Good place for *nonbiased* Amiga review?

[blue lander]

I've been trying to get into the Amiga scene a little now that I have a CD32 and I fixed my A500, so I've been looking through a lot of game reviews, mostly from old Amiga magazines...

I first noticed something was wrong when mediocre-at-best games like Zool and Robocod were not only getting rave reviews, but were actually stated to be superior than Sonic or Super Mario. Then I noticed that virtually every review either takes a dig at Nintendo and Sega, or proclaim that particular game to be a "Sega and Nintendo beater," especially CD32 ones from the twilight years of the Amiga. Finally, virtually any game developed by a UK software house and that mimics the style of a popular console game (Mario, Street Fighter II, etc) almost always got near-perfect reviews even if the game was seriously flawed (putting it nicely).

So it seems pretty obvious that Amiga magazines back in the day had a serious case of Mario Envy. It's annoying to read a certain game is the Second Coming only to hunt it down and find out it's garbage. While it's interesting to read that perspective, does anybody know a good source for modern, non-biased Amiga reviews?

[Pete Rittwage]

All reviews were like that for the Amiga that I've ever seen. The fanboys for that system were just relentless and crazy. :)

Overall, there were some good and original games for the Amiga early on, but a lot of the games, especially platformers, were "mechanical" to me. What I mean by that is the movement isn't smooth or realistic.

For example, do some jumping and running in Super Mario Bros. (original) then do the same in "Great Giana Sisters". It just doesn't feel right and lot of Amiga games were like that to me. Wonderboy, Superfrog...

I didn't have a large collection as a kid, but I loved:

Firepower
Faery Tale Adventure
Arkanoid
Hybris (nice shooter)
Defender of the Crown
Capone
Cannon Fodder
King of Chicago
Dragon's Lair (of course- system showoff game to Apple II GS guys)
Zany Golf
Pinball Dreams & Fantasies
Castles
Crystal Hammer

I know you didn't ask for lists... I digress.

[Barbarianoutkast85]

Im not 100% sure becuase I've only been a DP member over 3.5 years. But I think we have reviews of games right here on DP.

[Gamereviewgod]

Im not 100% sure becuase I've only been a DP member over 3.5 years. But I think we have reviews of games right here on DP.

We do, but not many.

http://www.digitpress.com/reviews/index_cd32.htm

Games are just too hard to come by in the US so I can only write on what I have, and I don't think many people have much of an interest in the hardware. No one has ever submitted a review to me for the Amiga.

[j_factor]

Try a site like MobyGames where they source multiple reviews for the same game. Usually you can get a good feel for the game even if it's just multiple Amiga-specific mags (they often violently disagreed with each other on games). A bit better than Moby for reviews is Hall of Light (http://hol.abime.net). They're all reviews from Amiga magazines, but when you have like 8 of them for the same game, you can get a decent judgment.

Unfortunately, I don't know of any decent source of after-the-fact reviews. I guess you could try GameFAQs. :p

[ccovell]

Unfortunately, a LOT of Amiga games honestly are a bit poor and thin on gameplay, but magazines and gamers ate them up as if they were the best thing ever. But then again they also loved things like Chase H.Q. on the ZX Spectrum, so you know what fanaticism we're dealing with. :-)

Console games are really a lot more polished and/or deep than most Amiga games, but some original Amiga games that are still really interesting and deserve to be checked out are:

Lemmings (of course!)
Populous
Bubble Ghost
Hunter
Another World
Flashback
The Lost Vikings
Robocop III
James Pond II: Robocod
Cannon Fodder
Syndicate

Of course there are many more, but I can't think right now. All of the above have a bit of depth and great longevity to them. (Of course, most of these appeared on consoles too, but they were on Amiga first! (Or second...))

[idrougge]

Just go to http://amr.abime.net/ and find your favourite magazine and reviewer.

[idrougge]

For example, do some jumping and running in Super Mario Bros. (original) then do the same in "Great Giana Sisters". It just doesn't feel right and lot of Amiga games were like that to me. Wonderboy, Superfrog...

Actually, I think Superfrog has that particular "console quality".

[Terminusvitae]

We do, but not many.

http://www.digitpress.com/reviews/index_cd32.htm

Games are just too hard to come by in the US so I can only write on what I have, and I don't think many people have much of an interest in the hardware. No one has ever submitted a review to me for the Amiga.

I'm guessing you need to be a member of the staff in order to review items, huh? :(

[Flack]

Not at all -- you just need to be a fan of games (and having at least a semi-grasp of the English language doesn't hurt, either). You don't need to be a "staff member". As the review page says, "We encourage our visitors to submit their own game reviews.This site has always been written by GAMERS... that means you. Check out the guidelines below and send your game reviews for any system to digitalpress@email.com."

http://www.digitpress.com/reviews/

[Terminusvitae]

Yeah, I did that a couple of months ago, but I suppose I must have made a mistake in the format or something (perhaps sending screenshots as attachments?) as I never heard (or saw) anything further.

I hate to hijack a thread, but is there anything particular a potential reviewer should know? I've alternately been employed by Amazon and working pro bono for Metal Archives since '99, so I'm familiar with the universal processes, but both of those gigs had the benefit of not requiring additional items alongside the review's text.

[vintagegamecrazy]

I send screenshots as attachments all the time. Just resend them to gamereviewgod and they will get posted. I would love to see more reviews for the amiga and more reviews alltogether.

[Terminusvitae]

Ah, okay. Thank you, sir. I relish the prospect of contributing here, as well.

[blue lander]

The best thing about playing Amiga platform games is that they really make you appreciate how perfect every detail of a game like Super Mario Bros is. Little things like how Mario handles when he jumps or how he skids for a bit when you change directions while running are far more important than I ever realised, and I only noticed after playing crap like Oscar or Zool.

In most Amiga platformers, you have no real sense of physics. In SMB or Sonic it seems like you're controlling a little guy in a 2D world with gravity and momentum and friction. A good platform character has a certain heft to him. But when I'm playing an Amiga platformer, it just feels like I'm just moving a sprite around a screen. And it's not just good console platformers that have good physics, I'd say the majority of them are passable. So WHY was it so hard to achieve the same thing on the Amiga?! Older Spectrum games like Manic Miner or Chuckie Egg or the Monty Mole games all handle like a charm, why couldn't they do the same on the Amiga?

The only thing worse than the physics, at least in AGA and CD32 platformers, are the insanely busy and colorful backgrounds. You can't see what you're doing half the time! In some games it's nearly impossible to tell enemies from background objects. Clearly the programmers were just showing off how much more colorful the Amiga's pallette was compared to consoles without giving any thought to how it affected playability.

I think Sonic the Hedgehog was the worst thing that ever happened to the Amiga, and European platforming games in general. Platformers on the C64 and Spectrum had their own distinct European flavor to them, and were equally as good as a lot of the classics coming from Japan. But once Sonic came out, every platformer had to be a "Sonic beater." If you thought Sonic was colorful, we'll make everything twice as colorful on the Amiga! Make everything cute and slap smiley faces on inanimate objects for good measure. And if you thought Sonic was fast, watch our Amiga characters run and hop around like a total spaz! Screw physics! Screw level design!

And don't get me started on how incredibly LAZY the vast majority of CD32 ports were! Does anybody in the entire world really prefer pressing UP on the joypad to jump rather than using one of the many buttons on the CD32 pad?? Why include buttons if you aren't going to use them!? Many CD32 games still have instruction screens telling you which keyboard keys to use. Publishers literally put NO effort in porting games to the system. They really expected they could put a 2 megabyte game on a CD without any enhancements and actually charge more for it than the disk version. Worst of all is Oscar, which uses one of the side trigger buttons to jump! They couldn't even bother to properly map the the action buttons for the game they were PACKAGING WITH THE SYSTEM!

So far, I've only found one Amiga platformer that handles as well as a console one, and that's Out To Lunch. Turns out it's just a port of a SNES game, so I guess that explains it. It's a GREAT Bubble Bobble style game, and if the SNES version is just as good as the Amiga one, I'd recommend it. I really wanted to like Superfrog, but I just couldn't. It's far better than most Amiga platformers, but barely equal to a decent one on the SNES or Genesis. I'll keep playing, though, since there isn't that much worth my time. Maybe it'll grow on me.

I did end up finding a source of reviews that I could trust when it comes to Amiga stuff, though. Stuart Campbell's reviews from back in the day are unusually level headed compared to his peers. I know the guy was a bit of a dork when he posted here a month or so ago, but at least the guy knew a good game when he saw it. You've got to wonder what kind of person could look at a game like Zool and say "Yeah, this is easily better than Super Mario."

[idrougge]

So far, I've only found one Amiga platformer that handles as well as a console one, and that's Out To Lunch. Turns out it's just a port of a SNES game, so I guess that explains it.

To the best of my knowledge, Out to Lunch is not a port. The SNES version might not be a port either, it's more likely that both were developed in unison.


I really wanted to like Superfrog, but I just couldn't. It's far better than most Amiga platformers, but barely equal to a decent one on the SNES or Genesis. I'll keep playing, though, since there isn't that much worth my time. Maybe it'll grow on me.

What could you miss from Superfrog? The graphics are great, and not only drawn to imitate console games, the music is brill and surely you can't complain about the level design either?

[blue lander]

To the best of my knowledge, Out to Lunch is not a port. The SNES version might not be a port either, it's more likely that both were developed in unison.


I've read several unreliable sources that say it was ported from the SNES to the Amiga and CD32, but I have no reason to doubt it. Wikipedia, for instance, says the SNES version came out a whole year before the CD32 one did. How different are the two versions?




What could you miss from Superfrog? The graphics are great, and not only drawn to imitate console games, the music is brill and surely you can't complain about the level design either?

I'm still trying to like the game, so I'll withhold judgement. But I will say it suffers from the standard "character that moves around really fast but without any sense of momentum or friction" syndrome that most Amiga platformers suffer from. Some parallax in the background would have been nice too. I'm not saying it's a bad game, but I'm not sure I'd even compare it favorably to good PC platformers from the time like Jazz Jackrabbit or Commander Keen. But like I said, I'm still playing with it. I just wish it played right in NTSC.

I am sort of enjoying Arabian Nights. The graphics are pretty simple and it handles about as good as Superfrog (meaning just barely tolerable), but it's growing on me.

[Ed Oscuro]

The best thing about playing Amiga platform games is that they really make you appreciate how perfect every detail of a game like Super Mario Bros is.
Ouch.

Don't the Turrican games count as platformers, eh? They certainly don't put all that much emphasis on a Contra-style aiming scheme :P

[blue lander]

I've only played Turrican on the Genesis and ST, but I've grown to like the game. The controls still put me off and I don't like how your character doesn't react at all when hit (if even a minor enemy runs into you and you just stand there, all your life drains away in a couple seconds), but I think it's a well designed game. I here the European NES version is actually the best iteration of Turrican 1 and 2, so I'm going to try to hunt it down.

Oh, I also played it for the Gameboy, but it was pretty terrible.

[Pete Rittwage]

blue lander - Your description of the problem with Amiga games is exactly what I was trying to get across in my post, but you described it exactly.

I know I'm going to get flamed for this, but is it a problem with UK/European developed platform games? <duck>