maxlords
06-30-2005, 06:12 PM
Ok, I wanted to do something that virtually no one had heard of this week. When I was in high school about 14 years ago, I was living with my cousin and her husband up in Alaska. Back then, he was a rabid Amiga freak and I was introduced to a whole new type of gaming, that of the Commodore Amiga. With stunning graphics for the time, a truly monstrous game library and some really amazing software, the Amiga was easily one of the best game machines I’d ever played at the time. I spent my whole time in Alaska playing all sorts of great Amiga games, as my cousin’s had hundreds of copied disks that he’d borrowed and copied from others at his work.
Some of the best Amiga games I ever played were made by that well-known company, Psygnosis. Purveyors of the classic Shadow of the Beast, Psygnosis was one of the best known companies on the Amiga, making all sorts of amazing games. Many of them were translated to consoles and PC and most of us got to play quite a few of their games. However, one of the best I ever played was only released for the Amiga and took me over 10 years to track down. That game was Awesome. Now I don’t mean that the game itself was awesome, but that’s it’s actual title. It’s a horrid title, I know, but the game actually is awesome as well, so it’s one that’s stuck with me all these years. Recently, when I got another copy of the game, I sat down with it and remembered why it had stuck in my head for over a decade.
Awesome is basically a shooter. However, it’s not a standard shooter at all. In fact, it’s very unlike pretty much everything else I’ve ever played in the genre. In the beginning of the game, you’re given control of a fairly large spaceship. You sort of get thrown right into the game, common with older titles, so there’s very little intro. When you try to move your ship, you find that it’s not moving. Wait…yes it is…..hey! Instead of your ship moving, the entire background rotates around you, as well as the enemies. You can dodge, but the background dodges out of the way of your ship instead of the normal ship movement. It’s a very disconcerting perspective, as the entire game is viewed top-down. Enemies swarm at you and you spin wildly blasting them away in a similar manner to Asteroids at first. But then things get ugly. Interestingly enough, when you reach the first boss battle, the perspective changes! Instead of a top down fixed-ship shooter, suddenly you’re in an Afterburner-style mode fighting giant scaling bosses! A huge space dragon is your first major opponent, and while easy, it certainly is a memorable battle, especially for when the game was released! Later on, you separate a landing craft from your ship and fly down to the surface of planets as well, where the game drops into a Thunderforce 2-like top down mode.
Awesome is quite simply, a well-designed, elegant and unique shooter. With many styles crammed together, it just somehow works. The music is nice, but as with many older games, nothing really memorable. The controls are hairpin, with excellent fine control. Your ship can basically turn on a dime, which comes in darned handy. The only real problem is that if you get very far, Awesome is inexcusably difficult. As with many Amiga Psygnosis games, the difficulty is beyond brutal. It’s almost like the people at Psygnosis didn’t want anyone to ever beat any of their games. I spent a long time on Awesome back in the day and I never beat it. I don’t think I even got close, but it’s pretty hard to tell.
If you have an Amiga 500 or better, or have access to one, you owe it to pick up Awesome, even if you can only get it on a loose disk. It’s only one single density disk, and it runs on everything, even the underpowered Amiga 500. I like to use a Genesis controller as my Amiga controller, as they have the same port and the buttons all work. I found it much easier to control than an older bat style stick. Now you Amiga lovers…go get some shooter lovin’ in!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v251/maxlords/721bd1e5.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v251/maxlords/f1b745c1.gif
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v251/maxlords/a8aa3565.gif http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v251/maxlords/3e8e5425.gif
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v251/maxlords/b1bfc70a.gif http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v251/maxlords/4ba05ac1.gif
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v251/maxlords/713fbac5.gif http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v251/maxlords/981c733d.gif
Some of the best Amiga games I ever played were made by that well-known company, Psygnosis. Purveyors of the classic Shadow of the Beast, Psygnosis was one of the best known companies on the Amiga, making all sorts of amazing games. Many of them were translated to consoles and PC and most of us got to play quite a few of their games. However, one of the best I ever played was only released for the Amiga and took me over 10 years to track down. That game was Awesome. Now I don’t mean that the game itself was awesome, but that’s it’s actual title. It’s a horrid title, I know, but the game actually is awesome as well, so it’s one that’s stuck with me all these years. Recently, when I got another copy of the game, I sat down with it and remembered why it had stuck in my head for over a decade.
Awesome is basically a shooter. However, it’s not a standard shooter at all. In fact, it’s very unlike pretty much everything else I’ve ever played in the genre. In the beginning of the game, you’re given control of a fairly large spaceship. You sort of get thrown right into the game, common with older titles, so there’s very little intro. When you try to move your ship, you find that it’s not moving. Wait…yes it is…..hey! Instead of your ship moving, the entire background rotates around you, as well as the enemies. You can dodge, but the background dodges out of the way of your ship instead of the normal ship movement. It’s a very disconcerting perspective, as the entire game is viewed top-down. Enemies swarm at you and you spin wildly blasting them away in a similar manner to Asteroids at first. But then things get ugly. Interestingly enough, when you reach the first boss battle, the perspective changes! Instead of a top down fixed-ship shooter, suddenly you’re in an Afterburner-style mode fighting giant scaling bosses! A huge space dragon is your first major opponent, and while easy, it certainly is a memorable battle, especially for when the game was released! Later on, you separate a landing craft from your ship and fly down to the surface of planets as well, where the game drops into a Thunderforce 2-like top down mode.
Awesome is quite simply, a well-designed, elegant and unique shooter. With many styles crammed together, it just somehow works. The music is nice, but as with many older games, nothing really memorable. The controls are hairpin, with excellent fine control. Your ship can basically turn on a dime, which comes in darned handy. The only real problem is that if you get very far, Awesome is inexcusably difficult. As with many Amiga Psygnosis games, the difficulty is beyond brutal. It’s almost like the people at Psygnosis didn’t want anyone to ever beat any of their games. I spent a long time on Awesome back in the day and I never beat it. I don’t think I even got close, but it’s pretty hard to tell.
If you have an Amiga 500 or better, or have access to one, you owe it to pick up Awesome, even if you can only get it on a loose disk. It’s only one single density disk, and it runs on everything, even the underpowered Amiga 500. I like to use a Genesis controller as my Amiga controller, as they have the same port and the buttons all work. I found it much easier to control than an older bat style stick. Now you Amiga lovers…go get some shooter lovin’ in!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v251/maxlords/721bd1e5.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v251/maxlords/f1b745c1.gif
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v251/maxlords/a8aa3565.gif http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v251/maxlords/3e8e5425.gif
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v251/maxlords/b1bfc70a.gif http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v251/maxlords/4ba05ac1.gif
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v251/maxlords/713fbac5.gif http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v251/maxlords/981c733d.gif