I really got into Mercenary it such an amazing game for the time. Also Elite frontier was pretty damn good too. Notable mention goes to Zarch for being the hardest game to control.

@pete0r: Dude. God DAMN that music rules. This is what the fucking future is supposed to sound like! For modern future-retro tunes check this: https://futurecityrecords.bandcamp.com/

You know it makes way more sense why European people are producing the best electronic music now that I've listened to all these Amiga songs. If it weren't for this site, I wouldn't even know it existed! I was like 6 at the time, so what do I know?

Hey Jeff, I only joined the site last year. Is there a UPF of Amiga games? I really enjoyed the Phillips CDi UPF from September. Those games were hilariously terrible.

A lot of good stuff mentioned - robocop 3 was great for its time, apidya was impressive, another vote for IK+ - get multiple players in there, learn the controls turn the speed up, it's great, simple but super competitive. out of left field, look for super tricky and odd Delphine point and clicker called Operation Stealth... im not gonna say it's good, but there's something to it, for sure. Also yeah - try walker too.

I played a ton of Amiga games and yes I felt superior to all of my PC, C64, and Atari ST friends... because the Amiga was superior! Here are some of my favorites:

Battle Squadron

Xenon 2 Megablast

Dungeon Master

Wrath of the Demon

Speedball 1 and 2

Most all Cinemaware games (Defender of the Crown, Rocket Ranger, It Came from the Desert 1 & 2

Shadow of the Beast 1 and 2

Shufflepuck Cafe

Zack McCracken and the Alien Mindbenders (Jeff I know you love this game and the Amiga was the best version)

Sword of Sodan

Populous

Gods

Blood Money

Hey Jeff,

Had a lot of love for our Amiga 600 as a kid. I'd recommend taking a look at Apidya:

Also, MoonStone is still fantastic:

Although the best thing you can do with an Amiga is press the tab button on Deluxe Paint:

Peace.

Actually, the FM Towns version Zak McCracken is by far the best version of the game. It has 256 color graphics and a CD audio sound track.

With the Amiga some games that ended up elsewhere just were better represented on the amiga in both sound and graphics. However a lot of them were just hard as hell (the Shadow of the Beast series for instance), With that I'd recommend...

Shadow of the Beast 1

Shadow of the Beast 2

Gods

Lemmings (2 player split screen with 2 mice was fun)

Fairy Tale (odd game that was very open world like, reminded me of Ultima 7)

Awesome

Mechforce (This game does not show well as it's basically like watching a top down pen and paper map with drawings on it but the amount of depth in it for the time was amazing)

I'm sure there are many others but those are the ones that stuck out to me and that I played the most.

oh the Memories:

Defo North and South and Gods, both of wich have been mentioned already.

Hows about some Stunt Car Racer. first time i ever saw a polygon based race track. and as a bonus it had sweet jumps!

(Note: made by Geoff Crammond of the F1 racing games fame)

The Lotus games mainly for their dope ass music.

Loved DMA's (now Rockstar) Walker

and Zool, for more sweet music.(Actually shared some music trackts with the Lotus games. Same composer)

If you end up using WinUAE for your Video feature please, please use the Floppy disk drive sound emulation :) its so distinctive, and filled with nostalgia.

i loved my amiga back in the day best games for me were

Morph

Cannon fodder

Lemmings 2

Lotus 3

monkey islands 1&2

the chaos engine good for its time

sim city was a good version better than the snes version

@jeff You could try maybe getting in touch with Garry Whitta and get him in to talk about some Amiga games... he was deputy editor for the magazine "The One for Amiga Games" after all.

Some games I really enjoyed on my Amiga 500 were:

Shadow of the Beast - Tough game but I remember being blown away by the artwork in this game.

Sword of Sodan - Another good looking game but with huge sprites.

Dungeon Master - An amazing FP RPG.

Test Drive II - It had the Ferrari F40 amd the Porsche 959. What more could you ask for?

I want to say Llamatron, but I seem to recall that you couldn't play that with two joysticks on the Amiga, unlike the Atari ST version.

Jeff Minter Also made an "interesting" version of Defender/Stargate.

• Monkey Island
• Lemmings
• James Pond 2: RoboCod
• Zool
• The New Zealand Story
• Rainbow Islands
• Escape from the Planet of the Robot Monsters

Disclaimer: I was a C64 kid, not an Amiga kid. (Play Monty on the Run anyway)

HOWEVER, no one here has mentioned Druid II: Enlightenment, and I'm super sad about this. Also all these people suggesting Moonstone are completely correct, this needs to happen.

Rick Dangerous is also super fun, we had a challenge at AGDQ for people to try and get past the first level.

I grew up with the A500, and what an amazing system it was. I'll try to keep this concise, might have some repeats from previous posts about games I feel strongly about as needing to be showcased!

Sword of Sodan - graphics were so impressive for the time

Shadow of the Beast (fitting with the PS4 remake, if that's still happening, and SotB3 was Amiga-exclusive)

Budokan - fun fighting game of different martial arts

Cannon Fodder - classic, great music of course

Turrican - any of them really, fond of this one because when I was a kid I ran away crying during the intro "TURRICAN" voice

Shufflepuck Cafe - random air hockey game with cool characters

Zool - it is a passable platformer

Sensible World of Soccer - a given but gets my vote

Speedball II - fun futuristic sport

And not a great game but differently weird:

Prawo Krwi (Law of Blood) - this is a Polish game published by Techland in 1995, it's a digitized beat-em-up but also mixes in first-person shooter elements. Came out around the same time as MK3 and the ads called it out.

I took a look through my disk box and came up with this list, though I discounted games that were better ported elsewhere and some that didn't hold up so great. Most are pretty obvious but I think they're representative of the Amiga experience :)

• Alien Breed - Top-down action game based on Aliens, notable mostly for its atmosphere and production values. Most Team 17 games were highly polished and dated poorly but this one is still fun to play. Best in 2 player.
• North & South - This was ported all over the place but the Amiga version is great. Light strategy with arcade minigames. Best in 2 player.
• Supercars 2 - Top-down racer with weaponry and bizarre multiple-choice interludes. Best in 2 player.
• Jim Power - Scrolling shooter/platform game with retina-searing color scheme.
• Stunt Car Racer - Vector-based buggy driving game with nauseating jumps. Best in 2 player but needs null modem cable.
• Kikstart 2 - Motorbiking game, most notable as the inspiration for the Trials games. Best in 2 player as the AI is overly competent.
• Slamtilt - It's pinball. Perhaps not as influential as Pinball Dreams/Fantasies, but still a well-presented and playable game.
• Mega Lo Mania (no page for this? weird) - Whimsical RTS notable for silly audio and being a very early RTS game.
• Turrican 2 - Probably the most famous shooter/platform Amiga game, great presentation and technically impressive.
• Hunter - Impressively open-ended vector arcade/adventure game with emphasis on vehicles and combat. Super ambitious for the time.
• Ivan "Ironman" Stewart's Super Off Road - This was ported everywhere but the Amiga version was the closest to the original. 4 player racing game (3 human players and 1 AI)
• Shufflepuck Cafe - Strange French airhockey game with a dingy atmosphere. Simple but fun.
• Lionheart - Never really got much into this one but its a side-scroller in the Rastan mold that was very Amiga in presentation and philosophy.
• Moonstone - Gory knight-duelling game. 2 players essential!
• Stardust - Amiga-styled Blasteroids. Still fun if a little limited.
• Snow Bros - One of the few Amiga ports that improved on the arcade original.
• Pinball Dreams/Fantasies - Digital Illusions and Amiga pinball at their best. The later games were insipid in comparison.
• Pang - Flawless conversion of the arcade bubble-buster game, groovy music. Best in 2 player.
• Wizkid - Bizarre arcade/adventure game by the Sensible Soccer/ Cannon Fodder guys. Worth a look for strangeness factor alone.
• Lotus Turbo Challenge 2 - The best Amiga arcade racer, very nicely presented, though Jaguar XJ220 had more depth. Best in 2 player.
• Yo! Joe - Obscure Hudsonsoft side scrolling platformer developed by Blue Byte (The Settlers). Nice music and reasonably fun.

As a kid in Kindergarten we have spent a lot of time playing Super Frog

I'm not sure if this was posted elsewhere but if anyone wants to try Amiga emulation legally, then Amiga Forever is the place to go.

"The production run's completed."

"We've conquered the sector"

Moonstone and Hunter both fucking awesome.

Oh and international karate, and the pinball dreams/fantasies games are pretty badass too. DICE actually made the pinball dreams/fantasies games if I'm not mistaken, so could be interesting for people to get a glimpse of their roots, those games have amazing music.

Fire and Ice - Cool platformer that has a coyote playing a piano, then shooting penguins and rescuing puppies! Not sure how it holds up.

Kick Off 2 - The soccer game I had, can't say how it rates against others but I loved it.

Eye of the Beholder - I always preferred it to Dungeon Master. Legend of Grimrock is a reboot of the genre.

Lemmings

Super Skidmarks - Top down racing with huge drifts and jumps.

The Settlers - One of my all-time most played games. I prefer The Settlers 2, as someone else said, but this was solid.

Formula 1 Grand Prix / World Circuit

Hrm, top of my head (some of those might have been on different systems at the time):

- It came from the Desert

- North and South

- Defender of the Crown

- Mega lo Mania

- Turrican/Turrican 2

- Chaos Engine

- Battle Isle

- Space Crusade (and Hero Quest)

- Lure of the Temptress

- The Eye of the Beholder games

i live in the netherlands and remember going to amiga meetups in the early 90s. people brought there amiga's and started pirating every game they could get there hands on. i played a great deal of the amiga library this way. we just didn't know any better and software piracy wasn't a thing back then in the netherlands.

since your not asking for ports i came up with these exclusive amiga games worth to check out in 2015:

ruff n tumble

apidya

banshee

ambermoon

lion hearth

yo joe!

agony

wings

there are some great european video games in this list but what i would like to see on the old games show is the amiga cd32 ;) i never owned the system but i have a feeling that the system is highly underrated and should be praised over the atari jaguar or philips cdi.

one more thing about ports. keep in mind that in the early 90s games like another world or lemmings where amiga originals and where later ported to the other platforms. these amiga originals where often superior on the amiga for the years to come.

Moonstone is simply a must play. It was the bloodiest game I had ever seen when I first played it back in the mid 90's. I was amazed, terrified and strangely compelled by it's bloodsoaked carnage and violent deaths.

In Norway the Amiga was big. Mostly because of the extensive pirating. I don't think I had a single legally obtained game back in the early 90s. Here's a few games I stole:

- It Came from the Desert is a 50s "B" Movie inspired action-adventure game by Cinemaware. It was originally released in 1989 for the Amiga, but later ported to PC, as well as released in distinctly different forms to consoles.

- Wings is a World War I game by Cinemaware, originally released in 1990 for the Amiga, later also ported for the Game Boy Advance in 2002. A campaign to create a Wings remake was put on Kickstarter in 2012 by Cinemaware.

- Moonstone: A Hard Days Knight is a game developed and published by Mindscape in 1991. It was released on the Amiga and one year later converted to PC with alternate sound and Music. It's a four-player turn based game with real time combat and RPG elements. It is also notable as one of the goriest games of its time.

- Nuclear War is a single player turn-based strategy game developed by New World Computing and released for the Amiga in 1989 and later for PC.

- KGB was released for the Amiga and PC in 1992. Developed by Cryo Interactive and published by Virgin entertainment. Point and click adventure game set in the decadent final days of the Soviet Union. KGB was also released on CD under the title Conspiracy, which included clips of Rukov's father played by Donald Sutherland giving advice. In the CD version, all references to "KGB" within the game and manual were changed to "Conspiracy".

- Dogs of War is a dual player run and gun game developed and published in 1989 by Elite Systems for the Amiga and Atari ST.

also Battle Isle, Midwinter, Wings of Fury, International Karate + and Stunt Car Racer.

• Alien Breed
• Banshee
• Benefactor
• Body Blows
• Darkmere
• DreamWeb
• Frontier Elite II
• Guardian
• Liberation
• Moonstone
• Roadkill
• Sensible Soccer
• Skidmarks
• Stardust
• Turrican
• Zool

dune (not 2) an odd adventure/management sim mix with a ost far better the the film.

Putty the craziest soundscape of any game ever: crying babies, Terminater carrots, bragging cats and hundreds more popping off seemingly at random.

Wizkid you poop and make a volcano blow.

Now that GTA V finally released heists, you should play The Clue! and see how heists should be handled! Played this a ton as a kid and was later very dissapointed with the sequal The Sting!.

For some old school shoot em up action, try the original Stardust, Xenon 2 and Blood Money.

Mega-lo-Mania i remember being quite addicting, believe this was also released on the Mega Drive.

King's Bounty

The music alone should be enough to sell this classic

A few of my old favourites:

• Knights of the Sky - Very satisfying WWI flight sim
• Exile - Jetpack style action/adventure. Had an original multiplatform release, but got fully remastered a few years later for the more "modern" brace of Amigas (A1200, etc.)
• Jetstrike - Side scrolling flight game that gives you a ridiculous choice of aircraft
• SWIV - fun vertical shooter giving you controls of a helicopter and a jeep/tank thing
• Zeewolf - fully 3D helicopter shooter - similar looks to Virus/Zarch

And deserving a special mention, Paradroid 90 - the HD remake before HD remakes:

I recently started looking into Amiga games and discovered Perihelion - I don't think I'll ever play it but check out how space-gothed out this intro is it's fuckin' nuts

My favorite Atari ST / Amiga games were Dungeon Master and Falcon F-16. Falcon was probably the first real multiplayer game I played when we connected two Amigas with a serial cable for one-on-one dogfighting.

I also remember we played a lot of two player games like North & South, Sensible Soccer and Wayne Gretzky Hockey.

• Moonstone : Knight combat! Maybe the goriest game on the Amiga.
• Hunter : The first 3D, go anywhere...bloke sim.
• Cruise For A Corpse : Murder-mystery adventure game from Delphine Software.
• Banshee : Vertical scrolling shooter.
• Gloom Deluxe : The deluxe version of an Amiga doom clone.

• Captain Planet And The Planeteers : Just for the level music... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fm31QxID_Ds

Here is another good one I remembered today Pinkie

I remember it doing pretty neat stuff with different vehicles but got really hard early on.

Little Computer People

What an odd little idea at the time but now sims are common place. I think this would be a great game to show on an Amiga segment because I doubt a lot of people knew something like this existed at the time.

Silkworm was a cool game. It's a 2-player Sidescroller. One guy plays as the plane and the other as the tank.

You also talked about BBC Micro. I'd recommend Chuckie Egg, Repton 3, Thrust and Strykers Run.

I have never met another Repton fan in my life! The first one was the first game I ever remember playing!

On other news I've totally gone down an Amiga rabbit hole now;

Jim Power - Mutant Planet was amazing and awesome music not sure if it appeared on other consoles.

My recommendations:

• Battle Squadron
• Gods
• Shadow of the Beast
• Black Crypt --- Raven Software's first game (Dungeon Master genre). It featured 64 colors! Ooooo! :-) Years ago, I emailed them to see if they could port it to the GBA haha

One of my best friends can't say enough about K240 which is some kind of real time strategy sim-base-builder from before real time strategy existed. There's no way that it will get picked for a stream because a sim game with inscrutable UI is terrible for that, but does anyone else know about this game?

Quintessential Amiga games:

Canon Fodder (war, never been so much fun!)

Xenon 2 Megablast

Stunt Car Racer (i remember being amazed by the 3D graphics)

IK+

Moonstone

Shadow of the Beast

Syndicate

Dune II (precursor to Command & Conquer)

Speedball 2

Cruise for a Corpse

I have fond memories of the Amiga.

You should really play Risky Woods and Atomic Robo-Kid. Those where the games that got me into gaming when I was 4 years old (I know, way to young).

I have never owned nor played any Amiga games, but I remebered that Bennett Foddy (the developer of QWOP, GIRP, Super Pole Riders, Bennett Foddy's Speed Chess, etc.) wrote this list (back in 2012) of Amiga games that he still thought were good and relevant.

http://www.foddy.net/2012/09/a-list-of-still-good-in-2012-amiga-games/

I second (5thcond?) Moonstone. It's a brilliant game.

The Amiga version of Space Crusade is also pretty tight, compared to the PC version.

@klyith: Sure, that was the sequel to Utopia which was a space colony city builder with a similarly inscrutable interface, but still plays pretty well, if a tad limited in the combat stakes. K240 was after my Amiga time, but everyone I knew then loved Utopia. It had some pretty great music by Barry Leitch, the composer for Lotus 2.

Wasn't the Amiga version of Sid Meier's Pirates! the definitive version of that game?

Also I forget if Defender of the Crown was originally an Amiga game or not, but if that's not the original platform for it then meh.

Oh yeah, the Amiga versions of Castlevania and Ghouls 'n Ghosts would be cool to see. Castlevania for being such a shitty port that NO ONE has ever heard of, and Ghouls 'n Ghosts for having some of the most incredible music you'll ever hear in a game.