Pinball games often lacked quality gameplay due to the absence of accurate pinball physics, but the Amiga had enough processing power to handle the physics, the faked-up dot-matrix display, multiple play modes and other bells and whistles. The game itself produced a whole mess of sequels, including Pinball Fantasies and Pinball Illusions. It also helped birth console pinball games such as True Pinball. Digital Illusions went on to create the Battlefield series and was later acquired by Electronic Arts.
Top-down squad action makes up the core of the gameplay, while the theme song, "War Has Never Been So Much Fun," further outlines the darkly humorous nature of the title. Cannon Fodder actually shows ambivalence toward war. We hope you never find out the hard way. Background scenery scrolled slower than the foreground, and it was split into as many as 12 layers.
The game also had lush fantasy artwork and a cover from famed fantasy artist Roger Dean — a complete experience. To be honest, Shadow of the Beast is less important for its gameplay than for its amazing graphics, which just about outdid many arcade games at the time. Shadow of the Beast itself spawned a couple of sequels and console conversions. The game brought beautiful graphics and a European art sensibility to a sci-fi plot with heavily stylized motion-capture vector graphics.
The gigantic, fluid animation sequences, naturalistic feel and the lack of a traditional heads-up display made Another World way, way ahead of its time. A wildly different sequel to Bubble Bobble, Rainbow Islands was a masterpiece of beauty, design and sheer playability. They start at the bottom, get to the top and defeat the boss, defeating enemies and collecting diamonds along the way. Lather, rinse, repeat, as things get harder each level. It's almost stupidly simple, but that simplicity belies the cleverness and ingenuity of Rainbow Islands.
Inarguably one of the greatest games ever made, players were interplanetary traders with an intriguing decision to make; play it safe for lower returns - such as dealing in agricultural goods on risk free journeys - or amp up the danger and cash right away by pirating slaves and contraband in sinister alien territories that often guaranteed an early death. Knowing the difference between a Viper Mk II, an Anaconda or a Fer-de-Lance was vital to survival as different ships posed vastly different threats, and skilful piloting, business acumen and a ruthless trigger finger were all needed if you wanted to rise through the ranks to 'Elite'.
Whatever happened, it sure felt like the closest we'd ever come to being Han Solo. Sensible Software's sequel to their own Wizball , it's really two games smooshed together as one. Collect the bonus music notes and you sprout legs and go into puzzler mode, where you have to really think pretty broadly to get to the end.
It's part-arcade-platform, part-puzzle-adventure, part-kitten-chase, part-knob-gags with the odd mini-game thrown in, and it's all utterly wonderful. Sensible Soccer. Sensible Soccer proved that you don't need cutting-edge 3D graphics or realistic sound effects to create a classic football game.
It was about as simplistic as they come, and that was its greatest strength. Learning the basics took a matter of minutes but mastering the game could take a lifetime. This was the gaming equivalent of jumpers for goalposts, but Sensible Software made the beautiful game live up to its name like never before. Cannon Fodder. Cannon Fodder saw Sensible Software take the tiny, pixelated sprites from its successful footie sim Sensible Soccer , whack them in helmets and tanks, let us divide them into pincer movements and send them into enemy territory to be slaughtered mercilessly.
The easy-to-learn controls, dividing your platoon into pincer movements with a click of a mouse, and the haunting sight of your named soldiers not just joining the death toll but having their tombstones actually appearing in front of you even X-COM isn't that dark were simple but genius. Another World. Another World innovated with its design - stripped of any on-screen options, carrying an extremely striking visual style, featuring minimal dialogue - to tell a story with genuine heart about the bond between Lester and the alien Buddy.
A truly impressive achievement when you consider the era this game was developed in. Eric Chahi's cinematic platformer was an unforgiving title at times, but making the end was satisfying and worth the effort, mirroring the trouble Lester has to go through to survive and escape the unrelenting alien hostiles. James Pond 2: Robocod. The Amiga was a system awash with cartoony, brightly coloured and slightly surreal platformers, and though you could trace its lines back from home consoles, nothing represented that era better than James Pond 2: Robocod.
When our anthropomorphic fish protagonist wasn't rescuing penguins in Santa's toy-filled workshop sponsored by none other than Penguin biscuits , he was riding in flying bathtubs, fighting against deadly, screen-filling teddy bears, pinging off birds with playing cards for wings, and collecting sweets on giant submarines. As we said, surreal. Bubble Bobble. In visual terms - with its square, single-screen levels, blocky layouts and ghost-like enemies - Bubble Bobble is very clearly a successor to Pac-Man.
The similarities pretty much end there, with players progressing from level to level by trapping enemies in bubbles and popping them to death. One of the best things about Bubble Bobble is that, while it offered a classic arcade challenge, it wasn't so nose-bleedingly difficult that completing all levels was an impossibility. Almost 30 years later, we can still hear the music in our heads. Zool goes down in history as yet another mascot that failed to measure up to Mario and Sonic, but his Amiga debut was a top-drawer platformer in its own right.
Gremlin Graphics' Ninja from the Nth dimension boasted enough speed and attitude to rival Sega's hedgehog, and the game's colourful graphics, belting soundtrack, and free-flowing action made it match for anything in its category. Speedball 2. Fast-paced, super simple and overwhelmingly fun, Speedball 2 was named the third best game of all time by Amiga Power and won further awards for the memorable music which soundtracked the action. Essentially, it was FIFA populated by mini-Robocops instead of footballers - and all the better for it.
The Amiga was capable of making jaws drop and spines tingle in its day, and one of the games that pushed the hardware to its limits was Turrican II: The Final Fight. This Metroid -style shooter combined explosive, side-scrolling action with gorgeous visuals and a thumping soundtrack that remains stuck in our heads to this day.
Why it was chosen: The name Brutal Sports Football is a slightly inaccurate one. The game has no fouls, you see, meaning you can dive into opposition players with hellacious tackles as you see fit or even grab weapons like the swords lying around the arena. The more players are attacked the weaker they get, staying on the deck longer and longer until eventually, your next attack pops their head off in a fountain of gore.
This opens up different strategies: do you play it by the book and endeavour right from kick-off to to score goals? How to play it: Once again, the DOS version is available on abandonware sites.
Why it was chosen: Just as Sensible Soccer transformed the football genre by bowing out of the race for realism and instead focusing on simplicity and fun, Cannon Fodder did the same with the ever-growing real-time strategy genre. This lets you instead concentrate on exploring your surroundings, killing the enemy and, crucially, investing emotionally in your little soldiers.
With the simple act of giving each solider a name and ensuring that when they died they were dead for good and replaced with another queuing recruit, Sensible drove home the real horror of war. What it is: The pinnacle of point-and-click plot and puzzle perfection. Why it was chosen: I was thinking of splitting the LucasArts games into individual entries but then they would take up about a third of the entire list. Maniac Mansion — A darkly comic love letter to B-movie horror films.
Loom — More serious than other LucasArts games, this beautiful adventure has a clever music-based spell system that predated Ocarina Of Time by eight years. How to play it: It was released on PC and so, you guessed it, can be found on abandonware sites. What it is: The first properly realistic racing game. This was the first game to take racing seriously, letting you tune the car and switch the tyres and race full-length F1 races that took hours.
To this day, 23 years later, it still has a small cult community that continues to play it. What it is: Isometric adventures based on Nordic mythology. Why it was chosen: Even those who never played Heimdall may still at least be familiar with one part of it: its axe-throwing mini-game. The mini-game aside, both Heimdall games were entertaining RPG adventures that served as perfect entry points for those new to the genre.
What it is: A game in which you fight other people using karate. Give us a break. You can also get the Commodore 64 version on the Wii Virtual Console. What it is: Solid proof that two puns in a title make for a better game than one. Why it was chosen: The first James Pond was an adequate underwater platformer in which a secret agent fish swam around taking out bad guys and seducing mermaids. The resulting game was a brilliantly cheery platformer with ace music and a great sense of humour, in which the player had to travel to the North Pole and rescue Santa Claus from the evil Dr Maybe while trying their best to ignore the blatant advertising for Penguin biscuits.
How to play it: The PC version is considered abandonware. Why it was chosen: There have been loads of different Lemmings games over the years but that initial batch of Amiga titles remains arguably the best of the bunch. More Lemmings and Lemmings 2: The Tribes. What it is: Your chance to play as Mel Gibson before he went all racist. Why it was chosen: The Lethal Weapon video game released around the same time as Lethal Weapon 3 was available on a load of different systems, but the Amiga version was best because of one thing: the music.
The game itself was a fun little action platformer in which you could switch between Riggs and Murtaugh and shoot the shit out of loads of baddies, but I say with no exaggeration that the music in the first level is one of the greatest video game tracks ever. What it is: A public domain cross between Pong and Breakout which is more exciting than it sounds, honest. Bedroom coders would create their own games and either sell them through mail order, or offer them to magazines like Amiga Power and Amiga Format to feature on their cover disks.
Poing was my favourite PD game because though its idea was simplistic as most PD offerings were , it was bloody great fun. Look, this video demonstrates it best. Then, worried my dad might see it as if my dad would just play Poing one day for a laugh , I spent hours each day frantically trying to beat my ridiculous score ten times to knock it off the table.
When you install it be very careful and be sure to decline the three annoying toolbars it tries to get you to install. Forcing you to start in the Conference, the aim was to work your way up to the Premier League and win it. Well, they were mighty when I was in charge. How to play it: PC version on Abandonware, you ask? Of course. What it is: The sequel to Bubble Bobble. Rainbow Islands, then, saw them taking on another adventure, this time in human form.
Now named Bubby and Bobby — apparently being human means a name extension — the pair have to make their way up a series of vertical stages and defeat the bosses of numerous themed worlds. The unique gameplay mechanic here is their ability to fire rainbows which not only kill enemies, but can also be used as temporary makeshift platforms in order to climb higher.
Not convinced? Both are horrendous. What it is: Still the best arcade-style football game to date, even though all the players in it have retired now. You need to call the intergalactic equivalent of the AA to get it fixed but the only phone for miles is at the nearby Shufflepuck Cafe. Each of your opponents has a different personality which affects their playing style, from The General — an ex-military pig alien who blasts shots at you with no real accuracy — to Princess Bejin, who uses telekinesis to move the puck to the center of the table and make it harder for you to react to her shots.
Best of the bunch though is Lexan Smythe-Worthington, a posh alien who starts off nearly impossible to beat, but slowly gets drunk on wine as he plays and eventually becomes a walkover. Love this game. How to play it: The not quite as good PC version of Shufflepuck Cafe can be found on abandonware sites.
What it is: A platformer with balls. Why it was chosen: Soccer Kid puts a clever spin on the standard platform game by adding a football to proceedings.
The titular Soccer Kid known as Kid Kleats in the US… ugh has to travel through various cities, using his football to take out enemies, collect hard-to-reach power-ups and bounce him to higher platforms.
Plus you could change the colour of his shirt on the title screen, meaning you could turn him into a Celtic fan. You know, I should probably just start copying and pasting that by now. Cracking game. It was also a shameless ad for a certain energy drink, with our hero able to restore his health by picking up bottles of Lucozade dotted around each stage. It plays identically to the Amiga version — albeit with improved visuals and the Lucozade replaced with something more generic — and can be bought digitally on Steam , PS3 or Vita.
What it is: Not what Superfrog gets on his cape after one too many curries, but an isometric racer with a wide selection of vehicles. Why it was chosen: It should have become clear from some of my previous 30 Best Games entries that I love simple games, and Super Skidmarks is another shining example of this.
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