Amiga Games That Push The Limits - Part 1: 2D 

Turrican 2 IS the Amiga. To me anyway … owned an A500+ from age 12 to 16, and even now at 43 I’ll randomly whistle “the Final Fight” walking about the house. Timeless.

Pinball Dreams / Fantasies / Illusions It might not seem as much these days, but at the time, 50fps smooth scrolling pinball was very impressive.

Uridium 2 looked great and the controls to this day still feel smooth as silk. Same goes for Soccer Kid. Both games around 1993/94

Having grown up with the 128k Spectrum, ANYTHING on the Amiga was incredible. Full colour? Stereo sound?? Games that actually played well??? My god, what is this sorcery?

UFO enemy unknown was a game that blew my mind, with procedural levelmaking, basebuilding, aircombat, techtree... Its still one of the best games I have ever played.

@5:47 "With its massive colour palette" ... Xenon looked lovely, if you loved grey and sort--of orangey brown, a staple from Bitmap Brothers through their other releases such as Gods and Magic Pockets.

"Shadow Fighter" was the king of fighters on the Amiga, technically sound and played great.

Oh, don't forget The Godfather game, that looks stunning!

Another interesting game was Hired Guns, in addition to the aesthetic aspect, it brought a remarkable multiplayer collaboration unfortunately never equaled by today's games.

You missed 'Walker. That DMA game had awesome graphics and great gameplay!

Amiga had other strengths. You were just looking for arcade or console like graphics. Amiga wasn't really meant to draw multilayered parallax backgrounds. It could do it, but at very limited color palette. Lionheart used COPPER in a clever way to change palette every line, making game very colorful, but still had somewhat monochromatic look mixed with horizontal color bars. Amiga was just awesome at 2D graphics with single background. Consoles had very little RAM and relied on tiles stored in ROM. Amiga didn't had such limits. It had 512 KB of RAM, and soon enough games demanded systems with 1 MB. This allowed for doing things impossible on consoles. Lemmings are a great example of a game designed for a computer. You can alter any pixel on screen. Lemmings on Sega Genesis have much smaller levels, due to much lower RAM. Amiga really shined when it came to games made for it. Unfortunately console and arcade ports were average at best. Amiga had also a lot of strategy games which were impossible on SNES or Genesis due to lack of RAM or slow CPU. UFO: Enemy Uknown is a great example of what Amiga could do. It took PSX to have it on consoles. Of course at that point in time PCs were taking over computer market and Amiga just couldn't keep up. UFO: Enemy Unknown run on Amiga but was sluggish and less colorful compared to PC port. This was main problem. PCs were slowly, but constantly improving. Amiga had a big advantage in the late 80's, but Amiga 1200 was a disaster. It just couldn't compete against new PCs. It had all fancy hardware feature that made Amiga 500 so successful, but it was irrelevant at that point. 486 based PC could do all that in software with more colors and better sound. Rise of DOOM and 3D games were the final nail in the coffin. Amiga not only lacked any sort of 3D hardware acceleration, but it's 2D hardware made it harder to draw 3D. Amiga couldn't simply draw image to framebuffer like PCs did. CPU had to write in specific way that ECS/AGA required. Commodore had plans for 3D accelerated Amigas and Atari even released Falcon computer that had hardware capable of running 3D games (look for Half-life port for Atari Falcon on youtube), but it was too late. However Amiga did enjoy a few more years of good games even after Commodore bankrupted and got titles that pushed the limits in that period, but no one really cared. It just couldn't compete with other popular platforms.

Apidya and Agony would have been a nice inclusion

Ok, so some things to also know about the Amiga: 1. Extra half bright allowed 32 more colors at half the brightness of the origonal 32. Theres a 2 plane mode with 7 colors each, 2. The amiga can handle sprites. With the copper now you have 3 layers- 2 of 8 colors and one of 16. 3. The blitter can handle scaling, can draw lines, do area fill, and more. Edit: and AGA allows that 2 plane mode with 16 colors per plane, has 256 colors, 262,144 colors with HAM8, 16.8 billion colors total, up to 64x600 sprites (interlaced, overscan, AND pal) with 3 colors each (vs 16x600 3 color sprites), not to mention the COPPER exists. Also there are 8 sprites. The SLOWEST AGA machine also is double the speed of the 500.

Menace, Blood Money, and Xenon II were my favorite shooters on the Amiga. I played Turrican II so much that the floppy disc stopped working! Gods and First Samurai were two great side scrollers too.

Agony was a truly good looking side scrolling shooter! But glad you included Turrican 2, as that game was hard as poo but sounded godly!

amazing video, brought back so many memories of my childhood. i was late to the amiga party having obtained mine in 1999 but man it was the best time of my gaming life for sure!

I am glad I stumbled across your channel this week! I'm new to the Commodore and the Amiga world, and your videos are giving me great games to check out!

Awesome stuff. I’m probably the only person my age who appreciates this stuff, but I can’t complain. Turrican 2 has one of my favourite game soundtracks ever

Stardust was a technically stunning game which you didn't mention and very playable too

Gotta love that wonderful music from Chris Hülsbeck in the Amiga Turrican series!

Lionheart, what a fantastic game. Love the colours and the little 3d intro as well. Great fun.

Xenon 2: The Megablast on the Amiga 500 was a work of art. The level design, the sprites, the detail and the imagination behind it all was just insanely good for its time. Challenging game too the further you got into it. People liked Apidya a lot but this game deserves more praise as its a superior shooter imo.

I went to a local computer store, where they showed me Shadow of the Beast, It Came From the Desert, and Dungeon Master. That was all she wrote. Awesome video. :)

It's so ridiculous that people thought of the Amiga as purely a gaming console. You could get real work done on it too, and it was superior to just about everything else on the market for that purpose as well. Workbench might have been the best GUI on the market. The Amiga had an optional Genlock device that made it useful for making TV graphics that could be layered on top of video, and so it became widely adopted in video production. Many local TV weather reports in the late 1980s and early 1990s included graphics made on the Amiga if they weren't made on the (far more expensive) Quantel Paintbox. In short, I appreciate you showing the productivity stuff on the Amiga. I never had one because my parents couldn't afford any real computer (the CoCo 2 was quite obsolete when I got it in 1987, so that doesn't really count), but this would have absolutely blown my young mind if I had seen it back in the 1980s. In modern times, I bought a Dell G5 15 SE gaming laptop for video editing. I'm typing this comment on it now. Games encourage computer manufacturers to make more and more powerful hardware that can have benefits in many areas. Even though I'm not really a PC gamer, my understanding is that this thing absolutely shreds when it comes to playing modern games.

Been watching these "push the limits" videos, they are really good! And now my favorite games micro, the Amiga! Thanks!

Back then everybody was talking about Battle Chess - it was a mere chess game but looked phantastic and showed what was possible with Amiga

I remember that the developers of the Iridion titles on Gameboy Advance said their background was on Amiga computers, and looking at what people were capable of doing, it's amazing how much the Amiga is really capable of.

Cannon Fodder was my all time favourite game on the Amiga,then The Lost Patrol came in second place for me.I still play these games on my PC through emulation and still loving them :) :) :)

The title music of xenon 2 was amazing at the time, even the master system music sounded great

There was a fighting game, that pushed the limits of Amiga and played great - Shadow Fighter.

Agony was a great shoot em up game by Psygnosis. I can still remember the melancholic piano music.

The soundtracks of these games are still awesome so many years later!

I would have pointed to something like Body Blows or Body Blows Galactic as a better version of the 1 on 1 90's fighter rather than Elfmania. And I agree with others that Pinball Dreams or Fantasies not being on the list seems a shame but a good video all the same.

my fave 2d game on the Amiga was either Another world or Walker

Games that pushed the Amiga where wing commander and later doom for the Amiga 500. The fact that they where on the Amiga even though it doesn’t have chunky pixel mode is amazing

Great video. A few missing pieces: Moonstone, Pinball Fantasies, Speedball 2, Dune, Dune 2, Another World (shown, but not mentioned), Flashback. For the next one, you definitely have to cover Hunter.

That Turrican music...so damn good. I'm predicting Super Stardust to appear in this video series.

For the second part where you show 3D games I recommend Hunter. It is an open world game where you can use different vehicles. Then there is also Zeewolf / Zeewolf 2 and Alien Breed 3D.

A few strong contenders there. I would like to suggest Gods by Bitmap Brothers should be considered. One of the best looking games ever on the Amiga, and with some really good gameplay in it too.

Yes! Defender of the Crown! Awesome video, man. :)

Disposable Hero is one of the best Amiga games in terms of graphics and music. Even today it looks great.

All Amigas were 32-bit machines. The "bitness" of a machine is a function of its CPU architecture register set width. All Motorola 68K CPUs had 32-bit registers, hence 32-bit machines. The width of the data bus could be 8, 16 or 32-bits. The Sinclair QL had an 8-bit data bus, but it still had 32-bit registers, so it too was a 32-bit machine, albeit one of the slowest possible..

Cannon Fodder, Lemmings, Populous... so much fun and much much more

I loved The Settlers :) so many hours spent on it

Next video definitely Stardust!! Amazing graphics and sound! Pushed the A500!!

One thing about Turrican 1, which had versions on Turbografx and Genesis, was that the Amiga version sounded AND looked better than those 16 bit counterparts. Turrican 2 and 3 were more graphically sophisticated still. All very impressive. When the Amiga was used to its fullest extent it could stand alongside the consoles.

At the time I had nothing negative to say about Street Fighter on the Amiga. But at that time I didnt know anything about other versions on other systems, so I didnt know better you can say. I didnt know it existed on anything else as a matter of fact. How funny!

Thanks for this video. I loved the Amiga.

Great channel, love these kind of vids, RU-vid recommended your stuff whilst bingeing on Kim Justice content. You have a new sub from me, keep it up all the best.

The Amiga, as the PC, was the first platform where big world RPGs could really shine, check out Fate - Gates of Dawn for example, a huge world that doesn't need to hide from Tamriel that you can roam freely and a huge story to explore and unfold. Or the classic that made folks buy a 512 kByte upgrade to get to 1 MByte, Dungeon Master. Yes, the dungeon never sleeps and the whole dungeon is active and mobs move around all the time. Then there where the SSI Gold Box releases, Champions of Krynn, Pool of Radiance and the like. They where released for the C64 too, but finally if you upgraded to a harddisk system they began to be really playable, as was the rest of the RPG gang. Amberstar, 11 disks if i recall correctly. Either be a disk jokey or get that HDD rolling.

You definitely forgot Desert Strike. The Amiga version ran in HAM mode und used 64 colors, it was awesome. So much better looking than the Mega Drive version. Oh and for the 3D part, I loved playing Mercenary 2. One of the first huge open world games, if you don't count Elite ;)

Such precious memories...fantastic nostalgic memories thank you.

Unreal and Agony were also amazing games

Great picks besides perhaps Xenon 2 - it uses like 15 colors and is rather slow. Would also mention Disposable Hero, Ruff 'n Tumble, Ambermoon, Agony, Bubba 'n Stix, Banshee, Fightin' Spirit, Chaos Engine and Hired Guns. Maybe some P&C adventure games too.

a brilliant video..looking forward to the next instalment!

If we are talking about pushing the limits: Ruff and Tumble had and insane amount of colors for ESC (Not compromising on gameplay). SWIV for Amiga had a whole game streamed form the floppy. It might have been the first time. Flashback did a huge leaps in character animation.

How did they do those shadows in Defender of the Crown? Particularly that bit during the sword fight near the torch on the wall.

MISSING : Ruff N’ Tumble

Shadow of the Beast was one of those games that made me hope we had an Amiga when I saw pics of it in the magazines. Then I played. Georgeous looking game though and the soundtrack was atmospheric as well.

I love all the nicknames you have for these systems. Wonder wedge indeed. Mocha tone marvel.

FA/18 Interceptor! Played that one for years, with its amazing intro tune.

Great honest review about the gameplay issues. Regarding pushing. I would say Turrican and Elfmania are the ones really pushing. The rest are more smart graphic design and art direction.

Quake on the A1200 is a miracle.

Fire and Ice, Superfrog, Gods, James Pond Underwater Agent and James Pond II code name Robocod

Thank you for sharing Amiga love with us, A500 underdogs! Lionheart? I think I have a couple of blank floppies eager to be employed... Boy! Amiga graphics sure aged well! Too bad the gameplay didn't.

Whenever I wanted to impress someone with my A500, I'd show them the intro for Awesome. Some of the actual game was pretty impressive too.

I remember Battlehawks 1942 .... great game ...you were able to play the american and the japanese campain. North vs South and don't forget Speedball 1-2. Thank you for the memorys so far, good video! :)

There are so many games I loved that I just don't think I can remember them all. Zool, Cytron, Lemmings, Terry's big adventure, Superfrog, Fire and Ice, SWIV. For the 2nd part Monkey Island & LeChuck's Revenge, The Chaos Engine, Simon The Sorcerer, Future Wars, Project Stealth, Goblins 1, 2 & 3. I must see if my Amiga still works, I need a mouse though...

The Amiga had so many great looking games, you’d need at least an hour to cover a good slice. As for 3D, I’m assuming you have Frontier Elite 2, Stunt Car Racer, Combat Air Patrol, Interceptor, Carrier Command, Zeewolf 2... wow. Each time I type one, another pops into my head. But, lesser know, see if you can squeeze in Trex Warrior. Always loved that game, fast intense and probably shrouded in nostalgia 😆

Some technically great games there... Ruff n Tumble was another great game. Probably some of the best graphics and animation in an Amiga game, you'd think it was running on an A1200 AGA.

truthfully it couldn't quite match what the consoles were able to throw around sprite wise but when it did it's own thing was when you got something special. Too many unique experiences you just couldn't get elsewhere and I remember being utterly in awe of the machine. The Amiga along with the C64 remain my the best of times. Still play Amiga plenty because there's simply something magical about the experience It's worth mentioning that Xenon was a port of course and other than the sampled soundtrack wont have used the Amiga advantages. In fairness though what with the amount of enemies moved the Amiga would have likely struggled anyway if going for a full 50 frames. The ST version as it was looked very good to begin with at least technically

Ultima, The Bard's Tale wore me out on the Amiga as I played them over and over.

All this about pushing limits of the machine, , but if you Really want to show what pushes the limits of any machine, you should start looking at the demoscene. Which even today, pushes new limits on old hardware. (for example, the 2019 revision amiga demos was considered to be even more impressive than the PC demos.) The things these guys can do with old hardware is nothing but Technomancy! I would really want to see ,, no, I demand to see you do a demoscene part for these series. because that's where the limits was pushed in the first place, before the demoscene kids grew up and started programming games. Thank you!

Ruff and Rumble was a great platformer. I don't know if it did push to the limits but it was flashy and playable. Also Walker was an amazing (but really hard!) game. I think it should be mentioned as it was unique and the style reminds some Neo-Geo games of that time. And I've reminded the amazing game called "Quazar Wars"! By some reason I've couldn't pass further after some level. Probably my version was a pirated one :) But the gameplay still sits in my head! It's like playing a serious 3d mission futuristic shooter but in 2d graphics. Usually 2d shooters aren't so serious. It's how I remember this game.

Populous, Jimmy Whites Whirlwind Snooker, UFO Enemy Unknown, Eye of the Beholder, Silkworm, The Chaos Engine, Damocles, Pacific Islands, IT Came from the desert, Gauntlet 2, Lotus Turbo Challenge (2?), PGA Tour Golf, Pinball Dreams, Speedball 2 Brutal Deluxe, Dune 2. Sensible Soccer, Kick Off, Lemmings, Cannon Fodder, A Train, A few different football management games. I only played megablast from this first video, and that was for about 30 minutes.

I agree some of these, but would have Ruff N Tumble, Hunter, Kid Chaos, F1GP, Lotus 2, Superfrog all games pushing the hardware, some may seem not that special, but at the time most of these pushed the genre above what was expected on the Amiga

Hey guys, give a look at Shadow Fighters from the Italian Naps Team! That's the ultimate beat-em-up game for Amiga. Elfmania is probably a little bit graphically superior but the playability of Shadow Fighters is a little masterpiece in the Amiga universe.

RoboCod comes to mind.

Elite 2, it was so demanding the A500 would often dip below 5 FPS in heavy action. Even the big box Amigas couldn't run it to it's fullest potential, it took expansion cards to do that. You have to include it in the list of 3D games.

Well... 1992 was the year, that it all changed. In Jan 1992 it was the Amiga that ruled. Somewere in that year other platforms were equal to the Amiga and by december the Amiga was an underdog. I am talking in margins and about the newest stuff in hardware and software. However the Amiga had a tiny few titles that were done better. Yet by 1993, Doom came, and nobody in the general public wanted Amiga anymore. On the Amiga, quality games were from 1988 to 1992. Hardware wise it was the best platform between 1985 and 1993. Yet for those years, I am talking for productivity stuff as well. Generally speaking, the Amiga had a life span of some 7 or possible 8 years. And it was designed for 10 years of use. The designers actually did more or less what they set out to do, as nobody can predict the future in computing.

Agony was the game that pushed the Amiga limits by far

hi, just wondering when the AGA specific video will come out?:)

Good stuff! but Turrican 1 was also a fantastic game!

In my opinion Turrican 2 was the best game to hit the humble Amiga.... I still play it now. Oh and for 3D please cover Stunt Car Racer lol!

i love yor videos man!!!!

Doesn't Universe manage something close to 256 colors on OCS machines? I think it switches color palettes every scanline.

Universe with 256 colors on ECS, Dragon's Lair with custom big disk format to fit it onto 6 disks. Elite 2 with more stars than space on the disk, ... There are so many Limit breaking games.

You know, after watching a bunch of these videos where I can see all kinds of different 8/16-bit tropes and art styles, I realize that my favorite Metroid: Zero Mission was hardly new stuff at all, but instead the result of a generation or two of making the best of limited hardware.

You referenced Manimal, that had me in stitches. I gave you a like, I'm easy.

You should really rename this video to "Amiga games that I enjoy that DEFINITELY don't push the limits of the hardware"

Nice one. Would love to see you cover No Second Prize in the next edition. A good low poly racer with fantastic mouse control

Come on, no mention of Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe by The Bitmap Brothers?

It's funny; when you mentioned the Megablast game having a Bomb the Bass song in it, all I was hearing was the John Carpenter soundtrack to his film Assault on Precinct 13, which Bomb the Bass must have sampled.

like every other platform, Amiga also suffered under the looks over substance problem.. it existed before the amiga.. and well, still does...would Last Ninja fall under 2D or..?.. Probably the most bloody memories of amiga was Moonstone.. ah yes.. those heads rolling.. was almost as fun as Barbarian on C64

Amiga Just light years ahead of its competition with amazing custom hardware and awesome games,it reigned supreme in many areas of Computing and gaming for over a Decade

I remember having SHADOW OF THE BEAST on my Amiga 500 and also my COMMODORE 64c!

I enjoyed the video and your analysis. Good stuff. :) One game I would have included on this list was another game from Cinemaware - Rocket Ranger.

Could someone tell me what music is playing in the background?

SO much missing, sorry to say: Walker, the beautiful Shadow of The Beast 2, ...

You should give Fightin Spirit' a try, it's an Italian fighting game that looks better than 99% of the console games of that era, it's more neo geo than SNES, although the playability is not that great (1-button joystick is not enough for this kind of game).