Newbie to Amiga: 500 setup?

[JustRob]

Ok, so I don't hijack my own other thread...

It's been suggested an Amiga 500 would be the most compatible system for a series of games I wish to play. Now, I know absolutely nothing about the Amiga lines, so, my question is: What would be needed to start with an Amiga 500, hardware and software wise.

Think of this as the Amiga 500 version of that "Where do I start with a c64" thread.

[Ed Oscuro]

Unfortunately this is for an Amiga 1200, but it has some ideas you might consider...scroll down a bit to the fourth post:

http://2dgaming.site90.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=540

[j_factor]

I don't have an Amiga anymore, but I had a 500 back in the day, and it really doesn't require much. The keyboard and disk drive are built-in. You obviously need a mouse, and a second disk drive is advisable. Definitely get a joystick or something, although I believe you can use Genesis controllers. Beyond that the main thing would be to get an RGB monitor. You can output to a TV but it's very limited, and it will be messed up if you get any PAL games. If you don't want an RGB monitor there are linedoublers/flicker fixers to adapt to VGA, but they cost as much as a monitor. A hard drive isn't necessary to play games off floppy, but you can get one if you want.

Software-wise, anything by Psygnosis, Core Design, LucasArts, or Sierra is probably worth it. There are also some good Sega conversions.

[iloveguns]

yeah me too i want to have one like this...

[kedawa]

A stock A500 will play most games, but there are a few modest upgrades that will help get the most out of your Amiga.
You'll want at least 1MB of ram in total, whether it's 1024KB of chipram, or 512KB cipram and 512KB fastram. I've had both configurations over the years, and either one should be okay for most games.
An external floppy drive helps a lot, but hard drives for classic Amigas are not worth the cost.
It's also advisable to have the kickstart 1.3 rom, at least for compatibility, but my original A500 with kickstart 1.2 never gave me any serious issues.
As far as peripherals go, you may want to use a megadrive or SMS pad for games that support 2 buttons, and depending on your own preference, you might want to get a more ergonomic mouse.

The only piece of advice I can give you as far as games go is to stay away from anything published by U.S. Gold. They are notorious for butchering classic Sega and Capcom games. Seriously, just stay away. They ruin everything.

[j_factor]

I haven't played tons of their Amiga games, but U.S. Gold published Flashback, so they can't be all bad. I do know that they did a terrible job with Out Run.

[robotriot]

Some good games off the top of my head to check out for the 500 are:

Ambermoon (rpg)
Apidya (shmup)
Battle Squadron (shmup)
Crazy Cars II (racing)
Defender of the Crown (strategy)
Flood (platform)
Giana Sisters, The (platform)
Gods (platform)
Hybris (shmup)
Indiana Jones 3, 4 (adventure)
International Karate + (fighting)
It Came From the Desert (adventure)
Lionheart (platform)
Lotus 1, 2, 3 (racing)
Monkey Island 1, 2 (adventure)
Moonstone (fighting)
Oil Imperium (simulation)
Paradroid 90 (shmup)
Rick Dangerous 1 & 2 (platform)
Silkworm (shmup)
Sim City (simulation)
Speedball 2 ("sports")
Stunt Car Racer (racing)
SWIV (shmup)
Turrican 1, 2 (run & gun)
UFO: Enemy Unknown (strategy)
Uridium 2 (shmup)
Worms (action)
Xenon 2 (shmup)
Zeewolf 2 (shmup)

... and a whole lot more :)