Amiga Games That Push The Limits - Part 1: 2D

The Commodore Amiga - a machine that in it's day seemed limitless. I'm taking a look at few of the games that managed to push this 16-bit behemoth to the edge.
In part 1 I'm focusing solely on 2D games, watch out for part 2 where I take a look at 3D titles, coming soon!
#Commodore #amiga #pushinglimits

[@JamesDC579]

Turrican 2 IS the Amiga. To me anyway … owned an A500+ from age 12 to 16, and even now at 43 I’ll randomly whistle “the Final Fight” walking about the house. Timeless.

[@lordsqueak]

Pinball Dreams / Fantasies / Illusions It might not seem as much these days, but at the time, 50fps smooth scrolling pinball was very impressive.

[@deathybrs]

Yeah, this list is definitely missing the Pinball Dreams series. For my own playtime during that Era, that was THE game.

[@FabledGentleman]

Dice showed us real early how good they were at making games. Coming from the demo group Silents known for making some of the best demos on the amiga, they made a pinball game that blew everyone away, they even showed up on The Gathering (World biggest Lan Party at the time) one year just to see that 90% of the people playing it had pirated it xD Anyways, very sad they sold their soul to EA, Battlefield 2 was a great game, after that they have not been able a fantastic game :/

[@deathybrs]

@@FabledGentleman - I'm not so sure I'd go so far as to say they made some of the best demos on the Amiga. They were OK, but their demos were not nearly as spectacular as their games. It's not like they were a Spaceballs or a Cryptoburners.

[@FabledGentleman]

@@deathybrs Spaceballs is a one hit wonder tbh. They of course made more than one good demo, but i would not say they are even top 10 demogroup. Cryptoburners were good though. But if you want to really talk about legendary demo groups on the amiga the ones you should really mention is Razor 1911, Kefrens and Andromeda.

[@deathybrs]

Yeah, fair enough, the list of legends is not a short one and I was not trying to exclude any by my super short spur of the moment list. I still would say with regard to the Silents, though, that most of their demos were technically good, but not legendary, and that their best demos were Pinball Dreams and Fantasies. The era of the scene where the Silents were the most active, though, really was the era of the focus on music - RS1, Cream, the envelope being pushed to the limits. With that regard, the Silents did pretty well - always great music.

[@charliechaz1982]

Uridium 2 looked great and the controls to this day still feel smooth as silk. Same goes for Soccer Kid. Both games around 1993/94

[@JustMe99999]

True, but by 1993/94, PC had overtaken the Amiga for gaming.

[@wavehopper4183]

Having grown up with the 128k Spectrum, ANYTHING on the Amiga was incredible. Full colour? Stereo sound?? Games that actually played well??? My god, what is this sorcery?

[@Sharopolis]

Too true!

[@mattx5499]

@@Sharopolis Of course Amiga was a jump from the 8-bit technology, but still ZX Spectrum was a fantastic machine. The games are still being made for Speccy and they are really impressive. Also Speccy was and still is unique machine in the 8-bit world with it's vibrant colour palette and keyboard input method. Having grown up with the Amiga I really have huge love for ZX Spectrum. I really like to fiddle with Speccy on Linux FBZX emulator.

[@Leeki85]

Amiga had other strengths. You were just looking for arcade or console like graphics. Amiga wasn't really meant to draw multilayered parallax backgrounds. It could do it, but at very limited color palette. Lionheart used COPPER in a clever way to change palette every line, making game very colorful, but still had somewhat monochromatic look mixed with horizontal color bars. Amiga was just awesome at 2D graphics with single background. Consoles had very little RAM and relied on tiles stored in ROM. Amiga didn't had such limits. It had 512 KB of RAM, and soon enough games demanded systems with 1 MB. This allowed for doing things impossible on consoles. Lemmings are a great example of a game designed for a computer. You can alter any pixel on screen. Lemmings on Sega Genesis have much smaller levels, due to much lower RAM. Amiga really shined when it came to games made for it. Unfortunately console and arcade ports were average at best. Amiga had also a lot of strategy games which were impossible on SNES or Genesis due to lack of RAM or slow CPU. UFO: Enemy Uknown is a great example of what Amiga could do. It took PSX to have it on consoles. Of course at that point in time PCs were taking over computer market and Amiga just couldn't keep up. UFO: Enemy Unknown run on Amiga but was sluggish and less colorful compared to PC port. This was main problem. PCs were slowly, but constantly improving. Amiga had a big advantage in the late 80's, but Amiga 1200 was a disaster. It just couldn't compete against new PCs. It had all fancy hardware feature that made Amiga 500 so successful, but it was irrelevant at that point. 486 based PC could do all that in software with more colors and better sound. Rise of DOOM and 3D games were the final nail in the coffin. Amiga not only lacked any sort of 3D hardware acceleration, but it's 2D hardware made it harder to draw 3D. Amiga couldn't simply draw image to framebuffer like PCs did. CPU had to write in specific way that ECS/AGA required. Commodore had plans for 3D accelerated Amigas and Atari even released Falcon computer that had hardware capable of running 3D games (look for Half-life port for Atari Falcon on youtube), but it was too late. However Amiga did enjoy a few more years of good games even after Commodore bankrupted and got titles that pushed the limits in that period, but no one really cared. It just couldn't compete with other popular platforms.

[@redr0scoe]

Thanks for taking the time to put down your views and knowledge. I really enjoyed the read.

[@bangerbangerbro]

CPU can write to framebuffer i think as that should be what is going on in the crap ST ports. You are thinking of planar graphics where it is harder to manipulate individual pixels as a write will draw one colour layer of a load of pixels rather than a couple of full pixels. The copper is what makes the amiga really. It can reposition sprites and change colours on the same line, all without wasting CPU time. Nothing else can do that. Compiling the copper list should be more efficient in CPU side then having it service the interrupts as you don't waste time moving backwards and forwards for interrupts, just compile it all at once.

[@Leeki85]

@@bangerbangerbro In general framebuffer is just a simple flat memory area with each byte (or multiple bytes for higher color modes) representing pixels in order from left to right and lines from top to bottom. This wasn't available on Amiga. Image was divided in multiple 1-bit frame buffers that composed final image in the end. PC VGA cards had similar limitation, but (famous mode X) worked in a way that pixels were stored in vertical bars across 4 memory banks. Wolfenstein 3D engine generated image by drawing in vertical lines from top to bottom, because a single line could be drawn without switching bank. VGA had also default 13h mode with 320x200 in 256 colors that had linear framebuffer. VGA hardware was handling bank switching, but at the cost of having only 64KB memory and no double-buffering or offsetting (hardware scrolling). All of this was to overcome slow RAM access time so computer could have output enough data to drive electron beam of CRT display. However at the time of Amiga 1200 release there were already cheap SVGA cards that had memory fast enough to use linear framebuffer at 800x600 in 256 colors.

[@turrican4d599]

@@Leeki85 Not true. The Amiga 1200 wasn't a disaster. Classic 2D titles still looked and ran better than 386 or 486er games and no AGA didn't have less colors than VGA. Only thing missing was the ability to run polygon based games like Strike Commander and DOOM. DOOM would have been easy to run on a CD32, though with its chunk mode.

[@bangerbangerbro]

@@MaoRatto Well the bigger reason for them being terrible is because often they were direct unimproved (other than music and sound effects which were no harder to improve than to convert without improvement) conversions from the Atari ST version meaning only software CPU drawing of everything with less colours and usually not taking advantage of hardware scrolling, sprites, or even the blitter. Sometimes the ST ports would be good meaning a not bad Amiga port (though the Amiga CPU is slightly slower) but if for example US gold was involved both the Amiga and ST versions of the game would be written by one inexperienced (usually young adult) person in a very short timeframe and with very little provided resources (source code, sheet music etc).

[@andy6576]

"Shadow Fighter" was the king of fighters on the Amiga, technically sound and played great.

[@bubbanstix2536]

And there's also Fighting Spirit, even though I've never played it. The two mortal kombat are supposed to be good too.

[@grandmasterthefuriousfive7487]

Gr8 game shadow fighter played it alot

[@Marius-vw9hp]

UFO enemy unknown was a game that blew my mind, with procedural levelmaking, basebuilding, aircombat, techtree... Its still one of the best games I have ever played.

[@jasonphd97]

I still play this, it's so much deeper than what it appeared to be

[@Hydrazine1000]

Have you checked out the XCOM series? Like you I absolutely loved UFO Enemy Unknown on the Amiga. I found the remakes (XCOM: Enemy Unknown and its expansion XCOM: Enemy Within, XCOM2 and its expansion XCOM 2: War of the Chosen) to be worthy successors. Firaxis Games / 2K Games did a wonderful job! Building a base is ... well, it's building a ship in XCOM2. GeoScape is still GeoScape, though not by name. Researching captured alien tech is still the same. And loosing a squaddie is still a gutting experience, just like in the original!

[@Marius-vw9hp]

@@Hydrazine1000 Yes i played it for a couple of hours and was immensely disappointed. I didnt like the movement system (i prefer the squares in the original, more like a boardgame feel) and I hated the graphics. It felt like I was playing the Sims - Alien expansion :p Sorry to be so negative about it if you liked it though, different strokes for different folks I guess. Im very picky.

[@Hydrazine1000]

@@Marius-vw9hp Hmmm, this makes me wonder which XCOM game you played. Was it The Bureau: XCOM Declassified? Because all the other games have the same 2-actions, move on a grid system of the original. So I don't understand your comment on the movement system. One tip, should you give XCOM: Enemy Unkown (another) go. I made the mistake of treating XCOM as if it were a UFO remake. XCOM is not simply UFO High Definition. I ran out of money in my first play-through because I stuck to UFO priorities in-game. XCOM has some different twists...

[@Marius-vw9hp]

@@Hydrazine1000 It was the firaxis remakes

[@peterobinson3678]

You missed 'Walker. That DMA game had awesome graphics and great gameplay!

[@Nianfur]

Walker needs a PS4 remake.

[@leonardodilena680]

Another interesting game was Hired Guns, in addition to the aesthetic aspect, it brought a remarkable multiplayer collaboration unfortunately never equaled by today's games.

[@StefanHolmes]

@5:47 "With its massive colour palette" ... Xenon looked lovely, if you loved grey and sort--of orangey brown, a staple from Bitmap Brothers through their other releases such as Gods and Magic Pockets.

[@segadriven]

Apidya and Agony would have been a nice inclusion

[@Marius-vw9hp]

Agony was a real agony to play though :p

[@Henrik_Holst]

@@Marius-vw9hp But that music!

[@thorham1346]

@@Marius-vw9hp Yeah, Agony is indeed really bad, just like Project-X.

[@Marius-vw9hp]

@@thorham1346 project x could have been sooo good though if they included more power ups and easier enemies

[@thorham1346]

@@Marius-vw9hp Project-X would've been much better if they hadn't added inertia to the fighter craft movement, and the enemy waves were actually good. Check out some Cave shoot'm ups like Espgaluda and Dodonpachi for examples of very good shoot'm ups (use MAME to play them).

[@barberforce]

Agony was a truly good looking side scrolling shooter! But glad you included Turrican 2, as that game was hard as poo but sounded godly!

[@danieldougan269]

It's so ridiculous that people thought of the Amiga as purely a gaming console. You could get real work done on it too, and it was superior to just about everything else on the market for that purpose as well. Workbench might have been the best GUI on the market. The Amiga had an optional Genlock device that made it useful for making TV graphics that could be layered on top of video, and so it became widely adopted in video production. Many local TV weather reports in the late 1980s and early 1990s included graphics made on the Amiga if they weren't made on the (far more expensive) Quantel Paintbox. In short, I appreciate you showing the productivity stuff on the Amiga. I never had one because my parents couldn't afford any real computer (the CoCo 2 was quite obsolete when I got it in 1987, so that doesn't really count), but this would have absolutely blown my young mind if I had seen it back in the 1980s. In modern times, I bought a Dell G5 15 SE gaming laptop for video editing. I'm typing this comment on it now. Games encourage computer manufacturers to make more and more powerful hardware that can have benefits in many areas. Even though I'm not really a PC gamer, my understanding is that this thing absolutely shreds when it comes to playing modern games.

[@ecernosoft3096]

Ok, so some things to also know about the Amiga: 1. Extra half bright allowed 32 more colors at half the brightness of the origonal 32. Theres a 2 plane mode with 7 colors each, 2. The amiga can handle sprites. With the copper now you have 3 layers- 2 of 8 colors and one of 16. 3. The blitter can handle scaling, can draw lines, do area fill, and more. Edit: and AGA allows that 2 plane mode with 16 colors per plane, has 256 colors, 262,144 colors with HAM8, 16.8 billion colors total, up to 64x600 sprites (interlaced, overscan, AND pal) with 3 colors each (vs 16x600 3 color sprites), not to mention the COPPER exists. Also there are 8 sprites. The SLOWEST AGA machine also is double the speed of the 500.

[@naviamiga]

Lionheart, what a fantastic game. Love the colours and the little 3d intro as well. Great fun.

[@Sharopolis]

Thanks so much

[@Sephy69]

amazing video, brought back so many memories of my childhood. i was late to the amiga party having obtained mine in 1999 but man it was the best time of my gaming life for sure!

[@ZiltoidDerOmniscient]

Menace, Blood Money, and Xenon II were my favorite shooters on the Amiga. I played Turrican II so much that the floppy disc stopped working! Gods and First Samurai were two great side scrollers too.

[@souljastation5463]

X-out and Z-out were pretty good too.

[@ZiltoidDerOmniscient]

@@souljastation5463 Agreed, I played a lot of X-out. I also enjoyed the Amiga port of R-type quite a lot too. There was a clone of R-type as well, but I can't remember what it was called.

[@gumdeo]

@@ZiltoidDerOmniscient I think the R-Type clone was called Katakis, later renamed Denaris.

[@ZiltoidDerOmniscient]

@@gumdeo that's the one! Thank you for that.

[@noaht2005]

Awesome stuff. I’m probably the only person my age who appreciates this stuff, but I can’t complain. Turrican 2 has one of my favourite game soundtracks ever

[@Antonio-hx7yh]

Completely agree, the soundtrack is a masterpiece (The great bath over all)

[@Larry]

Oh, don't forget The Godfather game, that looks stunning!

[@MrStephen182]

Most people don't know that game exists hence why it never gets on to these types of videos.

[@jordanjackson6151]

Always good seeing you comment on these type of vids mister fact hunt.

[@Midwinter2]

It does have very pretty graphics. However, the scrolling and animation are slow and jerky so I wouldn't include it on this list.

[@jordanjackson6151]

@@Midwinter2 Well. You're right. Co-Designer Richard Aplin was essentially tasked with making a work of art over something that was fluidly playable from what I've heard. But its an interesting left field choice of property to work from, to say the most. Amiga needs more love for the things it did get right.

[@retronostalgic]

Godfather???? Are you quite sure about that? 😶😶

[@retronostalgic]

Stardust was a technically stunning game which you didn't mention and very playable too

[@HayTatsuko]

Gotta love that wonderful music from Chris Hülsbeck in the Amiga Turrican series!

[@The-Great-Brindian]

Xenon 2: The Megablast on the Amiga 500 was a work of art. The level design, the sprites, the detail and the imagination behind it all was just insanely good for its time. Challenging game too the further you got into it. People liked Apidya a lot but this game deserves more praise as its a superior shooter imo.

[@AmbersKnight]

I would have pointed to something like Body Blows or Body Blows Galactic as a better version of the 1 on 1 90's fighter rather than Elfmania. And I agree with others that Pinball Dreams or Fantasies not being on the list seems a shame but a good video all the same.

[@TheRPGChick]

I went to a local computer store, where they showed me Shadow of the Beast, It Came From the Desert, and Dungeon Master. That was all she wrote. Awesome video. :)

[@BollingHolt]

I am glad I stumbled across your channel this week! I'm new to the Commodore and the Amiga world, and your videos are giving me great games to check out!

[@Sharopolis]

Thanks!

[@mercster]

Been watching these "push the limits" videos, they are really good! And now my favorite games micro, the Amiga! Thanks!

[@mercster]

Good ol' SotB... did anyone actually like the gameplay or finish it? Was way too hard for me as a kid... it was something to boot up to impress somebody.

[@scouse1967]

Cannon Fodder was my all time favourite game on the Amiga,then The Lost Patrol came in second place for me.I still play these games on my PC through emulation and still loving them :) :) :)

[@Wishbone1977]

Great video. A few missing pieces: Moonstone, Pinball Fantasies, Speedball 2, Dune, Dune 2, Another World (shown, but not mentioned), Flashback. For the next one, you definitely have to cover Hunter.

[@nebularain3338]

Great games, but they didn't exactly push the Amiga's limits, so that's why they were likely left out.

[@valley_robot]

Moonstone was ace

[@matt.willoughby]

The title music of xenon 2 was amazing at the time, even the master system music sounded great

[@kaierdmann3834]

Back then everybody was talking about Battle Chess - it was a mere chess game but looked phantastic and showed what was possible with Amiga

There was a fighting game, that pushed the limits of Amiga and played great - Shadow Fighter.

[@ledsvik]

I loved The Settlers :) so many hours spent on it

[@aaronmicalowe]

Lol, one of the few games that can put you in hospital from lack of sleep and consumption.

[@chunkybeats79]

Next video definitely Stardust!! Amazing graphics and sound! Pushed the A500!!

[@DrStrangeloveII]

Yeah, the first time I saw one of the tunnels I couldn't believe it. Mind-blowing. And that soundtrack...

[@aaronmicalowe]

Stardust was only available for the A1200 and up because it required AGA graphics which the A500 didn't have. Or maybe I'm thinking of Super Stardust...

[@mostverticalproductions4808]

I remember that the developers of the Iridion titles on Gameboy Advance said their background was on Amiga computers, and looking at what people were capable of doing, it's amazing how much the Amiga is really capable of.

[@goodcitizen477]

A few strong contenders there. I would like to suggest Gods by Bitmap Brothers should be considered. One of the best looking games ever on the Amiga, and with some really good gameplay in it too.

[@Kavlor1]

Also great music.

[@CptSparky]

You definitely forgot Desert Strike. The Amiga version ran in HAM mode und used 64 colors, it was awesome. So much better looking than the Mega Drive version. Oh and for the 3D part, I loved playing Mercenary 2. One of the first huge open world games, if you don't count Elite ;)

[@Sharopolis]

Yeah that's a good one too, but this video could have been 8 hours long if I wasn't a bit brutal in throwing stuff out!

[@aaronmicalowe]

I remember Desert Strike. Even drew maps and planned my levels to make them perfect and get every target. And the menu snap was snazzy too.

[@barriewilson3052]

The Amiga version ran in Half brite mode to allow 32 main colors and 32 half brite colors. HAM ( Hold And Modify )is a graphics mode for static images, that allow 4096 colors to be displayed at the same time.

[@si4632]

i loved my amiga but i thought the megadrive version was more polished and faster

[@chemicalBR0]

my fave 2d game on the Amiga was either Another world or Walker

[@OLIV3R_YT]

The soundtracks of these games are still awesome so many years later!

[@FuZZbaLLbee]

Games that pushed the Amiga where wing commander and later doom for the Amiga 500. The fact that they where on the Amiga even though it doesn’t have chunky pixel mode is amazing

[@mmalyshev]

Cannon Fodder, Lemmings, Populous... so much fun and much much more

[@panathatube]

Agony was a great shoot em up game by Psygnosis. I can still remember the melancholic piano music.

[@Dadoc68]

FA/18 Interceptor! Played that one for years, with its amazing intro tune.

[@lincruste]

Yeah and FA/18 Interceptor would not be FA/18 Interceptor whithout the Unit A cracktro.

[@illegalquantity]

@@lincruste Same here. F/18 and F29 Retaliator (F22) were my favs.

[@Michal.P.P.]

Disposable Hero is one of the best Amiga games in terms of graphics and music. Even today it looks great.

[@MrSEA-ok2ll]

Such precious memories...fantastic nostalgic memories thank you.

[@Peppiinait]

That Turrican music...so damn good. I'm predicting Super Stardust to appear in this video series.

[@Sharopolis]

It will eventually no doubt.

[@aaronmicalowe]

Super Stardust required AGA which is more A1200 territory.

[@Peppiinait]

@@aaronmicalowe "The Commodore Amiga" is a pretty broad definition of the computers.

[@TheHjulius]

At the time I had nothing negative to say about Street Fighter on the Amiga. But at that time I didnt know anything about other versions on other systems, so I didnt know better you can say. I didnt know it existed on anything else as a matter of fact. How funny!

[@Highretrogamelord]

For the second part where you show 3D games I recommend Hunter. It is an open world game where you can use different vehicles. Then there is also Zeewolf / Zeewolf 2 and Alien Breed 3D.

[@LegendaryGauntlet]

Zeewolf 1/2 did push the limits somewhat. The 3D games tried to but they were unremarkable in the big picture and far behind the glory of 2D games.

[@MammaApa]

Yeah I played so many hours of Hunter. It was kind of the Just Cause of it's time.

[@electricdreams8237]

Starglider II.... A fantastic open world space exploration/shooter/adventure game from the crew who made Starfox later on. My jaw literally dropped the first time I saw it. Then it dropped a second time when I discovered space whales in that gas giant's atmosphere... If any game deserves a modern remake/reboot it would be Starglider II. It was so far ahead of its time it is crazy. I believe it was THE first space game where you could actually seamlessly transition from deep space to planetary surface. Literally game-changing - a living world, a whole star system to explore.

[@electricdreams8237]

Oh and don't forget Resolution 101 and Thuderhawk - if anyone tells you Amiga couldn't do 3D just show them these games.

[@LegendaryGauntlet]

Agreed on the needed remake for Staglider II. Full seamless space / atmo space shooter with tons of life forms roaming around and incredible sound design for the time...

[@laurencevanhelsuwe3052]

All Amigas were 32-bit machines. The "bitness" of a machine is a function of its CPU architecture register set width. All Motorola 68K CPUs had 32-bit registers, hence 32-bit machines. The width of the data bus could be 8, 16 or 32-bits. The Sinclair QL had an 8-bit data bus, but it still had 32-bit registers, so it too was a 32-bit machine, albeit one of the slowest possible..

[@litjellyfish]

Great honest review about the gameplay issues. Regarding pushing. I would say Turrican and Elfmania are the ones really pushing. The rest are more smart graphic design and art direction.

[@BastetFurry]

The Amiga, as the PC, was the first platform where big world RPGs could really shine, check out Fate - Gates of Dawn for example, a huge world that doesn't need to hide from Tamriel that you can roam freely and a huge story to explore and unfold. Or the classic that made folks buy a 512 kByte upgrade to get to 1 MByte, Dungeon Master. Yes, the dungeon never sleeps and the whole dungeon is active and mobs move around all the time. Then there where the SSI Gold Box releases, Champions of Krynn, Pool of Radiance and the like. They where released for the C64 too, but finally if you upgraded to a harddisk system they began to be really playable, as was the rest of the RPG gang. Amberstar, 11 disks if i recall correctly. Either be a disk jokey or get that HDD rolling.

[@aaronmicalowe]

EOB 1 and 2

[@TheTomimt]

Shadow of the Beast was one of those games that made me hope we had an Amiga when I saw pics of it in the magazines. Then I played. Georgeous looking game though and the soundtrack was atmospheric as well.

[@JohnDRobinsonelectronicdrums]

a brilliant video..looking forward to the next instalment!

[@Sharopolis]

Thanks!

[@JohnDRobinsonelectronicdrums]

@@Sharopolis you're welcome! do you hve any old Amiga/Atari ST demos of Star Wars AT-AT's walking on desks like I used to see in shop windows as a teenager - they would be interesting to revisit :)

[@Stoffel3k]

I remember Battlehawks 1942 .... great game ...you were able to play the american and the japanese campain. North vs South and don't forget Speedball 1-2. Thank you for the memorys so far, good video! :)

[@volo870]

Thank you for sharing Amiga love with us, A500 underdogs! Lionheart? I think I have a couple of blank floppies eager to be employed... Boy! Amiga graphics sure aged well! Too bad the gameplay didn't.

[@RodBeauvex]

I love all the nicknames you have for these systems. Wonder wedge indeed. Mocha tone marvel.

[@Alianger]

Great picks besides perhaps Xenon 2 - it uses like 15 colors and is rather slow. Would also mention Disposable Hero, Ruff 'n Tumble, Ambermoon, Agony, Bubba 'n Stix, Banshee, Fightin' Spirit, Chaos Engine and Hired Guns. Maybe some P&C adventure games too.

[@Sharopolis]

I nearly did Ambermoon, but it's a pretty complex game and I didn't have enough time to get into it well enough to talk about it. The Chaos Engine is a great game too, but well, like I said, there's too many games to talk about in a short video! Some people hate Xenon 2, but I like it and I'll stick by it!

[@electricdreams8237]

@@Sharopolis Also the Eye of the Beholder series got awesome ports to Amiga. As a matter of fact, they are the best definitive versions of the games. In those days it was a true technological miracle.

[@CodexShow]

Yes! Defender of the Crown! Awesome video, man. :)

[@lordsqueak]

All this about pushing limits of the machine, , but if you Really want to show what pushes the limits of any machine, you should start looking at the demoscene. Which even today, pushes new limits on old hardware. (for example, the 2019 revision amiga demos was considered to be even more impressive than the PC demos.) The things these guys can do with old hardware is nothing but Technomancy! I would really want to see ,, no, I demand to see you do a demoscene part for these series. because that's where the limits was pushed in the first place, before the demoscene kids grew up and started programming games. Thank you!

[@DJFuZionDnB]

The Amiga had so many great looking games, you’d need at least an hour to cover a good slice. As for 3D, I’m assuming you have Frontier Elite 2, Stunt Car Racer, Combat Air Patrol, Interceptor, Carrier Command, Zeewolf 2... wow. Each time I type one, another pops into my head. But, lesser know, see if you can squeeze in Trex Warrior. Always loved that game, fast intense and probably shrouded in nostalgia 😆

[@MartinBannister]

There are so many games I loved that I just don't think I can remember them all. Zool, Cytron, Lemmings, Terry's big adventure, Superfrog, Fire and Ice, SWIV. For the 2nd part Monkey Island & LeChuck's Revenge, The Chaos Engine, Simon The Sorcerer, Future Wars, Project Stealth, Goblins 1, 2 & 3. I must see if my Amiga still works, I need a mouse though...

[@KiR_3d]

Ruff and Rumble was a great platformer. I don't know if it did push to the limits but it was flashy and playable. Also Walker was an amazing (but really hard!) game. I think it should be mentioned as it was unique and the style reminds some Neo-Geo games of that time. And I've reminded the amazing game called "Quazar Wars"! By some reason I've couldn't pass further after some level. Probably my version was a pirated one :) But the gameplay still sits in my head! It's like playing a serious 3d mission futuristic shooter but in 2d graphics. Usually 2d shooters aren't so serious. It's how I remember this game.

[@markgoulden7851]

One thing about Turrican 1, which had versions on Turbografx and Genesis, was that the Amiga version sounded AND looked better than those 16 bit counterparts. Turrican 2 and 3 were more graphically sophisticated still. All very impressive. When the Amiga was used to its fullest extent it could stand alongside the consoles.

[@Sharopolis]

Amiga games could easily match anything you'd see on a console when done right.

[@Musikkeller-Innsider]

GODS, Speedball 2 and of course the Monkey Island series!

[@ArnaudLefebvre97]

Unreal and Agony were also amazing games

[@turrican4d599]

And Wrath Of The Demon.

[@TruckerJenkins82]

Great channel, love these kind of vids, KZbin recommended your stuff whilst bingeing on Kim Justice content. You have a new sub from me, keep it up all the best.

[@Sharopolis]

Thanks! I love Kim Justice too, she's a big inspiration to me.

[@adroharv9213]

truthfully it couldn't quite match what the consoles were able to throw around sprite wise but when it did it's own thing was when you got something special. Too many unique experiences you just couldn't get elsewhere and I remember being utterly in awe of the machine. The Amiga along with the C64 remain my the best of times. Still play Amiga plenty because there's simply something magical about the experience It's worth mentioning that Xenon was a port of course and other than the sampled soundtrack wont have used the Amiga advantages. In fairness though what with the amount of enemies moved the Amiga would have likely struggled anyway if going for a full 50 frames. The ST version as it was looked very good to begin with at least technically

[@RockTo11]

MISSING : Ruff N’ Tumble

[@wimwiddershins]

Great game that looks like AGA.

[@yota7906]

Another masterpiece....but that fucking 25hz scrolling.....damn...it freaked me out!!!

[@jimkrom]

It ain't missing, it is AGA game. This episode was on A500 games that pushed the A500 OCS chipset to the limits

[@RockTo11]

Ruff N' Tumble is not an AGA game. It works on any Amiga with 1MB RAM.

[@jayminer]

Ruff n' tumble has good pixel-art but isn't exactly pushing the hardware with it's bad framerate.

[@thadonis3516]

Good stuff! but Turrican 1 was also a fantastic game!

[@viva-amiga204]

Some technically great games there... Ruff n Tumble was another great game. Probably some of the best graphics and animation in an Amiga game, you'd think it was running on an A1200 AGA.

[@kasperchristensen8416]

Turrican: Spent hours playing this game. An absolute gem!! Turrican II: Even better than the first one! So addictive! Turrican III: Oh yes ... I _do_ vaguely recall there was a third one in the series.

[@Moonfreeze]

Whenever I wanted to impress someone with my A500, I'd show them the intro for Awesome. Some of the actual game was pretty impressive too.

[@forestdenizen6497]

I'd play Axel-F soundtracker mod. Or 9 Fingers demo for the hot Norwegian girls.

[@souljastation5463]

the intro of Lotus II

[@randomcalrissian]

If we are talking about pushing the limits: Ruff and Tumble had and insane amount of colors for ESC (Not compromising on gameplay). SWIV for Amiga had a whole game streamed form the floppy. It might have been the first time. Flashback did a huge leaps in character animation.

[@orbitingdecay6797]

Ruff N tumble is great if a little choppy.

[@robredfearn8096]

In my opinion Turrican 2 was the best game to hit the humble Amiga.... I still play it now. Oh and for 3D please cover Stunt Car Racer lol!

[@Sharopolis]

It's on the list!

[@johnknight9150]

How did they do those shadows in Defender of the Crown? Particularly that bit during the sword fight near the torch on the wall.

[@thebeststooge]

Ultima, The Bard's Tale wore me out on the Amiga as I played them over and over.

[@CastleFamilyThe]

I agree some of these, but would have Ruff N Tumble, Hunter, Kid Chaos, F1GP, Lotus 2, Superfrog all games pushing the hardware, some may seem not that special, but at the time most of these pushed the genre above what was expected on the Amiga

[@Kevin197200]

I enjoyed the video and your analysis. Good stuff. :) One game I would have included on this list was another game from Cinemaware - Rocket Ranger.

[@Sharopolis]

Thanks, I'll take a look at Rocket Ranger sometime.

[@nightlyedge7203]

Fire and Ice, Superfrog, Gods, James Pond Underwater Agent and James Pond II code name Robocod

[@mercster]

GODS was fantastic, but I'm not sure it pushed the limits...

[@mercster]

Ehh maybe it did, looking at some of these other games...

[@GreatBallsOfAcid]

But none of the gameplay does any minute of cutting edge development justice 😔

[@Mnnvint]

@@GreatBallsOfAcid A series of "Amiga games that had actually original, good gameplay" would be nice! It might have been pretty short though...

[@brostenen]

Well... 1992 was the year, that it all changed. In Jan 1992 it was the Amiga that ruled. Somewere in that year other platforms were equal to the Amiga and by december the Amiga was an underdog. I am talking in margins and about the newest stuff in hardware and software. However the Amiga had a tiny few titles that were done better. Yet by 1993, Doom came, and nobody in the general public wanted Amiga anymore. On the Amiga, quality games were from 1988 to 1992. Hardware wise it was the best platform between 1985 and 1993. Yet for those years, I am talking for productivity stuff as well. Generally speaking, the Amiga had a life span of some 7 or possible 8 years. And it was designed for 10 years of use. The designers actually did more or less what they set out to do, as nobody can predict the future in computing.

[@burntreynolds1068]

Quake on the A1200 is a miracle.

[@dungeonseeker3087]

Elite 2, it was so demanding the A500 would often dip below 5 FPS in heavy action. Even the big box Amigas couldn't run it to it's fullest potential, it took expansion cards to do that. You have to include it in the list of 3D games.

[@deathybrs]

Agreed, Frontier is a must have!

[@aaronmicalowe]

Elite 2 Frontier was great on the A1200. Played perfectly. I still play it today and like the gameplay better then any modern space game.

[@thadonis3516]

SWIV was a better game and more impressive than Xenon 2 or Battle Squadron plus no midgame loading pauses. - It loaded as you played. Also Flashback? Gods? Also graphically, Robocop 2 was very good imo.

[@hiepke1]

Aaaah yes....SWIV (Silkworm4) that's a solid game . The hours (days) I played that game.....LoL. Good memories. xD

[@robredfearn8096]

Gods was sick, I bought the remake on Steam its great

[@majmunx9703]

I would also mention The Chaos Engine and Ruff'n Tumble.

[@TheIllerX]

Agree. I never played Xenon 2 much since the controls were not that responsive. SWIV and Battle squadron are true classics I will always remember. I had alot of fun playing project X too. Both the graphics and the music were fantastic.

[@MrStephen182]

Yes SWIV was more impressive than Xenon 2, I do think Xenon 2 is a far better game than SWIV. I do enjoy playing SWIV.

[@PaulRoneClarke]

Populous, Jimmy Whites Whirlwind Snooker, UFO Enemy Unknown, Eye of the Beholder, Silkworm, The Chaos Engine, Damocles, Pacific Islands, IT Came from the desert, Gauntlet 2, Lotus Turbo Challenge (2?), PGA Tour Golf, Pinball Dreams, Speedball 2 Brutal Deluxe, Dune 2. Sensible Soccer, Kick Off, Lemmings, Cannon Fodder, A Train, A few different football management games. I only played megablast from this first video, and that was for about 30 minutes.

[@danyf3116]

RoboCod comes to mind.

[@yota7906]

Hey guys, give a look at Shadow Fighters from the Italian Naps Team! That's the ultimate beat-em-up game for Amiga. Elfmania is probably a little bit graphically superior but the playability of Shadow Fighters is a little masterpiece in the Amiga universe.

[@Sharopolis]

Looks great.

[@priestfan81]

Thanks for this video. I loved the Amiga.

[@Hydrazine1000]

Come on, no mention of Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe by The Bitmap Brothers?

[@rosstee]

Exactly. I was looking for this in the comments. Still in my top ten games on any system.

[@lukedaniels7750]

Possibly the two very best games ever released for the Amiga were Speedball 2 and Rainbow Islands. I'm not sure if either pushed the Amiga that much, but I think Rainbow Islands on the Amiga is possibly the best version on any platform.

[@Hydrazine1000]

@@adiands850 That game, especially in 2-player Vs. mode, was *FRANTIC* and it still was some of the smoothest scrolling lag-free stutter-free gameplay out there. That would not have been a proverbial walk in the park for the chipsets.

[@aaronmicalowe]

Other 2D games worth a mention: Battle Chess - Bundled with the early A500 gave a first indicator or what the graphics were capable of. Battle Squadron - Pretty much indistinguishable from if it was made an arcade game. Perfect controls. Prefect graphics. Perfect music. Eye of the Beholder - One of the early games that got the balance between graphics and RPG exactly right. Batman the Movie - perfect platformer with some nice driving and flying subgames. Paradroid - talking about subgames, this time you had to beat the logic circuit of the droid you were hacking to "become" them. Even really old games like Hostages showed off new skills henceforth never seen before. Like the original Sim City, showed us you could have an open game without a plot and still have lots of fun. And who can forget The Settlers? The easiest way to lose a whole day and night. Play till you can't see from tears of exhaustion and even chest pains can't stop you. Why haven't I mentioned Lemmings!? First time I ever skipped school was to complete all 120 levels. Had to fake an injury to make that happen. There's plenty I haven't mentioned as I see they're mentioned in other comments. Some absolute brilliant examples of the era. Great memories.

[@aaronmicalowe]

Can't leave this without mentioning Datastorm. Another game I loved. Trying to kill 1000 independent little nasties on the screen while avoiding a floating skull. Aaaaargh!!! Adrenaline overdrive!

[@aaronmicalowe]

And Syndicate. Dark utopian heaven.

[@LegendaryGauntlet]

Ishtar series come to mind, Another World, Pinball Illusions, Dragon's Breath, pretty much every Thalamus game, most Silmarils games too. Well done on selecting games that truly tried to push the technical limits of the platform regardless of their gameplay merits.. (edit) and i was reminded of Starglider II: that one was really jaw dropping, and still features jaw dropping moments (those creatures floating in planet atmospheres..) and one of the best sound designs ever.

[@DuckAlertBeats]

Nice one. Would love to see you cover No Second Prize in the next edition. A good low poly racer with fantastic mouse control

[@Sharopolis]

Yep, that's definitely going to be in part 2, really great game with a really great frame rate too!

[@DuckAlertBeats]

Sweet!

[@NLynchOEcake]

You know, after watching a bunch of these videos where I can see all kinds of different 8/16-bit tropes and art styles, I realize that my favorite Metroid: Zero Mission was hardly new stuff at all, but instead the result of a generation or two of making the best of limited hardware.

[@noneofyourbusiness4616]

It's funny; when you mentioned the Megablast game having a Bomb the Bass song in it, all I was hearing was the John Carpenter soundtrack to his film Assault on Precinct 13, which Bomb the Bass must have sampled.

[@Realmasterorder]

Amiga Just light years ahead of its competition with amazing custom hardware and awesome games,it reigned supreme in many areas of Computing and gaming for over a Decade

[@philosoaper]

like every other platform, Amiga also suffered under the looks over substance problem.. it existed before the amiga.. and well, still does...would Last Ninja fall under 2D or..?.. Probably the most bloody memories of amiga was Moonstone.. ah yes.. those heads rolling.. was almost as fun as Barbarian on C64

[@dtsdigitalden5023]

I think these games were eye-candy, and ear-candy, to be sure (maybe all except Xenon, which took hardly any advantage of the Amiga's hardware acceleration advantages, and was co-released on the Atari ST). This is a good list. I'd really like to see you do a video on great games, even if not visually or aurally great. Millenium 2.0 and Deuteros for example; absolutely solid games. Did they make the Amiga's hardware grunt, wheeze and nearly collapse in a pool of digital perspiration? No. Yet they were great games in their own right.

[@shiva_MMIV]

You should give Fightin Spirit' a try, it's an Italian fighting game that looks better than 99% of the console games of that era, it's more neo geo than SNES, although the playability is not that great (1-button joystick is not enough for this kind of game).

[@Sharopolis]

Thanks, that does look interesting!

[@genstarmkg5321]

Maybe keyboard? Why does everything need to be Joysticks???

[@CastleFamilyThe]

You can play with a CD32 pad, at least on the AGA versions

[@BloodiTearz]

Agony was the game that pushed the Amiga limits by far

[@rafaellima83]

I know a bit about amiga coding, and for me Elfmania is pure witchcraft. But, like you said, unfortunately the game isn't very good. ANd thank you for giving proper credit for Turrican 3, which I think it's an amazing Amiga title. I'd like to point out two Amiga games that I find to be *incredible* and really pushing the hardware. From all 2D platform games with lots of parallax and stuff... Mr. Nutz always impressed me the most, because it does have the crazy parallax and multicolor stuff WHILE have lots of big stuff moving on screen. Also that bonus level was insanely incredible. And... Mega Typhoon. It looks like puke mostyl because its clear the artist wasn't exactly very talented (I actually think the graphics were done by the programmer). But boy... that games pushes A SHITLOAD OF STUFF on screen like no other Amiga game does, and everything always at 50 fps (Xenon 2 my arse :D ) The amount of stuff flying on screen is on par with late toaplan / early cave games, it's really *very* impressive. Shame it came out so late on Amiga life (It's said the game wasn't even completed, the author wanted to have more levels, but as the Amiga market was nearly dead at that point, he released it with just 4 levels and no proper ending sequence, the game just loops), so many people don't know it. If you never heard about it, take a look. It's really *very* impressive.

[@ZombieATAT]

You referenced Manimal, that had me in stitches. I gave you a like, I'm easy.

[@thoresittly2634]

Universe with 256 colors on ECS, Dragon's Lair with custom big disk format to fit it onto 6 disks. Elite 2 with more stars than space on the disk, ... There are so many Limit breaking games.