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intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Sat Feb 06, 2016 11:07 am

Getting into Amiga gaming involves getting around a lot of barriers. I don’t think most are willing to do the research or put in the money needed to make playing on an actual Amiga worthwhile.
A brilliant and honest article by the uncomfortably named TheSonicRetard titled  The Primer Guide to Amiga Gaming on racketboy.com. It is frankly one of the best articles for Amiga lovers as well as for those new to the scene to acquaint themselves to the platform’s history and potential for those who want to jump in fresh. He  is very honest about what makes the Amiga a solid gaming platform and some of its blatant shortcomings.

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Shot97
Detroit, MI, USA

Posted Sun May 29, 2016 3:04 pm

I disagree with some of the history in his post. People discussing that video game crash crap always make me roll my eyes. Way too much is made of that from people who weren't even born yet, they really have little clue as to what was going on with all that. I've asked quite a few nerds of that era just what the story was about the video game crash and all of them said it's not what is said online. Yes, Atari destroyed their own systems by letting far too much crap come out, but that's the consoles. Those were some prime years for American C64 games, for example. Europeans, with more love for the computers than American's (but nowhere near what he suggests) often brush away the video game crash stuff, because they remember otherwise... I bet a lot of those C64 titles they like so much from that era came from America though.

Computers were always a niche market for America. Once the internet came around everyone got a computer, but gaming still remained a niche market for computers to this very day. They were smaller, but they meant a whole hell of a lot because they were the nerdiest of the nerds. But back then people made money off the nerds, they could still do it if they did it right. My point is, the "video game crash" had little effect on America when it concerned computers.

In fact it was a part of the reason why the Amiga became a computer instead of a console. He speaks of the great love for computers in Europe but makes no mention that well, must have been a little love here otherwise that machine would have been a console in the first place!

There was a market for computers, the Amiga did sell enough in America to warrant quite a lot of great games, and again, I just hate when anyone tells people to pretty much throw away an NTSC Amiga. If all you're looking for when you play games is side scrolling European budget titles, people, get an SNES or Genesis. The side scrollers on consoles were a thousand times better overall than almost anything the Amiga ever put out. There are a couple great ones, no doubt, but I never understood why anyone would buy an Amiga to play the majority of those console rip off games. If you take those games out of the picture, if you take out all the crap, I personally find NTSC Amiga games kick the crap out of PAL games. But that's just me, still, even the biggest console fan should be able to understand quite a lot of crap came out on computers due to how easy it was to make and the demographics/economics of those buying the games there. Just because the Amiga or whatever computer might have a thousand games... Does anyone seriously think even 80% of those are quality? Good luck finding quality out of the 600 NES titles out there, ya know? And it was much harder and more expensive to put out an NES game. He says you'll miss out on 90% of the good titles by getting an NTSC Amiga... BULLLLLLSHHHHH..... Of the games he says are worth playing, there's a few of them I wouldn't personally bother with. Of the games he mentions I do like, they were released in America, soooo...

His sales figures are way off, there's not even one single console put out in Europe that sold less than the Amiga. 8.56 million sold of just the NES in Europe, the least popular of the consoles. That's more than the Amiga sold in the entire world combined. It's amazing how things get distorted because of nostalgia. In America, the people that bought the Amiga were older, they're not talking about it online. In Europe, perfect age to go on about how everyone they knew had an Amiga or whatever. They see our love for the NES and yes, but their standards nobody loved the NES, it's like here, where yeah, it seemed everyone had one... But the reality was they were more likely to see an NES at a friends house than an Amiga. Now, with other computers over there, the story was a little different. They probably bought more C64s than NES' for example, as well as there own computers like the ZX... But once the consoles went 16 bit say goodbye to all computer competition.

The computer market was "bigger" in Europe compared to America, it was not bigger than consoles however. In Europe computers and consoles were also competing for the exact same demographics, children to very young adults. In America children/teens had the NES, adults of all ages had computers.

It's just weird for me being so into a nerdy retro computer and seeing all these console fans jump in on it all these years later... It's strange to me they never "grew up" in their tastes for games. But that's just me.

Other things he goes needlessly complicated on, those power converters and things, not needed... You just need an American power supply, that's it. True, if you're buying from overseas you might not have a choice, but he thinks it's required when it's not. It would probably be cheaper to buy just an American power supply on Ebay than to get all that crap he got.

I respect the amount of time he put into the article as well as the overall writing...But as a guide for buying Amigas... Well... Asterisk, I think. Good guide "if" you like that particular type of game that was so very popular with consoles and European computer games. But even then, all that power converter crap needs to be edited.

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Shot97
Detroit, MI, USA

Posted Sun May 29, 2016 4:16 pm

Of course, it would help a lot of people getting into an Amiga for the first time if there were better top games lists, ya know? Pretty much all of those top whatever Amiga games lists are from that European sidescrolling bent. I can't blame new people from thinking PAL Amigas are the best when they're not exposed to the great number of NTSC games nor does anyone distinguish between a PAL and NTSC game.

I utterly HHAAAAATE top 5, 10 this or that, any of those click bait videos that appeal to our sense of organization and debate. I can tell they get views, but I can't tell you ONE single one I ever thought was a good video. It's just a bad video format... I could agree with the entire list, they're still bad videos and they are made for all the worst reasons.

I would never personally want to do a top 10 video or anything like that. BUTTTTTT.... I can sure as hell say my top 100 Amiga games list would be waaaaay different than the ones you see today... I still won't do it, but in this rare case, it might be beneficial to have such a list from a perspective like ours.

Top 10 American Amiga Games! - I probably would get a lot more people to see my stuff with that title... meh, keep telling yourself you want the "right" subscribers, not "subscribers"... sigh

User avatar
walldog

Posted Sat May 09, 2020 3:37 pm

Shot97 wrote:
Sun May 29, 2016 4:16 pm
Of course, it would help a lot of people getting into an Amiga for the first time if there were better top games lists, ya know? Pretty much all of those top whatever Amiga games lists are from that European sidescrolling bent. I can't blame new people from thinking PAL Amigas are the best when they're not exposed to the great number of NTSC games nor does anyone distinguish between a PAL and NTSC game.

I utterly HHAAAAATE top 5, 10 this or that, any of those click bait videos that appeal to our sense of organization and debate. I can tell they get views, but I can't tell you ONE single one I ever thought was a good video. It's just a bad video format... I could agree with the entire list, they're still bad videos and they are made for all the worst reasons.

I would never personally want to do a top 10 video or anything like that. BUTTTTTT.... I can sure as hell say my top 100 Amiga games list would be waaaaay different than the ones you see today... I still won't do it, but in this rare case, it might be beneficial to have such a list from a perspective like ours.

Top 10 American Amiga Games! - I probably would get a lot more people to see my stuff with that title... meh, keep telling yourself you want the "right" subscribers, not "subscribers"... sigh
This is an older post but while poking around I thought it was rather interesting. Yeah here in the US NES was all the rage. I on the other hand couldnt afford one so rolled with my trusty Atari 2600. Only benefit was yard sales! Man I would go with my Grandmother and pick up a ton of Atari games for cents.. When I finally got an NES it was in fact Amazing.

Now all that said I had no idea of any video game crash. Heck I didnt know about this until probably mid 2000's time frame as retro gaming has taken off.

Now my first exposure to Amiga was early 90's. My Family had no computer in the house so went to a friend to type papers and such for school. He had a A500. Mostly stock, all floppy driven. And it was just amazing to me. We would pull all nighters gaming on that thing.

Interesting point that most of those games where NOT platformers. They where mouse, point and click, strategy with some arcade elements built in. Side platformers and such where NES land surely.. So I guess you could say I got a different type of enjoyment on the Amiga as I did on NES or Atari... Just different and I was hooked...

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McTrinsic

Posted Sun May 10, 2020 3:22 am

I am less than convinced thatvthis article (post) is worthwhile. It’s badly written. There is too much wrong, put into wrong context or otherwise misleading. Mixing too much topics.

And I really have a hard time to understand how he could e.g. overlook that SimCity originated on the Amiga. As did Lemmings. Monkey Island was written on the Amiga afair.

BTW. Wouldn’t EU devices like a PAL-A500 also run with a US-psu? I mean the Psu needs to provide 5v and 12v...

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Zippy Zapp
CA, USA

Posted Mon May 11, 2020 11:18 am

McTrinsic wrote:
Sun May 10, 2020 3:22 am
And I really have a hard time to understand how he could e.g. overlook that SimCity originated on the Amiga. As did Lemmings. Monkey Island was written on the Amiga afair.
Well technically, SimCity originated on the Commodore 64 and started life in 1985/1986 by Will Wright himself as he programmed the 64 version back then. However, it did not release until 1989 after the Mac and Amiga versions, which were obviously the show runners at the time as they added in many features the Original 64 version did not have.

It is another case of rewriting history as many of the articles that talked about the C64 original have now vanished. It stemmed from Raid on Bungeling Bay that was Will Wright's first game.

I got to spend a few minutes with Maxis, when the C64 version was released. The first copies of the game had a bug that prevented you from doing something, I cant recall now. Anyhoo, the Maxis Office for Will Wright was an Apartment in Moraga, California, about a block from where I spent a lot of time at my Aunt's house. They had me come over and trade my bugged copy with the correct version. Of course they had stacks of them in all areas of the Apartment and I only got a brief glimpse of their operation. It was cool to see and talk to them about the game for sure. I had an Amiga back then too but I really wanted the C64 version since it was the Original concept and what I was using most despite still owning an Amiga. Of course, the Amiga version was vastly superior but the C64 version did have its own charm.

I wish I would have actually kept the original bugged version since they were super rare and would probably go for some coin these days.

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McTrinsic

Posted Mon May 11, 2020 11:42 am

Didn’t know the connect to Bungeling Bay.

Loved that game back then on the C64.

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walldog

Posted Sun May 17, 2020 7:45 am

Zippy Zapp wrote:
Mon May 11, 2020 11:18 am
McTrinsic wrote:
Sun May 10, 2020 3:22 am
And I really have a hard time to understand how he could e.g. overlook that SimCity originated on the Amiga. As did Lemmings. Monkey Island was written on the Amiga afair.
Well technically, SimCity originated on the Commodore 64 and started life in 1985/1986 by Will Wright himself as he programmed the 64 version back then. However, it did not release until 1989 after the Mac and Amiga versions, which were obviously the show runners at the time as they added in many features the Original 64 version did not have.

It is another case of rewriting history as many of the articles that talked about the C64 original have now vanished. It stemmed from Raid on Bungeling Bay that was Will Wright's first game.

I got to spend a few minutes with Maxis, when the C64 version was released. The first copies of the game had a bug that prevented you from doing something, I cant recall now. Anyhoo, the Maxis Office for Will Wright was an Apartment in Moraga, California, about a block from where I spent a lot of time at my Aunt's house. They had me come over and trade my bugged copy with the correct version. Of course they had stacks of them in all areas of the Apartment and I only got a brief glimpse of their operation. It was cool to see and talk to them about the game for sure. I had an Amiga back then too but I really wanted the C64 version since it was the Original concept and what I was using most despite still owning an Amiga. Of course, the Amiga version was vastly superior but the C64 version did have its own charm.

I wish I would have actually kept the original bugged version since they were super rare and would probably go for some coin these days.
I really liked that look into history Zip. You were there! Kinda gives you down to earth perspective. Haha yep he was running that out of an apartment to what it is today. Amazing. I have the Amiga version of SimCity but barely played it. I also have a copy of SimCity2000 on a win 98 machine and that is actually my favorite one.

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Zippy Zapp
CA, USA

Posted Tue May 19, 2020 10:15 pm

haha, yep they exploded big time. It is funny to look back at those times, especially being a teenager/early 20's when you still know absolutely nothing about the world. I always pictured in my mind the companies that I bought software from were these huge companies with 100s of employees. When in reality many times it was just a mom and pop operation. I forget who else I had dealings with back then but there were a couple of others that I got to see their operations, living so close to Silicon Valley, that turned out to be small time operations with a big time appearance. Lol.

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Overmann

Posted Tue Jun 16, 2020 1:48 am

I'm sure there is a lot of misinformation out there, and stories like "the video game crash" make for eye catching titles for books and articles, and eventually becomes general consensus, and then fact. I am one of those who were not born yet when the crash is supposed to have happened, but I can say with a fair bit of certainty that it wasn't felt here in Norway, where atari's were almost non-existent compared to PC's, C64's, Spectrum's etc. Sure, 1983 is quite early for some of those machines, but I think it is fair to examine how widespread Atari's destruction of the market really was. Also, it's pretty clear by now that while the Amiga-scene was small, per capita, in the US, there was a vibrant community of passionate users for a while.

I do think the article is good though, but I'm also wondering about that powerconversion part.. Wouldn't you just use a US PSU to use your PAL amiga in the US?





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