It felt like a very big deal at the time to go from the Commodore 64 to the Amiga. There were some fantastic games on the C64 but the Amiga felt like a quantum leap and the full 'arcade at home' experience. Sadly though, as we know, the Amiga era was not destined to be the longest or most stable slice of home gaming history. In the end the competition was too much and the Amiga, not helped by poor business decisions and a lack of innovation, began to struggle in the market. One tends to feel that the Amiga never quite fufilled its full potential but what an amazing few years it gave us. I spent many happy hours and weeks playing all my favourite Amiga games. To this day I am still discovering interesting Amiga games which passed me by at the time. Trawling through the Amiga years again I found there were many more great games than I actually remembered. The book that follows includes racing games, shoot 'em ups, military simulations, platform games, licenced movie games, puzzle games, and so on. So, without further delay, let's sit back and take a look at the (in my own humble opinion) 100 greatest Amiga games...

Leseprobe
THE 100 GREATEST AMIGA GAMES

ALIEN BREED (1991)

Label: Team 17, Designer: Rico Holmes

Alien Breed is a top down shooter much in the style of Gauntlet. The game is an unashamed riff on the classic 1986 film sequel Aliens. You move around a sci-fi environment (the space station ISRC-4 to be precise) as a Space Marine shooting aliens (who are clearly patterned on the acid blooded creatures in the Alien franchise - you even get face-huggers too) and must complete each level before taking the lift down to the next one. You can purchase weapons using computer terminals and - as ever in these types of games - must make sure you blast everything in sight and don't get trapped in any tight spots. You'll need keys to open certain doors and must watch out for some traps - like doors that are electrified.

The designer of Alien Breed said he was inspired by Laser Squad and Paradroid more than anything when planning this game and you can plainly see their influence. Alien Breed was very popular and one can see why. The graphics are crisp and competent, the sound FX superb, and an immersive atmosphere of dread and danger is generated. As far as these top down shooters go this was one of the best on the Amiga. Quibbles? Well, an unquantifiable number of people thought this game was too difficult. Ammunition is very limited at times and the pesky respawning aliens can test your patience. Be warned that Alien Breed is no walk in the park. It's definitely a good game though that most Amiga owners would have sampled at some point and most likely have good memories of.

Alien Breed became something of a franchise in the end with various sequels. Alien Breed II: The Horror Continues arrived in 1993 and while the gameplay is similar you get better scrolling, more levels, and can play as more characters. If you liked the first game you should like the sequel. 1994 brought the release of Alien Breed: Tower Assault. Once again you are tasked with investigating a space colony infested with aliens and once again you must blast everything in sight while escaping from numerous levels. There isn't much new on offer in Alien Breed: Tower Assault - save for the ability to fire your weapon while moving backwards. Still, if you liked the previous games you should like this one just fine. As ever though it is difficult to the point of being annoying at times.

Alien Breed: Tower Assault got a right old drubbing in the magazine Amiga Power but that seems rather baffling in retrospect because the game is merely giving you more Alien Breed capers. Maybe they wanted something a bit different. The franchise DID though give players something different in 1995 with Alien Breed 3D. This was, as the name implies, a first person shooter. By now we'd had the Doom phenomenon and so companies were tripping up over themselves to latch onto the FPS genre. I suppose then you'd probably be within your rights to say that Alien Breed 3D was part of the cavalcade of Doom clones that arrived like a tidal wave in the mid to late nineties.

Alien Breed 3D is a decent effort but the problem is that the Amiga just wasn't very good at FPS games. Compare games like Alien Breed 3D to the likes of Doom and Duke Nukem 3D. The difference is night and day. Alien Breed 3D seems horrendously blocky and primitive compared to classic PC FPS games of the era. The level design is good though and the game (mercifully) moves at a fast clip. The sequel Alien Breed 3D II-The Killing Grounds is generally felt to have been an improvement though some players thought it was a bit too difficult. The sequel is a mix of Doom and Quake (though obviously nowhere near as good as that synopsis makes it sound) and has a decent frame rate and some big outdoor levels.

Generally thoug