game was over when you lost all of your lives or if you managed to take down every one of the alien ships. There were fifteen in total as I remember.

All in all this is a fine scrolling arcade game that really showcased what the Amiga could do in the hands of a talented coder.

Just like the original game it was extremely playable, superb to look at, addictive and had the all important pumping soundtrack.

If you like arcade games and a challenge, then this game is for you. In fact - this game is for any fans of shmups.

We recommend getting hold of the real Amiga hardware - but if not then download an Amiga emulator and download Uridium 2. Alternatively you could try and play it online.

Please see our other Amiga game reviews - all links are listed in alphabetical order. Cheers guys

GENRE: Arcade Game (Scrolling shoot em up game)
RELEASE DATE: 1993
RELEASED BY: Renegade Software
DEVELOPER(S): Andrew Braybrook, Jason Page, Simon Sheridan, Mark Bentley, Stephen Rushbrook, Colin Seaman
PRICE: £25.99 - UK

Classic scrolling arcade action...

Classic Games, Arcade Games and Amiga Games

Amiga Games - Robocop 3 - Classic Commodore Amiga Game

2010-07-04T23:08:00.012+01:00

Robocop 3 Amiga
Those clever bods at Digital Image Design really stuck gold for Ocean Software with this one.

Robocop 3 was released for the Amiga in 1992 - and was met with a lot of high praise. Once again you got to take the part made famous by Peter Weller and protect the innocent. But this time you didn't always have to uphold the law.

So, this classic game was based quite closely on the movie of the same name. To be honest it was far better than the movie too.

The back story was that old Detroit was being demolished to make way for a brand new 'Delta City'. This meant that innocent civilians were being evicted from their homes, and soon a resistance had been formed to fight against these rehab officers who were doing the dirty work.

Enter a conflicted Robocop. You could server the public trust by obeying the rehab's orders, or you could protect the innocent and join them against the rehabs. In a neat twist the game allowed you to make this choice, so there were two paths to completion.

The whole game was 3D based with stages that involved driving and intercepting criminals, entering buildings for some 1st person shooting combat, and some one on one combat with another robot from a sinister organisation.

Each stage was linked with impressive cutscenes featuring well known characters from the film. The media break presenters were there, seargeant Reed, the evil McDagget and so on. The animated cut scenes were (at the time) a real thing of beauty.

The game oozed atmosphere with haunting music to set the scene at the beginning (as the game loaded up it was presented to you in a movie 'style') and during gameplay the music changed accordingly to match the current stage of the game.

The graphics were, for the time, state of the art with fully explorable 3D environments, buildings with working elevators and bad guys appearing from the gloom to take pot shots at you.

In my opinion the weakest part of the game was when you had to don the jet pack at the final stage. Controlling a jet-packed robo with the mouse was very, very difficult. Maybe I was just crap at it.

The variety of levels, excellent graphics, atmosphere and overall polish made this classic game a must have for your Amiga. It was always nice to see a movie tie-in that was good too.

All in all this is an arcade game that really showcased what the Amiga could do in the hands of talented coders. It was extremely playable, superb to look at, atmospheric and captured the spirit of Robocop nicley.

If you like arcade games, like a challenge, then this game is for you. In fact - this game is for any fans of 3D gaming.

We recommend getting hold of the real Amiga hardware - but if not then download an Amiga emulator and download Robocop 3. Alternatively you could try and play it online.

Please see our other Amiga game reviews - all links are listed in alphabetical order. Cheers guys

GENRE: Arcade Game (3D shooter)
RELEASE DATE: 1992
RELEASED BY: Ocean Software
DEVELOPER(S): Jamie Cansdale, David Dixon, Ian Boardman, Shaun Hollywood, Paul Hollywood
PRICE: £25.99 - UK

You'd better protect the innocent in classic arcade action. Thankyou for your co-operation.

Classic Games, Arcade Games and Amiga Games

Amiga Game - The Chaos Engine - Classic Commodore Amiga Game

2010-06-14T14:33:00.011+01:00

The Chaos Engine Amiga
All I can say is cool, cool and totally f*cking cool. This title for the Commodore Amiga is a true classic game from the legendary Bitmap Brothers.

Released in 1993 by Renegade Software this game was a massive hit due to it's superb gameplay, fantastic soundtrack, excellent graphics, atmosphere, and polished presentation.

Then again we shouldn't have been surprised because the Bitmaps usually treated us to quality games with the likes of Gods, Speedball 2, Xenon and Xenon 2.

With six charaters to pick from (The Navvie, The Thug, The Preacher, The Gentleman, The Brigand and The Mercenary) you and a friend, or a computer assisted player had to enter the world of The Chaos Engine and restore order to the land.

The land required saving because a mad scientist (they're always mad aren't they?) back in the Victorian era had created this machine which ultimately turned against him, changing man and beast into... err beasts. Deadly creatures that had to be dispatched by you and your in game buddy.

So - the whole game was set in a very nice steampunk environment complete with pumping soundtrack and a mean sounding voice over bloke.

Making your way through each scrolling level you had to reach the exit gate (some levels had more than one exit allowing different paths through the game) by killing everything in site, opening doors and activating 'nodes'.

In true classic arcade style each character had different weapons and a special secondary firepower - and there were plenty of bonuses to collect along the way.

Keys would open secret doors, food would restore your health, certain items would launch incendiaries or fireballs, scenery would vanish or close up behind you... There was so much to surprise you in the game you were always on your toes.

There were four worlds to play through, each one tougher than the last. Every so often you could increase your players attributes such as speed, intelligence, skill and health - which you needed to do as play progressed.

To do this you would collect treasure and coins as you made your way through each level. If playing in two player mode co-operation between you and your pal was the best way to play.

To complete the game you had to make it to the end of world four and destroy The Chaos Engine itself.

This game was notable at the time due to the fantastic graphics (both on the game characters and backgrounds) which scrolled smoothly in eight directions.

The in game music and speech was fantastic (and still is even today), and this is probably the first game where the tempo of the music changed as you neared the completion of a level. This really ramped up the excitement as you played.

Even if you played with a computer controlled character they showed good intelligence and would take out nasties lurking behind you. Sometimes they did go and eat all of the food though!

All in all this is an arcade game that really showcased what the Amiga could do in the hands of talented coders. It was extremely playable, superb to look at, atmospheric and was beyond addictive.

If you like arcade games, pumping music and a challenge, then this game is for you. In fact - this game is for everyone.

Node activated...

We recommend getting hold of the real Amiga hardware - but if not then download an Amiga emulator and download The Chaos Engine. Alternatively you could try and play it online.

Please see our other Amiga game reviews - all links are listed in alphabetical order. Cheers guys

GENRE: Arcade Game (Multi Scrolling Shoot em up)
RELEASE DATE: 1993
RELEASED BY: Renegade Software
DEVELOPER(S): Mike Montgomery, Steve Cargill
PRICE: £25.99 - UK

Classic Arcade Action...

Classic Games, Arcade Games and Amiga Games

Amiga Game - Apocalypse - Classic Commodore Amiga Game

2010-06-03T10:23:00.008+01:00

Apocalypse Amiga
If you liked the classic arcade game Choplifter then the chances are you would (or did!) enjoy this effort from Miracle Games.

This was yet another Amiga game that was plagued with development problems and delays (a la Epic) before finally being released in 1994.

Unlike Epic it turned out not to be broken and bug ridden - and was an enjoyable arcade experience in the classic side scrolling vein.

So, we've got a big chopper, loads of bullets and plenty of bad guys to shoot at. It's got to be the ultimate 'game for the lads' eh?

I've got to say that this game was far from easy. Set (initially) in a sort of vietnam style jungle you had to rescue captured and wounded soldiers and bring them back to your base where they would no doubt be treated by Hawkeye and Klinger.

You really had to plan your way through each mission (there were 5 levels in total), for instance you had to take out the enemy helicopters before setting down with rescued soldiers or you would be mercillesly strafed whilst sitting on the helipad.

The bad guys were adept at using the jungle to hide - so being taken out by a rocket launcher was a common occurence until you really got the hang of the game.

But once you did get the hang of it, this classic game really opened up to you. The real fun to be had was with the variety of weapons at your disposal and using them to kill hundreds of bad guys. Yep, total slaughter had never been so much fun.

You could zip around the jungle surroundings letting rip with your auto cannon, shredding the enemy troops as they ran for cover. As you screamed past picturesque waterfalls and jungle canopy you could let loose with a flame thrower (watch those installations burn!), take out enemy heli's with missiles and even lay mines strategically to protect your own guys on the ground.

As you progressed through the game the scenery changed. The jungle gave way to an enemy battleship and eventually you ended up inside some sort of temple, which resembled the 8-bit arcade classic and far too bloody hard Airwolf.

The later levels really were tough and the lack of a save or password option is where the game fell down slightly. Once you lost all of your lives it was back to the start of level one, and playing all the way through to the same point again did become a little tiresome.

I did (and still do) like this game, as it had just the right blend of arcade action and strategy.

The jungle scenery was very nicely drawn, and the atmosphere was top notch with creatures chirping away, shimmering waterfalls and great little touches like your 'bullet splash' if you strafed the water, enemy soldiers running around with stretchers and so on.

If you like shoot em ups, helicopters and a challenge, then this game could be for you. If not - let Stringfellow Hawke play it instead.

We recommend getting hold of the real Amiga hardware - but if not then download an Amiga emulator and download Apocalypse. Alternatively you could try and play it online.

Please see our other Amiga game reviews - all links are listed in alphabetical order. Cheers guys

GENRE: Arcade Game (Shoot em up)
RELEASE DATE: 1994
RELEASED BY: Miracle Software
DEVELOPER(S): Frank Szendzielarz, Gordon Leggatt, Jeremy Ashton, Paul Docherty, Craig White
PRICE: £25.99 - UK

Major flying ace Lawrence Bartle Frere controls his chopper in classic arcade action:

Classic Games, Arcade Games and Amiga Games

Amiga Game - Epic - Classic Commodore Amiga Game

2010-05-26T11:37:00.008+01:00

Epic Commodore Amiga
Surely one of the most famous Amiga games ever? Probably for all the wrong reasons too.

This classic game was released in 1992 by Ocean Software after being delayed more times than an M8 commuter.

It was supposed to be the definitve space opera on the Amiga - but ended up being a bug ridden 3D arcade game that featured nice cut scenes and haunting incidental music.

The whole back story to the game (most classic games have one!) was basically taken from the plot of good old Battlestar Galactica - you had to lead a rag tag fleet of ships across the galaxy after fleeing their homeworld before the sun went super-nova.

Unfortunately this route would take you through the heart of the dreaded Rexxon empire - who decided to take it upon themselves to blow you out of the stars. So - the scene was set by impressive opening cut scenes overlayed with story text and orchestral music. You were immersed within the universe of Epic...

The game was mission based with action taking place in outer space or on the surface of a planet.
What was immediately apparent was the quality of the graphics. The 3D spaceships zipped around at a fair old rate and exploded very nicely. You could also look to the left, right and behind you (the rear view like a sort of remote camera view looking back past your craft) which was very impressive.

Some of the planet's surface features were equally impressive with you having to destroy huge radars, installations and surface cannons.

After a couple of plays what also became apparent was the lack of gameplay depth. Once you got the hang of the controls the game was very easy to beat. Your ship was almost indestructable - and with some of the missions played against the clock you were nearly at the end of the game before you knew it.

There were still too many bugs in the game - such as your flight computer not telling you which target to go after next (you had to work it out yourself) and the all time turkey of things included in the instructions: The 'cheat code' of press the numerical Enter key to replenish your supply of shields, fuel and weapons! Crazy...

Despite it being possible to 'branch' the story depending on the outcome of certain missions the game was far too easy to complete - and once completed you didn't have much reason to go back to it...
The one saving grace in this almost arcade masterpiece was the final battle. The bad guys launched a massive offensive against your fleet and you and your buddies had to defend the fleet against them at all costs.

Here it was possible to accidentaly shoot one of your own which could be easily done as there were roughly 200 spaceships flying around the screen. Again - this was techinally impressive and those guys at Digital Image Design really knew their graphics...

At the time it was the nearest thing to the final battle from Return of the Jedi anyway.

This Amiga game received either rave reviews, or was lamented for what it was when it was released. It was a shame as it still needed further development, and DiD could have gave us a truly epic game with a little more tweaking, testing and bug fixing. It was almost there on a grand scale. All in all this game can probably be considered as a near miss...

We recommend getting hold of the real Amiga hardware - but if not then download an Amiga emulator and download Epic. Alternatively you could try and play it online.

Not quite Elite, definately not epic.

Please see our other Amiga game reviews - all links are listed in alphabetical order. Cheers guys

GENRE: Arcade Game (3D shoot em up)
RELEASE DATE: 1992
RELEASED BY: Ocean Software
DEVELOPER(S): Russ Payne, Martin Kenwright, Paul Hollingwood
PRICE: £25.95 (£15.99 re-release) - UK

Almost classic arcade action...

Classic Games, Arcade Games and Amiga Games

Amiga Games - Nitro - Classic Commodore Amiga Games

2010-05-20T13:32:00.010+01:00

Commodore Amiga Nitro
I seem to be in Pysgnosis mode at the moment - and here is another classic Amiga game from those guys that brought us Ballistix and the marmite like arcade game Blood Money.

Nitro was released for the Amiga in 1990 - and probably never really grabbed the attention it deserved.

One of the standout features of the game was the fact that up to three human players could take part - picking from 'celebrity' racers which were Roger Moore (who actually looked more like Steve Davis), Clint Eastwood and Sly Stallone. You'd never get away with that these days!

Once your driver was picked it was time to select your car: A racing car, turbo buggy or sports motor. Each had varying advantages and weaknesses - I usually went for the turbo buggy.

So the game was set, the car was ready, it was time to enter the post apocalyptic world of arcade racing in Nitro...

Spread across 32 tracks (with sometimes having to compete at night) there was only one rule to the race: don't run out of fuel. You began the game with 2000 fuel units - and the better placed you finished each race, the more fuel you were awarded.

The tracks were littered with the usual powerups and bonuses to be found in this type of game such as Nitro boost, extra fuel, cash (very important), dual beam headlights and so on.

There were also things to avoid such as bollards, oil slicks, fences and gaping pot-holes (on later levels anyway)

Collecting cash and placing highly was the key to this classic Amiga game. Not only were you awared more fuel for finishing 1st, you were also awared more championship points - and points mean prizes! Well actually they don't, but to beat the game you had to finish with the highest score. Pretty simple really.

Building up your reserves of cash meant you could enhance (or even change) you car. After each race you could visit the workshop and add better traction to your car, increase the acceleration, give it a higher top speed, load up some extra fuel, grab a couple of nitro boosters...

Again this was nothing original but the features worked well within the game. After a few powerups you really did notice the increased handling and speed of your car. All good stuff.

This classic Amiga game recieved loads of positive reviews when it came out - but it never really was the huge hit that other racing games were. If I remember rightly I bought it a few years later when it was released at £7.99 in the Sizzler range.

All in all a great racing arcade game that was equally fun for 1 player versus the computer of for 2 or 3 players competing (although a computer controlled player was always in the action). Oh, and the in game music was pretty cool too.

We recommend getting hold of the real Amiga hardware - but if not then download an Amiga emulator and download Nitro. Alternatively you could try and play it online.

Get ready to burn rubber and eat some dust.

Please see our other Amiga game reviews - all links are listed in alphabetical order. Cheers guys

GENRE: Arcade Game (Top Down Racer)
RELEASE DATE: 1990
RELEASED BY: Psygnosis
DEVELOPER(S): Phil Betts, Jamie Woodhouse, Tony Williams
PRICE: £24.95 (£7.99 re-release) - UK

Classic amiga gaming...

Classic Games, Arcade Games and Amiga Games

Amiga Longplay - Ballistix - Classic Commodore Amiga Game

2010-05-03T11:38:00.011+01:00

Ballistix Commodore Amiga
Now this arcade game released by Psygnosis for the Commodore Amiga was something a little different in 1989.

If any of you owned (or played) a Crossfire set (by MB) you will know what this game is like.
It's very similar except you don't end up with blisters the size of a gobstopper on your trigger finger.

This game can be best described as a cross between football, air hockey and pinball - without the overall class and polish of either Speedball 2 or Pinball Dreams.

Once again Psygnosis treated us to some lavish cover and in game art that had little to do with game itself! They had a habit of that in most of their arcade type games. Still, it was nice to look at.

It's quite a strange arcade game due to the one player mode. In one player mode it really is one player - you don't have a computer opponent to battle with. Honestly, I'm not joking!

No - playing on your own means that the table is 'tilted' towards you, so the ball always runs towards the bottom of the screen where your 'goal' is. You must defend this area at all costs.

So, you aim your balls (which aim at a cursor and shoot) uphill at the 'game ball' or puck and try to force it into the opponents goal. Except there is no opponent.

It's actually quite fun for a while as the physics are well done and have the right sort of 'pinball' feel. The gruff anouncement of 'let the game commence' at the beginning was quite exciting too, for a couple of times at least.

To spice up the action there were powerups available and collecting the letters to spell RICOCHET gave you a bumper 1000 points extra.

The game zone was also littered with obstacles (in true classic arcade fashion), troughs, bombs and rebound points and so on to make the puck fly off in many different directions.

This is where the game really worked, a lot of frantic moments could be had as the puck was sent rebounding and rocketing back down the screen as you frantically fired your ammo at it trying to move it away from your goal area.

For me the most fun to be had was going for the two player option. Playing against a friend was better than the uphill battle of one player mode - and could keep you going for a couple of hours anyway. It must be said that after a while one player mode became a load of ballistix.

The sound effects were pretty good and had a good 'arcade feel' to them too, and they did match up with the gameplay quite nicely.

Not a bad effort and something a little different for those that like a spot of arcade gaming. Oh - and the loading screen had a pretty cool 'rolldown' effect too.

We recommend getting hold of the real Amiga hardware - but if not then download an Amiga emulator and download Ballistix. Alternatively you could try and play it online.

Please see our other Amiga retro game reviews - all links are listed in alphabetical order. Cheers guys

GENRE: Arcade game
RELEASE DATE: 1989
RELEASED BY: Psygnosis
DEVELOPER(S): Tony Edmondson, Martin Edmondson, Rick Chamberlain, Paul Howarth
PRICE: £7.99 - UK

Classic Arcade Action:

Arcade Games, Classic Games and Amiga Games

Amiga Games - Arkanoid - Classic Commodore Amiga Game

2010-04-22T08:33:00.014+01:00

Amiga Arkanoid
In 1986 Taito took the classic breakout game from the 1970's and revamped it with style in the amusement arcades.

A back story was even created (for Breakout?!!) which went along the lines of...

"THE TIME AND ERA OF THIS STORY IS UNKNOWN. AFTER THE MOTHERSHIP 'ARKANOID' WAS DESTROYED, A SPACECRAFT "VAUS" SCRAMBLED AWAY FROM IT. BUT ONLY TO BE TRAPPED IN SPACE WARPED BY SOMEONE....

So, instead of a bat or paddle you controlled the 'vaus' craft which would get you through the levels against the legendary 'dimension controlling force' called... Doh. Yeah, crappy name for an uber villain.

We were treated to the Commodore Amiga version in 1988, and Discovery Software pretty much did the arcade original justice.

Just like the original arcade game Breakout, you control the 'Vaus' space vessel that acts as the game's 'bat' or 'paddle' which you use to prevent the ball from falling (past your bat) from the playing area, attempting to bounce it against a number of coloured blocks.

Striking a block with the ball causes it to disappear. When all have been destroyed, the player is transported to the next level to face another pattern of blocks. On each screen there are a number of variations (such as blocks that have to be hit multiple times, flying enemy ships, indestructible segments and so on.)

Sometimes when hitting a block a power-up capsule would drop down the screen which could help to tip the balance of gameplay in your favour.

Enhancements such as expand the 'width' of the Vaus, multiply the number of balls, equip the Vaus with a nifty laser cannon, warp directly to the next level, slow down the ball speed and more could be collected to help you clear a screen.

My personal favourites were the 'expand your bat' and 'slow down the balls' - the laser cannon always got on my nerves as I'd be too busy aiming at targets and not watching the ball.

The final stage is the fabled screen 33, where in true arcade game tradition you take on the game's boss 'DOH', a sort of huge head being who looks like a cross between Marvel's The Thing and a stone monument from Easter Island.

DOH requires multiple hits to destroy and shoots spinning shapes out of his mouth towards you which you must avoid.

Beat him and you beat the game - and probably get the top score on the high score table too. Hooray!

Arkanoid is a pretty good game on the Commodore Amiga. It plays well, the graphics are nicely drawn and overall it captures the spirit of the arcade game nicely. If you lose you last life you can always shout D'oh! to releive the tension.

We recommend getting hold of the real Amiga hardware - but if not then download an Amiga emulator and download Arkanoid. Alternatively you could try and play it online.

Please see our other Amiga retro game reviews - all links are listed in alphabetical order. Cheers guys

GENRE: Arcade Game (Breakout Clone)
RELEASE DATE: 1988
RELEASED BY: Discovery Software
DEVELOPER(S): Chris Chirogene, Joe Sleator, Eric Reinhart and Rick Ross
PRICE: £24.95 - UK

Classic Games, Arcade Games and Amiga Games

Amiga Games - Blood Money - Classic Commodore Amiga Game

2010-04-16T08:46:00.014+01:00

Blood Money Amiga
First the was menace-e-e, now... Pysgnosis presents... a D.M.A Design game. Blooohd Mohneeyyy....

I'll get this out of the way first - I don't really like this game. As arcade games go, and those of the pure shoot em up variety, I think there were plenty of better ones on the Amiga.

Still, it did have some good points - one of which was the awesome Blood Money Intro as well as the haunting soundtrack, so let's have a look at one of many arcade games released by Psygnosis.

As usual with games released by Psygnosis the cover art had little to do with the game itself. It was pretty nicely drawn though.

The intro sequence had little to do with the game either - but at the time it was extremely impressive.

Anyway - in this arcade game you had four planets to 'plunder', and you started off with $200 in the shoot em up bank.

This $200 allowed you to start zapping on Planet 1 ($100 entry fee) or Planet 2 ($200 entry fee). Why you had to pay to be attacked by hordes of blood thirsty aliens is anyones guess.

In classic arcade tradition shooting the bad guys released bonuses - and in this game it was coins that were dropped. Picking them up increased your wad of cash.

At certain points in the level you would reach a supply locker where you could purchase from a variety of eight different weapons. The usual suspects were all here, missiles, speed up, rear firing rockets and so on.

Building up cash reserves also allowed you to enter Planet 3 or 4 - with each planet being suitably different from each other. You also got to pilot a different craft on each planet which was a nice twist.

The drawback in the game is well... the gameplay. The levels scroll slowly by, and enemies swarm over the screen. Sometimes indestructable nasties would shoot out at you from the sides of the playing area (not nice) and some parts of the playing area were 'dead ends'. About a minute into the game a radio tower type thingy 'reversed' your playing controls (unless you destroyed it) - talk about being thrown in at the deep end!

It was seldom that your reflexes would get you out of trouble - this game was more a case of learn the patterns of the aliens, learn the level layout, wash, rinse and repeat to complete a planet.

The music whilst being suitably haunting also becomes repetetive - although it could be switched off if you wanted to.

This game recieved loads of positive reviews when it came out - I bought it a few years later when it was released at £7.99 in the Sizzler range.

I'll maybe get flamed for this but I could never see what all the fuss was about.

We recommend getting hold of the real Amiga hardware - but if not then download an Amiga emulator and download Blood Money. Alternatively you could try and play it online.

Please see our other Amiga retro game reviews - all links are listed in alphabetical order. Cheers guys

GENRE: Arcade Game (Shoot Em Up)
RELEASE DATE: 1989
RELEASED BY: Psygnosis
DEVELOPER(S): Dave Jones, Tony Smith, David Whittaker, Ray Norrish
PRICE: £24.95 (£7.99 re-release) - UK

Classic Games, Arcade Games and Amiga Games

Amiga Longplay - First Samurai - Classic Commdore Amiga Game

2010-04-01T10:20:00.012+01:00

First Samurai Amiga
First Samurai was released by Mirrorsoft for the Commodore Amiga in 1991.

The games coder Raffaele Cecco already had a glowing reputation due to his exploits on 8-bit machines such as the ZX Spectrum (and must go down as one of the great Spectrum programmers) with arcade games such as Exolon and Cybernoid.

As far as we are concerned this classic game enhanced his reputation further with most Amiga gamers.

Classic arcade action - First Samurai Amiga Longplay:

In the game you play the part of the 'first samurai' who is well versed in martial arts and swordplay.

The evil demon king had killed your samurai master and travlled through time to the present day - and you were out for revenge. A classic arcade game back story right there.

You begin the game armed only with your fists and feet. Dispatching a few bad guys increases your 'sword power' and topping it up allows the wizard king to grant you you're sword - which was accompanied by a cry from our game character of 'My Sword!'

Now you really can swing into action, hacking your way through the nasties with ease.

Dotted around the landscape were various items. Picking up treasure boosted your points and food was always valuable to keep your energy levels topped up.

You could also pick up throwing weapons shuch as daggers and axes which really helped you out as you made your way through the levels.

Hidden items could be found by destroying part of wall, the ground and so on.

If you're energy level reached empty then the wizard king granted you some extra 'energy' in exchange for your sword - accompanied by 'Oh No, My Sword!'. It would be back to fists and feet until you dispatched enough bad guys to earn your sword again.

The game was played across 8-way scrolling levels, which ranged from the medieval era to a nicely imagined futuristic Japan.

In classic arcade tradition there were end of level bosses to contend with too. For example at the end of the first medieval era you had to do battle with a huge dragon type creature. Once you had defeated it you moved on to the next stage.

The game was completed once you fought your way through all of the levels and confronted the evil demon king. Finish him off and you finish the game.

The graphics were excellent at the time, with the character animation and backgrounds (complete with animated waterfalls and burning fires) a joy to behold.

A mention must go to the sound and music too. The in-game music was nice and atmospheric, and the spot effects for finding treasure, sword swinging and hitting were excellent. Listen as you approach a burning fire too - at the time this was impressive stuff.

There was plenty to play through in this classic amiga game and it really added a nice twist to the platform arcade adventure genre.

We recommend getting hold of the real Amiga hardware - but if not then download an Amiga emulator and download First Samurai. Alternatively you could try and play it online.

Please see our other Amiga retro game reviews - all links are listed in alphabetical order. Cheers guys

GENRE: Arcade Game (Arcade Adventure)
RELEASE DATE: End of 1991
RELEASED BY: Mirrorsoft
DEVELOPER(S): Raffael Cecco, Teoman Irmak, Nick Jones
PRICE: £25.99 - UK

Classic Games, Arcade Games and Amiga Games

Amiga Longplay- Speedball 2 - Commodore Amiga classic game - Longplay

2010-03-19T08:46:00.016Z

Amiga Speedball 2
This game in our opinion stands as one of the best arcade games you could play on your Commodore Amiga. In fact let's just say it is in our opinion, one of the best Amiga games of all time.

Developed by the legendary Bitmap Brothers this classic game was released by Image Works in 1990 and was met with great enthusiasm.

Following on from the first Amiga game Speedball, the whole premise of the game was that this violent future sport was now the most popular for spectators world wide. The only rules were to score as many points as possible in each 90 second half of the game. The Bitmap Brothers no doubt took inspiration from the 70's movie Rollerball when they came up with this one.

Taking place in an arena with a metal ball (the Speedball) to play with, you had to earn those precious points by hurling the ball into the opposition goal or by lighting up the star emblems on the arena wall.

Ultra-violence was permitted and part of the game was beating up opposition team members - and injuring one of them (so they had to be carried out of the arena by robo-medbots and substituted) awarded your team yet more points.

Dotted around the playing arena were various powerups which included energy drinks, speed boots, body armour, a ball electrifier (really cool) and many more.

On each wall there was also a score 'multiplier' which you could light up making each goal you scored worth fifteen or even twenty points as opposed to the standard score of ten.

The most important thing though to collect was the various 'coins' which would randomly appear on the playing surface. Collecting coins gave your team extra cold hard cash - and you could use this cash to buy permanent powerups for your players or to even transfer in better players. There was nothing better than buying a super strong and fast central attacker and being able to mow through your next opponents defence with ease!

There were various types of play such as knockout tournament and league campaign. If you played the league you had to take a new team (called Brutal Deluxe) from the bottom of division two to winners of division one - which was no mean feat.

As you piled up the cash you really could transfer in some great players and put together a formidable team. The transfer of players really added some depth to the game making single player mode far more interesting.

It was also great to play this against a friend in two player mode - knocking the crap out of each other, scoring goals and lighting up the multiplier was great fun.

The graphics within the game were superb; the Speedball arena really did feel like cold hard solid steel. These metallic graphics coupled with the excellent crunching sound effects meant you could almost feel the players pain as they were punched and tackled across the game area.

This classic arcade game for the Commodore Amiga has got to be worth another look after all these years. The only drawback I can find with it is the fact that your goalkeeper is not computer controlled - which can sometimes lead to confusion when defending your goal area. Do you use you outfield defender of your goalie?

This slight niggle aside I would say Speedball II is still playable even by todays standards - get a few friends round, order in the pizza and set up some two player tournaments. The time will fly by. You may even feel like having some ice cream, ice cream.

We recommend getting hold of the real Amiga hardware - but if not then download an Amiga emulator and download Speedball 2. Alternatively you could try and play it online.

Please see our other Amiga retro game reviews - all links are listed in alphabetical order. Cheers guys

GENRE: Arcade game
RELEASE DATE: 1990
RELEASED BY: Image Works
DEVELOPER(S): Rob Trevellyan and Mike Montgomery. Graphics by Dan Malone.
PRICE: £24.99 - UK

Get some ice cream, ice cream and watch some classic arcade game action:

Classic Games, Arcade Games and Amiga Games

Amiga Games - Robocop - Commodore Amiga retro game

2009-10-14T15:14:00.012+01:00

Amiga Robocop
Let's all serve the public trust.

Ocean software had already released Robocop on the ZX Spectrum (the 128 version being the best) in 1988 - and the Amiga version followed in 1989.

As we all know Robocop was a great movie - and the arcade game was tied into the film.

This 'run n gun' game had been a popular choice in amusement arcades with the version by Data East eating plenty of coins. Anyway, Robocop on the Amiga managed to capture the spirit of the film pretty well - but was just missing 'something'.

As soon as the game loaded you're hopes were dashed a little. Instead of sampled speech - the dulcet tones of Peter Weller were replaced by someone attempting a Robocop impression through a drainpipe. Not good.

Anyway - once you started the game you did get some (not bad) cut scenes like the Robocop leg holster and Casey Wong of media break. These were slight enhancements over the 8-bit versions, but really could have been done better.

In the game you played Robocop (rebuilt from the near dead officer Murphy in the excellent movie). The game began with Robocop in a horizontally scrolling section, shooting snipers looking down on him from the windows of building, and eradicating kung fu kicking villains and chainsaw weilding hench men.

At the end of the level you had to battle the ED-290 - which was easy to take out once you knew how. After this there was also a nice bit of shooting practice at the target range.

You began the game with four lives and an energy level (Robo could take a fair amount of punishment) and the energy meter could be replenished by collecting baby food jars. Ammunition was limited too but there were extra magazines lying around to use, as well as three special weapons powerups (such as 3-way firing bullets and 'super bullets').

If Robo expended all of his ammo then he could use his fists to fight with (good old Robo packed a mean punch). If you're energy level reached zero then a life was lost and it was back to the start of the level.

On each section of the game there was also a time limit and a life was lost if you exceeded it. You usually had to fight (in classic arcade game fashion) a 'boss' at the end of each level (such as ED 209, a van full of villains, a crane armed with a wrecking ball etc). After each level was completed it was back on patrol on the next level with bikers coming after you and tougher street hoods.

There was also a section where you had to go to the police stations photofit library to match up a picture of a known felon within a time limit. The pictures were digitized scans of real faces - but again they could have been done better. Eyes, ears, chin, nose and hairstyle had to be matched to the picture on the left which was not easy to accomplish in the time alloted.

Once the felon had been identified information was provided which lead RoboCop to the next horizontally scrolling level.

As you made you way through the game we find out that Clarence Boddiker was the head of the gang (as if we didn't know!) who in turn had been employed by an OCP executive

Dick Jones (the OCP exec) took the 'old man' (the president of OCP) hostage and it was up to you to take him out cleanly in the final pseudo 3D section. Killing him showed you those immortal words 'Nice shooting son what's your name?' before informing you that you had indeed won the game.

This game was one of those 'nearly' games. The music was a fair rendition of the films brilliant score - but could have been better. The graphics were a little too cartoony and the animation on the game characters was average at best.

This game was probably rushed out and was likely a quick port from the Atari ST. We all know that the Amiga was capable of so much more and it could have been identical to the arcade version.

Still - Robocop on the Commodore Amiga wasn't bad. It was pretty playable and fun - it's just that it could have been so much better with a little care, effort and attention.

Give Robocop a go for old times sake - and thankyou for your co-operation.

This classic arcade game for the Commodore Amiga is just about worth another look after all these years.

We recommend getting hold of the real Amiga hardware - but if not then download an Amiga emulator and download Robocop. Alternatively you could try and play it online.

Please see our other Amiga retro game reviews - all links are listed in alphabetical order. Cheers guys

GENRE: Arcade game
RELEASE DATE: 1989
RELEASED BY: Ocean Software
DEVELOPER(S):
PRICE: £24.95 - UK

Watch this vid quietly or there will be... trouble:

Classic Games, Arcade Games and Amiga Games

Amiga Games - Space Harrier - Commodore Amiga retro game

2009-10-02T14:52:00.011+01:00

Amiga Space Harrier
Another arcade conversion from Elite software who won the rights to convert the mighty Space Harrier from amusement arcade to home systems such as the ZX Spectrum and Commodore Amiga.

Space Harrier had been a total phenomenon in the arcades, the bizarre look and feel of 'The Fantasy Zone' resplendent in fast moving 3D graphics coupled with the cabinet being mounted on hydraulics (in the full motion cockpit version) had given gamers a brilliant gaming experience in the mid 1980's.

The sound effects, in game speech and pumping soundtrack had complemented this classic game perfectly too. It had been one of the first games to use progressive sprites to create the 3D effect - most other arcade games up to this point had used polygons and wireframe graphics.

Sega had released Space Harrier in 1985 and it's popularity ensured that it had been converted to 8-bit systems years earlier (ZX Spectrum Space Harrier had been released in 1986).

As was usual for the Amiga - lots of existing 8-bit games were brought out on the machine, sometimes with less than impressive results. Thankfully Elite did put some effort into the Amiga version.

So... Could the surreal world of 'The Fantasy Zone' (complete with the checkboard ground, alien pods, stone heads and flying dragons), be reproduced on the Commodore Amiga? Well...

Pretty much yes. The arcade game had been famous for it's in-game speech, such as 'Welcome to the fantasy zone, get ready!' when you fed your first coins into it - and this (and the fantastic in game music) made it onto the Amiga (whereas on the Speccy they had been omitted). The music was not quite as good as the arcade original which is a shame as the Amiga was more than capable of it.

This retro game involved your character (the Space Harrier) running or flying in a permanent 3D 'third person view' scrolling landscape. Armed with a powerful gun, you had to blast away the evil nasties that had come to take over the outlandish 'Fantasy Zone'.

The Amiga did animate and create the 3D view really well and the in game sprites and scenery matched the it's arcade parent pretty accurately.

Enemies and obstacles would come hurtling towards you, some of which could be blasted out of the way, some of which were indestructable. For instance, rocks would be littered across the ground or could be floating in mid air - and you would either have to shoot them out of the way or weave your way around them if they were 'bullet proof'.

Some of your adverseries would shoot projectiles at you which you had to avoid at all costs, ranging from egg shaped energy bolts to faster moving fireballs. Collision with any enemy or projectile would result in the loss of a life. Big enemies such as flying dragons (which weaved gracefully through the air) or huge floating stone heads would appear and would take multiple hits from your gun before being blasted away.

At the end of each level there would be a boss alien (sometimes more than one) to duel with (such as two headed dragons!), and it could take a while to wear them down and dispatch them.

The game was spread over 18 stages (which were all strangely named such as 'Moot', 'Minia' and 'Geeza') including some bonus stages. If you made it to a bonus stage (bonus stages were a staple of arcade games back then) then you would get to sit astride a friendly floating chinese style dragon and plow your way through the landscape (such as trees) to earn thousands of bonus points.

At the end of the bonus stage your harrier would hop off the dragon which would fly off into the distance and disappear. It would be back to normal action again in the next level.

Later stages produced even more strange creatures such as one eyed wooly mammoths, giant robots, F-14 style fighter jets and large bulbous squids. Having fast moving enemies of this scale in the game was quite impressive.

Later levels were tough to negotiate with a barrage of enemies and obstacles to avoid, and sometime a 'roof' would come down over the landscape limiting the height at which your harrier could go to forcing you to zip around the screen like a maniac as you dodged trees, rocks, metal poles, crystal type objects and huge flowers. The 3D effect on these levels was pretty cool though.

Making it to the end of a level and destroying the boss was quite rewarding on later levels.

If you had quicker reflexes than Jackie Chan then you would make it to the end of the game, which matter of factly informed you that it was indeed 'The End'. But don't worry, as 'many more battle scenes will soon be available'.

This Amiga Game was not so hyped up as it was a little bit 'old' by the time it came out on the Commodore machine. Still, Space Harrier went on to do well (as it was a very popular arcade game) and sold plenty of copies. It could have been a bit better really, but it was still playable and captured the feel of the original well.

We here in the land of Amiga Longplay reckon that Space Harrier represents a time when arcade machines were losing their status as being at the cutting edge in terms of graphics, sound effects, music and sheer scale.

The gulf between the home 16-bit systems was growing smaller and it was possible to convert these classics to machines like the Amiga well (if the effort was put in!)

The Amiga version of Space Harrier is still playable and fun, and the developers created the levels and creatures accurately - not to mention the fast gameplay, the superb 3D perspective effect and responsiveness of your in game hero (if you used the mouse as a controller). The version we got for the Amiga could have been a little better, but you know it ain't bad.

This classic arcade game for the Commodore Amiga is worth another look after all these years.

We recommend getting hold of the real Amiga hardware - but if not then download an Amiga emulator and download Space Harrier. Alternatively you could try and play it online.

Please see our other Amiga retro game reviews - all links are listed in alphabetical order. Cheers guys

GENRE: Arcade Game (Rail shooter)
RELEASE DATE: April of 1989
RELEASED BY: Elite Software
DEVELOPER(S): Richard Frankish, Jeff Spangenberg
PRICE: £24.95 - UK

Our hero flies and takes you on a tour of Moot in this fine arcade game...

Classic Games and Amiga Games

Amiga Games - Commando - Commodore Amiga retro game

2009-09-25T14:40:00.006+01:00

Amiga Games Commando
Another coin-op conversion, Commando had already been a smash hit on 8-bit machines a few years earlier (the ZX Spectrum version had been excellent), and Elite finally got around to converting the arcade game to the Amiga in 1989.

The game involved you taking the role of a crack commando named Super Joe (The 1980's came up with some really corny character names).

Your mission: To penetrate deep behind enemy lines and destroy their two main fortresses. The game took place over a vertically scrolling landscape and your trusty commando was armed with a sub machine gun (which had unlimited ammo Nic Cage style) and a handful of grenades.

By todays standards the game is pretty simple (and even by 1989 when it came out on the Amiga), but to be fair it was a pretty faithfull conversion of the popular arcade game. The vertical scrolling is nice and smooth and the landscape is recreated almost down to the last pixel.

The game even had the helicopter drop-off at the start of the game which had been missing from the ZX Spectrum version (no doubt down to RAM limitations).

There were some nice touches in the game such as the soldiers on bikes, running under bridges, different coloured enemies and jeeps that would sweep across the screen and take a couple of pot shots at you.

There were also supply trucks that would drive across the screen which enemey soldiers jumped out of and immediately began shooting at you. No fair!

It was not an easy game by any stretch (the Amiga version was pretty tough - sometimes unfairly so on the player), and the later levels with caves for the enemy to hide in, rivers to get across, fox-holes to avoid and rocket launching troopers provided a difficult challenge.

No powerups were available save for collecting more grenades which were strewn around the landscape, which added to the difficulty and made you rely on your skill and reflexes (and some good fortune) to plough through the later levels.

Well we here in the land of Amiga Games reckon this title has stood the test of time quite well. It is still pretty playable and does capture the look and feel of the CapCom original. The only real drawback is the difficulty: most of the time the collision detection doesn't seem to be up to par, which is unforgiveable - especially on the Amiga.

It should be noted that it could be difficult to run on an A500+ or an A1200 (as far as I can remember anyway!)

I must say I prefer the Spectrum version of Commando - it's just that little bit more playable.

We recommend getting hold of the real Amiga hardware - but if not then download an emulator and download Commando. Alternatively you could try and play it online.

Please see our other Amiga retro game reviews - all links are listed in alphabetical order. Cheers guys.

GENRE: Arcade game
RELEASE DATE: Late 1989
RELEASED BY: Elite
DEVELOPER(S): Martin Ward, Neil Latarche
PRICE: £19.99 - UK

I go Commando whilst playing Commando - Amiga Games:

Classic Games and Amiga Games

Amiga Games - Marble Madness - Commodore Amiga retro game

2009-09-23T14:50:00.007+01:00

Amiga Games Marble Madness
Now we're talking! Marble Madness was an excellent arcade game from Atari that was converted to home computers. The Amiga version was released by Electronic Arts in 1986 - and was a faithful rendition of the original game.

The original Atari arcade game was released in 1984 and had been a huge success with it's unique design, stereo sound and superb trackball control. It was only a matter of time before it was converted to home machines, and the version for the Commodore Amiga was very, very good.

Anyway, in Marble Madness you were basically a heavy metal ball - a marble. Your task in life was to roll around the 3D isometric platform levels and basically find your way to the exit. En-route to your escape you would encounter all manner of nasties and enemies; fiendish black balls, sweeping brooms, patches of ice, oil slicks and spinning hoops to name but a few.

The game played very nicely on the Amiga and managed to re-create the 'feel' (gravity and inertia effect) of the arcade original, and included all the humps and bumps faithfully from each screen. The fact that the Amiga had a mouse control as standard made this version stand out from it's 8-bit counterparts - controlling the marble with the mouse was almost as good as using the trackball control of the arcade version.

That was the only thing missing in this conversion: The lack of trackball control did detract slightly from the overall playability. The trackball control had made the arcade game stand out from the crowd with it's novel method of controlling your little ball.

Apart from that the arcade game had been richly soaked in colour - and we all know that the awesome Commodore machine could handle these sort of graphics in full colour - whereas the likes of the ZX Spectrum could not (see ZX Spectrum Marble Madness to see what we mean)

The catchy theme tune was in there too, but it had a habit of going from catchy to downright annoying when you fell off the same ledge for the 57th time.

Once you got the hang of the controls (nice and simple only; up, down, left and right) the game really opened up. The mouse was good for moving the marble around and responded to the inertia and gravity effects better than the keyboard did.

Playing against the clock, you had to complete each screen before the clock counted down to zero or it was game over. Colliding with an enemy did not kill you directly - it merely delayed you for a few of those all important seconds.

The game could be completed if you managed to make your way through all of the screens which was a task for expert players. I never managed to complete this be it in the arcade, on the Speccy or on the Amiga. Maybe I'm just crap at it - but even so it I played it again and again.

This was another arcade conversion that had been hotly anticipated - and it did not disappoint on release. The Amiga conversion really did the original justice - EA did well with this one. The playability was there and each screen was faithful to the original. Due to it's popularity in the arcades it was a big hit - even though it retailled at £29.95.

Marble Madness is still playable, still frustrating and still pretty addictive. It was always pretty simple in concept anyay and stands as a classic of mid 80's gaming. You could even say that this classic game directly influenced more modern hits such as Super Monkey Ball, which uses a similar inertia effect and gameplay style in certain stages. Here in Amiga Games we reckon you should play Marble Madness again - it's a modern classic and was totally innovative when it came out.

Steel your balls and give it a go - but prepare to be frustrated!

We recommend getting hold of the real Commodore Amiga hardware but if not then download an Amiga emulator. Alternatively you could try and play it online.

Please see our other Amiga retro game reviews - all links are listed in alphabetical order. Cheers guys.

GENRE: Arcade game
RELEASE DATE: 1986
RELEASED BY: Electronic Arts
DEVELOPER(S): Larry Reed
PRICE: £29.95 - UK

Nice ball play from Bri in Marble Madness - Amiga Games:

Arcade Games, Classic Games and Amiga Games

Amiga Games - Paperboy - Commodore Amiga retro game

2009-09-18T16:51:00.016+01:00

Amiga Games Paperboy
Another Commodore Amiga arcade conversion from Elite Software, who were pretty well respected for creating good quality versions of popular arcade games on home computers.

Atari had released Paperboy into the amusement arcades back in 1984, and it captured the imagination due to it's different concept and rather cool 'handlebar' controls.

Because of this it holds fond memories for quite a few retro gamers.

Elite software (who had already succesfully converted Bombjack to the Amiga) won the license and yet again managed to produce a good conversion from Arcade to home 16-bit machines.

The game involved controlling a paperboy and as you may have guessed, deliver newspapers to houses. Sounds like fun eh? Well, it was a lot more fun than a real paper-round, I can tell you!

This game had stood out as being different when it was released, and the mid-eighties BMX craze helped to increase it's popularity. The only problem with the Amiga version was when it was released. It came out in the Autumn on 1989 - but by this point the original game was a little 'old hat' and the BMX craze was on the wane.

Anyway, riding your BMX you would pedal up a scrolling street (rendered in a nice classic isometric view) and throw papers from your bike to the houses that required delivery. You would do this by hurling the paper into the residents mailbox to score points. If you missed the house delivery then the residents would not want a delivery the following day.

It was possible get your own back on these un-subscribers though. Pedalling through the diagonally scrolling landscape, points could also be gained by firing a newspaper missile through the window of a house with a darkened door (a non subscriber). Well aimed newspapers could result in broken window panes, chopped up tomb stones and ruffled dustbin lids. All pretty hilarious stuff.

Anyone with a nasty streak would enjoy zapping grannies out of their bath-chairs (accompanied by a nice ZAP! graphic) as they enjoyed the early morning air, riders could be knocked off mopeds and flower beds could be flattened. Sounds a bit like my street come to think of it.

The papers (or ammo) in your delivery bag were displayed on a panel to the side of the screen, and extra papers could be collected by cycling over the boxes of newsprint dotted around the pavements. These top-ups were usually in hard to reach places and required some cute cycling to collect them unscathed.

There was more to the game than just hurling papers around the houses though. Careful cycling was needed to negotiate a variety of obstacles including dustbins, rogue rolling tyres, garden ornaments and even fire hydrants.

Pensioners would seem to walk into your path deliberately and workmen would not hear you cycling along because they were wearing ear-plugs. Skateboarders were tough to avoid as they raced around at high speed, and exploding bombs (it was a particularly rough neighbourhood) would also crop up from time to time.

Contact with any of these obstacles resulted in a collision and the loss of one of your five lives. A scrolling message would appear informing you of what a silly Paperboy you had just been.

The game took place over each day of the week and the paper-round had to be completed before you could head up to the BMX track which was located at the end of town. For some reason targets were dotted around the track and bonus points could be collected for hitting them with a well thrown newspaper.

At the end of the day's delivery you would be shown a report on your progress:

For every paper wrongly delivered the house would cancel its order and if too many of the houses un-subscribed then you get your marching orders and it was game over. It was possible to claw subscribers back by delivering all papers on a round though.

The game did get more difficult as each days of the week went by. If you made it through the week then the game was completed - which was no mean feat.

This retro game had been highly anticipated years prior on 8-bit machines due to the popularity of the arcade version. The main drawback then and still was the lack of the 'handlebar' controls (which did detract from the game slightly).

One thing that the Amiga accomplished was matching the arcade graphics perfectly- Paperboy on the ZX Spectrum had been monochromatic. The game was playable and fun, and was a very good rendition of the original from Atari. The scrolling on the Amiga was nice and smooth too - as was to be expected. The name 'Paperboy' ensured that it was a reasonable hit.

This game is really a product of it's era - as in the mid 1980's. By 1989 more complex games had been and were being developed. Paperboy still has a degree of playability - and is fun for a little while.

We recommend getting hold of the real Amiga hardware but if not then download an Amiga emulator and download Paperboy. Alternatively you could try and play it online.

Please see our other Amiga retro game reviews - all links are listed in alphabetical order. Cheers guys.

GENRE: Arcade game
RELEASE DATE: Autumn of 1989
RELEASED BY: Elite Software
DEVELOPER(S): Martin W. Ward and Richard Frankish
PRICE: £19.99 - UK

Bri does the rounds in Paperboy - Amiga Games:

Arcade Games, Classic Games and Amiga Games

Amiga Games - Starglider - Commodore Amiga retro game

2009-09-16T12:25:00.012+01:00

Amiga Starglider
Starglider was a 3D vector graphics arcade game released by Rainbird Software back in May of 1987.

This is a classic game that had already been a big hit on the likes of the ZX Spectrum and the Commodore 64 - and the Commodore Amiga version was more than just a quick port over - they really did it justice and made use of those full 16-bits of processing power!

All in all Starglider really was another excellent addition to the ranks of 3D vector space games.

Like all of these epic space style games, Starglider had a backstory to set the scene:

For many years the planet of Novenia was at peace. An automated defence system (known as 'The Sentinels') had kept any unwelcome callers from outer space at bay.

These huge sentinels had one policy - shoot first, ask questions later. This gung ho policy worked well for a long time (you wouldn't want to stop there in any emergency!), until The Sentinels destroyed a harmless flock of protected interplanetary migratory space faring birds known as 'Stargliders'. Under orders from Inter-Galactic green police, The Sentinels were immediately reprogrammed not to shoot down these harmless and graceful creatures.

Spotting a window of opportunity, the ruthless Egrons hatched a plan to finally conquer Novenia. They disguised some ships as 'Stargliders' and used them to bypass the Sentinel defences. With no other armed forces at all Novenia soon fell under the rule of the evil Egrons.

Two Sentinel repair workers (Jason and Katra) witnessed the attack on Novenia from the safety of one of Novenia's moons. Our two heroes embark on a mission - to destroy the invading aliens using an obsolete museum fighter equipped with lasers and the capability of carrying only two missiles. This is where you come in...

In this (another of our classic Amiga games) there were more than sixteen different types of enemy craft to destroy - with each one requiring to be dealt with in a slightly different way.

The in game action took place over the now barren landscape of Novenia. You had to guide your ancient fighter around the dust laden atmosphere using a co-ordinate system which divided the surface of the planet into a 100X100 grid.

The game had plenty of options for you to get your teeth into before beginning. Two types of gun sight were available to you which were fixed or floating. Floating sights affected the control of the ship - it 'followed' the sights as you moved them around. Fixed sights (like a classic fighter aircraft) remained in the centre of the screen, and the ship had to be manoeuvred until the enemy craft appeared inside the target square. I preferred the second option.

An optional centering system could also be enabled or disabled at the start of the game. Automatic centering could be set on either the vertical or the horizontal axis, in all directions, or not at all. Fully automatic centering was handy for the player as it returned your ship to straight and level flight when you left the controls alone. Nice.

Starglider also included digitised speech (which would inform you of events as you were mid-mission), a nice title tune and plenty of 'extra missions' that either involved destroying an invader or picking up some extra equipment for your craft. Some of these add-ons included super missiles which had a longer range, power packs which temporarily negated the need for you to refuel, and a rear view mirror (being able to 'see' the action behind you was very impressive at the time - even on the Commodore Amiga).

Once you made it to the latter levels you really needed these extra power-ups as the enemies became more cunning and deadly. Repair depots were spread around the Novenian landscape and you could enter them with careful flying to repair your craft and pick up a missile (as long as you didn't already have two fitted).

Your ships instrument panel displayed horizontal bars showing shield strength, power reserves and a fuel guage. Two vertical indicators showed how high you were and how fast you were travelling. The height bar would warn you and flash red if the craft went too close to the ground - hitting the ground was a quick way to drain your shields of power.

In another clever piece of coding the game would switch to 'missile view' whenever you fired one off. You had to 'home' the missile in on target before it ran out of fuel - which could be a little tricky. The 'super missile' powerup gave you a longer flight time to find your target.

Three missile hits were required to destroy a main enemy fighter, and when you achieved this an instant replay of the destruction was showed to you - yet another great touch by the programmers. 10,000 points later and you were onto the next level where the game became more difficult...

Starglider had been heralded on it's 8-bit release due to it's polished presentation (the game was even accompanied by a 64 page novel - Elite style), superb speech along with smooth and well animated vector graphics and excellent gameplay.

The Amiga version was better than it's 8-bit counterparts (as it should have been!) with smoother flowing graphics, grander explosions and a better looking cockpit. The Amiga was also better at creating that 'arcade game' feel due to it's superior graphics, colours and sound.

Some 8-bit games (which had been good!) were quickly rushed onto the Amiga in a quick port over and were actually worse than the originals (look at Exolon - superb on the Spectrum, crap on the Amiga.)

Anyway - Starglider had the right mix of arcade action and tactics - you had to plan your routes across the planet and know where to pick up your repairs and extra missiles. A good game in the genre.

Your humble reviewer here remembers Starglider on various formats, and this version was excellent. In amongst the 3D vector genre, Starglider remains one of the best vector shoot em up's you can get. The animation on the enemy ships is still pretty good and the game moves along at a fair old pace. Still playable, Rainbird's classic is worth flying again.

We recommend getting hold of the real Amiga hardware but if not then download an Amiga emulator and download Starglider. Alternatively you could try and play it online.

Please see our other Amiga retro game reviews - all links are listed in alphabetical order. Cheers guys

GENRE: 3D Arcade game
RELEASE DATE: Summer of 1987
RELEASED BY: Rainbird
DEVELOPER(S): Jeremy San, Richard Clucas
PRICE: £19.95 - UK

And now I'm ready, to glide again.... Starglider - Amiga Longplay:

Classic Games, Arcade Games and Amiga Games

Amiga Games - Star Wars - Commodore Amiga retro game

2009-09-08T14:27:00.011+01:00

Amiga Games Star Wars
The officialy licensed conversion of the world famous arcade game landed on the Commodore Amiga during the summer of 1988. The arcade version of Star Wars had been a phenomenon with it's fast moving vector graphics and sterio sound, not to mention the full cockpit sit down version.

Domark released Star Wars for the Amiga and those clever guys at Vector Grafix (who would also develop The Empire Strikes Back on the the Commodore machine) handled the conversion.

The game was loosly based around the movie, with three main levels to contend with. As the game started up you were treated to a superb rendition of the Star Wars theme tune - the Amiga really was excellent at reproducing arcade quality sterio music.

As in the arcade game, you could choose your level of skill by pointing your X-Wing cross hairs at the Easy, Medium or Hard level Death Stars and pressing the fire button. The game would begin and you were flung straight into action on the first level of the game.

Your X-Wing fighter was fitted with quad firing lasers and defensive shields which could absorb nine hits from the enemy before you were destroyed. As most of you will know, the first stage of Star Wars was basically shooting down hordes of enemy tie fighters (and fireballs they would shoot back at you) as they weaved around the twinkling backdrop of cold, black space. Destroying enough enemy ships and fireballs moved you onto level two.

Stage two had you skimming the surface of the dreaded deathstar in your fighter, shooting gun emplacements and towers whilst avoiding enemy fire and crashing into the surface (or the aforementioned towers). It was possible to pick up a bonus by shooting the tops of the towers - if you picked off enough of them. Weaving your way across the surface shooting down fireballs would lead you to the final, and the most well remembered stage.

The final stage was the trench run. Just like the movie you had to fly your X-Wing down the trench of the Deathstar and make it to the exhaust port.

On the way you had to avoid enemy fire, catwalk beams spanning the width of the trench and of course collision with the deck. You could pick up a huge bonus by 'using the force' and not firing a single shot during the trench run until you reached your goal (almost impossible to do on 'hard' skill level). A well placed shot into the exhaust port (just like Luke!) would treat you to a scene of the Deathstar exploding before the game returned to the first level with the difficulty level increased.

When Star Wars was released for the Amiga it was met with only mild enthusiasm. The arcade game was getting on a bit and had been surpassed on a technical level by more modern offerings. Not only that, but other unofficial versions of Star Wars had already been released on 8-bit machines, such as the excellent 3D Starstrike from Realtime Software. Starstrike had been released around four years earlier, and was regarded as an already good (if old) version of Star Wars.

Star Wars was by no means a poor effort, and Domark's release did replicate the arcade game quite nicely (they captured the look of the game very well, with the use of colour and font being very accurate). The famous scrolling Star Wars story was in there too, and the game itself was pretty good to play with smooth moving vector graphics, great music and superb sound effects. Due to the Star Wars name, it did pretty well and plenty of copies were sold.

Here in the land of Amiga Games we reckon that Star Wars is worth a look to see how they converted from arcade to home computer. The game is still quite fun, and does capture the spirit of the arcade original accurately. This is real retro gaming - we used to do cartwheels for graphics like this!

Watch the movie and feel the force before giving it a go - you'll soon be clear to blow it and go home!

We recommend getting hold of the real Amiga hardware but if not then download an Amiga emulator and download Star Wars for the Amiga. Alternatively you could try and play it online.

Please see our other Amiga retro game reviews - all links are listed in alphabetical order. Cheers guys

GENRE: 3D Arcade game
RELEASE DATE: Summer of 1988
RELEASED BY: Domark
DEVELOPER(S): Vector Grafix
PRICE: £19.95 - UK

Red five standing by in Star Wars - Amiga Longplay:

Classic Games, Arcade Games and Amiga Games

Amiga Games - The Empire Strikes Back - Commodore Amiga retro game

2009-09-07T15:32:00.009+01:00

Amiga Games The Empire Strikes Back
The Empire Strikes Back was another wireframe 3D arcade game released by Lucasfilm for the Commodore Amiga.

The developers of the game were the famous name in 3D gaming, Vector Grafix, who had also developed the previous game in the series (the Star Wars arcade game for the Commodore Amiga).

For people who were familiar with the original Star Wars arcade game (nearly everyone!), Empire was created in a similar style, using the settings of the movie within the game.

As nearly everyone in the world (and in Galaxies far far away) are familiar with the movie, there is no real need to dig deep into the plot details. Especially considering 'Empire' was the best of ALL of the Star Wars movies eh? ;-)

The Empire Strikes Back on the Amiga took place over four levels which roughly spanned the movie.

On the first level, you took control of a landspeeder and flew over the surface of the ice planet Hoth. Imperial probe droids were scouting around (making that funny ernanasenda noise) and you had to destroy them and any transmissions they relayed (viewed as wireframe 'signals' rising upwards).

The probots would shoot back at you, and any fireballs hitting you would deplete your shields. Blasting enough droids would move you onto level two.

The second stage had you flying a snowspeeder once again. This time you had to take down Imperial walkers (both the AT-AT and AT-ST types) using the same methods used in the movie by the rebel pilots. It took a fair bit of practice to fly through the legs of the walkers and deploy your tow cables to entagle their legs and bring them down.

Success in stage two moved you onto stage three.

Stage three now had you flying the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy, the Millenium Falcon. Manning the laser cannon you had to blast away at the swarms of tie fighters that were intent on destroying you. To get past this stage you had to shoot away at the enemy tie's and their fireballs and ensure that the Falcon was not destroyed. Keeping the Falcon intact (and not getting cocky!) led you into....

The asteroid field. Lazer bolts and blasters were ineffective agianst asteroids, so you had to use your flying skills to weave in and around the floating space rocks. Any collision would deplete your shields, so fancy flying and sharp moves were the only way to survive this. The aim was to make it to the largest rock (as in the movie) and to safety. Once this had been achieved the four levels were completed and the game would start at the beginning again with the difficulty level a little harder.

There were bonuses to be had during the game; extra points could be earned by destroying a specific number of enemy targets and letters were also awarded along with the bonus points. If you managed to spell out JEDI then you were given invincibity against all enemies for a period of time. Nice.

When The Empire Strikes Back was released on the Amiga it was nothing new in concept - there were plenty of good vector graphic arcade games already on the Commodore machine. However the graphics were pretty smooth (far better than the version that graced the 8-bit machines) and the large imperial walkers were nice to look at.

The game appealed to fans of 3D vector graphic games and fans of the Star Wars movies. Empire was fun and playable and was regarded as a decent (not brilliant) movie tie-in, which was not always the case with official licensed games. You always felt that the Amiga was capable of so much more though when this came out, and it was.

Here in the land of Amiga games we reckon that The Empire Strikes Back is definately a product of it's era. By the late 80's vector graphic arcade games were commonplace and this one did not really stand out from the crowd. The game is very simple to play, and can be quite fun for a little while.

It is pretty easy to work your way through the four levels, gathering the bonuses and a JEDI powerup is where the real challenge lies.

So, stick on the movie and give this one a go - but remember the possibility of successfully navigating an asteroid field is approximately 3,720 to 1.

We recommend getting hold of the real hardware but if not then download an Amiga emulator and download The Empire Strikes Back for the Commodore Amiga. Alternatively you could try and play it online.

Please see our other Amiga retro game reviews - all links are listed in alphabetical order. Cheers guys

Luke gives Chewie a Han in The Empire Strikes Back - Amiga Games:

Arcade Games, Classic Games and Amiga Games

Amiga Games - Flashback - Commodore Amiga retro game

2009-07-24T11:51:00.010+01:00

Flashback from Delphine Software (creators of Another World) was a true masterpiece of gaming. It excelled on all levels - graphics, sound, story and game play as well as being totally addictive.

The first thing you noticed when you started were the superb graphics and the way your character Conrad Hart moved. The animation was amazing when he walked ran and jumped around the screen you couldn't help but be blown away by how realistic all his movements were. The background graphics and levels were also brilliantly drawn and each level had its own unique style and theme.

Music and sound effects were also great. The game cut scenes had some great soundtracks to match the action and although the in-game wasn't a constant feature it would kick in to indicate danger lurked ahead or you were on the right track in your attempt at solving a puzzle. The background sound effects created a brilliant atmosphere with animal noises and bird chirps in the forest section as well as the mechanical doors and beeping switches.

Game play was a mix of platforming, shooting and puzzle solving. The control system was easy to get a hang of and even with a one-button joystick Conrad could pull of a wide range of moves with some good button and direction combos. The difficulty level could be set before you started - Easy, Normal and Difficult. Even on easy the game was no walkover and would take a fair bit of time to complete.

Each level had a code so you could start there and there were a few save points you could activate throughout the level - but these were saved to the memory so if you turned the game of you could only start from the beginning of the level. This made you want to try again until you completed the level and got your new code which we think was a great way to play. Add to this the compelling story and it made for an addictive gaming experience.

The story begins with a cut scene showing Conrad being pursued and crash landing in the forest. One of the first items you find is a Holocube that gives you (and Conrad) and idea of what is going on. Firing up the holocube a 'Total Recall' moment sees you telling yourself to travel to New Washington to meet Ian who will be able to help. This sets the scene for the first level and here you will get to grips with leaping onto platforms, shooting everything that moves and solving some nice puzzles.

There are 7 levels in all which are more than enough to keep you entertained and challenged. There is a great mix of game play in throughout the levels - in one you're taking on jobs to play for your trip to Earth and another you're starring in a 'Running Man' style game show! I think Delphine watched a lot or Arnie films!

As far as equipment and items you can pick up - you start with a gun, which luckily never runs out of ammo. As well as this you have a shield which allows you to take a few hits. The shield can be recharged as various stations throughout the levels. As you have only one life - the best ideas is to keep this topped up. There are are other hazards like mysterious green gases and electrified floors that if you touch you will be vapourised instantly. But with some well-timed jumps these can be easily avoided and they add an extra layer of danger to the game play.

There are loads of other items you can pick up and all of them can be used to solve puzzles or at the very least distract the guards (throw a stone behind a guard to get him to turn round to check it out - then sneak in for the kill). You also collect credits throughout the game which will enable you to buy equipment you need to progress.

Overall this game was a must-have for any Amiga owner and received rave reviews when it was released. If you read our previous review of Another World you will know how much we rated that - well Flashback blows Another World out of the water in all respects so you can imagine how we feel about this game.

So do yourself a favour and if you have never played it, get yourself an Amiga emulator and download Flashback for the Amiga. You will be so glad you did. In fact I'm off to play it now!

Developer: Delphine Software

Year Released: 1993

Genre: Action Adventure Game

Check out the Amiga Flashback video below showing Conrad running, jumping and shooting his way through the first level:

Amiga Games - Stunt Car Racer - Commodore Amiga retro game

2009-07-22T11:23:00.025+01:00

Amiga Games Stunt Car Racer was an exhilarating racing experience designed and programmed by computer racing supremo Geoff Crammond. A truly classic Amiga Game.

The game was a futuristic racer that put you in control of a high powered, nitro-enhanced stunt car.

The tracks had more resemblance to Alton Towers than Silverstone with , tight twisting corners and massive ramps and jumps.

The graphics were great and the way everything worked together really got you immersed in the game. The car really did feel as if it was traveling at high speed and you could see the tyres bounce realistically when you landed from a jump.

Sound was also good with crunching effects when you crash landed and the engine roar changing when you launched your car high into the air.

You start the game in in the lowest of the 4 divisions and the aim is to complete a season with the most points so you can move up the divisions and take on the better drivers on the more difficult tracks.

Even in the lowly division 4 you are able to practise on any track from any of the other divisions giving you a chance to get used to the turns and jumps before racing against opponents.

When you make it to the top of the first division you can then compete in the Super League.

The Super League pits you against the same tracks and drivers but both you and your opponents have faster cars with better brakes. You begin again in division 4 and must win races to move up and attempt to become Super League Champion.

Points were awarded for winning the race (2 points) and the fastest lap (1 point). At the end of the season the driver with the most points would move up to the next division. If you finished bottom you would be relegated to the lower division.

The controls were simple but responsive. You moved forward to accelerate and back to brake (or reverse if you had stopped) and left and right to move the car..eh left and right!

The fire button was used to give your car a nitrous boost which would see your car reaching amazing speeds - lovely. The nitrous was limited and the units of boost you had left was indicated by the B gauge on the dashboard.

The car could also sustain damage and this would be indicated by cracks and holes which would appear above the windscreen. If the crack reached from the left to the right side of the car your race was over.

Any cracks were repaired after each race but the holes stayed throughout the season and caused cracks to move faster if the encountered a hole.

So you had to look after your car and find the optimum speed to take corners and perform jumps as you didn't want to bash up your car and have to retire from the race - handing the points to your opponent.

As well as the single player mode you could play multi player with 8 players competing in up to 4 race seasons. Each player would race on each of the tracks in turn against a computer controlled pace car.

The points would be added to find the ultimate champion.

Today Stunt Car Racer is still a lot of fun to play and the 3D graphics and speed of the action still look pretty good. So if you haven't already, get yourself an amiga emulator and track down a copy of the game and strap yourself in for a thrilling, roller coaster ride of a game! It's retro racing-tastic!

By the way, Stunt Car Racer on the ZX Spectrum was also reviewed on our Brother Blog ZX Spectrum Games - check it out!

Developer: MicroStyle

Year Released: 1989 (a long long time ago!)

Genre: 3D Racing (Arcade Game)

Check out the Amiga Longplay video below for a taste of the speed and danger you can experience playing Stunt Car Racer...

Classic Games, Arcade Games and Amiga Games

Amiga Games - Another World - Amiga

2009-07-08T16:39:00.019+01:00

Another World
This classic game was an original and rewarding gaming experience and still stands out as one of my all time favourite Amiga games.

Another World is a classic game amongst the vast ranks of software available for the Commodore Amiga.

The game begins with an very atmospheric movie-like intro showing your character Lester Knight Chaykin arriving, in his Ferrari (very swish), at a laboratory.

He begins an experiment using a particle accelerator just as a storm starts. The lab is struck by lighting which enters the accelarator and next thing you know poor old Lester (and most of the desk he was sitting at) disappear in a flash to, you've guessed it, Another World!

The action quickly starts as you appear in this new and dangerous place. If you're not quick enough with the joystick as soon as Lester arrives underwater you can quickly find yourself dragged away to an unknown but no doubt horrible death by a large tentacled monster!!

The game is a 2D sideways action adventure, but what really set it apart from other games in the genre were the brilliantly animated characters, the wonderfully atmospheric backgrounds and immersive sound effects.

On-screen there were no health bars or scores display. You were dropped in at the deep end (literally!) then had to wander around to find out where to go or what to do next.

The story progressed by way of cut scenes setting up the next stage and hinting at what you need to do. Many times it took trial and error to find the right path or to get the timing right to complete the next part of the game.

One major complaint aimed at the game was its length. You could probably complete the game in under an hour once you got the hang of it. The game was short but it was one of the few games that I played more than once.

You had an unlimited number of lives and as you progressed to the next stages when you died you would be given a code to continue from that point. Sometimes this did prove frustrating on later levels when you died just before the start of a new section and had to redo the entire last part. But as frustrating as it was, you always came back for 'one last go'.

In the first level Lester can defend himself by kicking. But very quickly he acquires a gun. This gun added an another element to the action, as it was equipped with three modes of firing:

Fire a laser beam that would turn people to skeletons that exploded into dust (very cool)
Hold it down for a short time to create a force field to protect you from laser fire
Hold it down for a full charge to generate a massive laser beam to blast through solid barriers like walls and the bad guys' force fields.

Another great element of the game was teaming up with your cell-mate at the start of the second level. This friendly alien comes to your aid and you to his throughout the game and creates a very cool cooperation element. This helps immerse you in the game's world and you really care what happens to the big guy - its the start of a beautiful friendship, even if you don't really know what 'MATSEWAWAH' means!

The game is also one of the first games I remember that creeped you out. There were numerous monsters dotted about and each new monster you discovered seemed to kill you in a more gruesome way!

The popularity of the game prompted it's creators Delphine Software to create a 'sequel' - it wasn't really a sequel but it was similar in style. This game was called Flashback and it was awesome! I'll write a post on that pretty soon.

As you can probably tell I am a big fan of Another World and if you haven't played it I suggest you download an Amiga emulator (WinUAE is pretty good) and get playing. Try Lemon Amiga for an idea of where to find the game.

Developer: Delphine Software

Year Released: 1991

Genre: 2D Arcade Adventure

Check out the video below to see our hero Lester meeting some of the inhabitants of Another World.

Classic Games, Arcade Games and Amiga Games

Amiga Games Are Awesome!

2009-07-02T12:00:00.003+01:00

FACT - The Amiga was awesome.

FACT - Many of the Amiga games were awesome.

You know it, I know it. That's why you're here reading this and that's why I'm in an undisclosed secret location writing this.

Now we have the facts (otherwise known as my opinions) established, let's me tell you what this blog is going to be about - as if you don't already know.

This blog is dedicated to Amiga Games and in the coming days. weeks, months and years will be regularly updated with reviews, videos, images and general chat about the wonderful and sometimes the not-so-wonderful amiga games.

If you owned or in fact still own an amiga (like me) then you will have a head chock full of great amiga game memories. We here at the Amiga Games blog hope to rekindle all of these fond memories of days gone by with teary-eyed nostalgia, honest opinions and hopefully a wee bit of humour. You need a laugh now and again don't you?

So without further ado, let's get started. Sit back, relax and take a trip with us into the wonderful world of Amiga Games.

Amiga Games - Privacy Policy

2009-02-15T07:37:00.000Z

Privacy Policy for www.amiga-games.blogspot.com

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