Commodore Amiga: Probably the most brilliant games – which ones do you know?

A notice: The new edition of the Amiga 500 as The A500 Mini proves that the Amiga is far from dead. It is a fully licensed re-release of the famous 16-bit home computer. In the meantime, The A500 Mini is already listed for pre-order on Amazon.de for 129.99 euros and is distributed by Koch Media. The A500 Mini comes from the factory with the original 2-button mouse (with 1.8 meter USB cable) and a newly developed “8-button precision gamepad” which also comes with this cable length. The mouse and gamepad can also be ordered separately. All information about the A500 Mini, including the games supplied, can be found in a separate news item.

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Commodore Amiga: Some history

IBM-compatible PCs and Apple’s Macintosh dominate the professional computer market. But both systems are too expensive for use at home. Older systems such as the C64 or Ataris XL series – up to 1985 – are therefore the main competitors on the home computer market. Curtain up for the Amiga, which Commodore – after taking over the young company Amiga – is launching on July 23, 1985. The first model in the series, known as the A-1000, also costs more than 3,000 marks to start with. Too expensive for the general public. While IBM tries the PCjr, which is still too expensive, Commodore does everything right and pushes the Amiga 500 in 1987. Around DM 1,000 was called for at the time. An IBM PC easily cost twice as much.

Thanks to 16-bit technology, a Motorola 68000 processor with 7.09 or 7.14 MHz (PAL/NTSC version) and 512 KiByte main memory, games could finally be financed at home. The main memory could be expanded to 1,024 KiByte using expansion slots, the extension slot allows for upgrades and there are many accessories. The AmigaOS 1.2 with the nickname Kickstart was also used from 1987 in version 1.2. Thanks to many, at that time modern, interfaces and graphical user interface including mouse operation, the Amiga is up to date, but above all its self-developed sound and graphics chips (which are manufactured by MOS) make it an enormously powerful gaming machine. The Amiga series becomes a success and the 500 model in particular becomes an extremely popular gaming platform, which Commodore has maintained over the years and even released a Plus version with 1,024 KiByte main memory in 1991. This is sometimes also a reaction to the IBM computers that they are pushing into the home computer market. Commodore survived the tough competition with Atari’s similar ST series for many years – but eventually both, along with all other home computers, fell victim to the IBM PC, which began its triumphal march into living rooms at the beginning of the 90s. The Amiga is discontinued after six years of production and over five million units.

To have mentioned them again for the sake of completeness: In addition to the most important model 500, there was also the 1000 (the first model from 1985), the 2000 from 1987 (which is very similar to the 500 but borrows from the IBM PC), the the very expensive 3000 from the early 90s, the 600 and 1200 from 1992 (both flops due to outdated technology) and the 4000 from 1992. However, none of the models was as important as the 500 because they had the problem that the computers above all were interesting for home users’ budgets and they were reluctant to pay more than 3,000 marks (as with the 1000) for an Amiga. In these price spheres, you could grab the IBM PC right away. The Amiga was able to do things that the PC only learned much later: pseudo-multitasking, for example, or virtual desktops.

So that you can get an impression of the Amiga era or refresh your memories of it, we have summarized 72 of the probably best titles here for you. Which of the games do you know?