Perihelion: The Prophecy (Morbid Visions/Psygnosis)
One of more overlooked RPGs of the early '90s. It was scarce for enemy encounters but it nailed the bleak cyberpunk vibe with cool computer hacking stuff. It also had an Elder Scrolls-like levelling system where skills upgraded through usage.
Populous
As many people probably know, this god sim was the game that put Peter Molyneux on the map long before his hype/promises for Fable backfired on him.
Pushover (Red Rat Software/Ocean)
Putty series (System 3)
Quik the Thunder Rabbit (Stywox/Titus Software)
I didn't pay much attention to this in '94 as the industry was saturated with these kind of platform games but going back years later when I was no longer sick of them I found it pretty cool.
Qwak (Team 17)
A remake of an older BBC Micro game. The Bubble Bobble influence is obvious but this could hold its own as a great single-screen platformer. It was later ported to PC and Mac but I think some of the charm was lost there.
Reunion (Amnesty Design/Grandslam)
Rod-Land (The Sales Curve/Storm)
Oddly, Jaleco's arcade game Rodland never got a 16-bit console port (it was available for NES, though) but there were several Western computer versions, the Amiga one being the most faithful. It wasn't the greatest single-screen platformer but I always thought it had some charm to it.
Ruff 'n' Tumble (Wunderkind/Renegade)
I really hated the Dennis the Menace-looking main character but other than that, this was an impressive run 'n gun game.
Samurai (Vivid Image/Image Works/Psygnosis)
The "Samurai" series consisted of First Samurai and Second Samurai, the latter also had a Mega Drive game but it was quite a but different. I was a fan of the second Amiga game, a hack 'n slash platformer with an option for two-player simultaneous play.
The Settlers (Blue Byte)
One of most revered strategy games on the system. The series originated on Amiga but given the decline of the Amiga market by the mid '90s, its sequels were on PC.
Shadow of the Beast series (Reflections/Pygnosis)
My jaw dropped when saw the first game back in '89. It was the most graphically impressive home game I had seen, especially in motion with all the layers of scrolling. SotB 1 and 2 were good action-adventures but I feel SotB3 is the one that holds up best. Normally a series becoming easier and more linear is a red flag but I think in this case having a less frustrating game was an improvement.
Skidmarks series (Acid Software)
Slam Tilt (Liquid Dezign/21st Century Entertainment)
Speedball series (Bitmap Brothers/Image Works)
I'm not hardcore into sports games (and I was mostly playing Genesis ones like NHL Hockey and Tommy Lasorda Baseball in the early '90s) which is why I didn't cover many in this post but this series stood out for me. It was futuristic handball with RPG-style customization.
Super Hang-On (Software Studios/Electric Dreams)
The Amiga had a shitty track record with ports of Sega games (see Wonder Boy in Monster Land diaper fiasco) but this turned out well. It wasn't arcade-perfect but it was great for a home racer in the late '80s.
Superfrog
One odd thing I found about Amiga fanboys is that they often suffered from Sonic envy. They would tell you that many of the Amiga's mascot platformers were superior to Sonic The Hedgehog when any sane person could tell they weren't. Superfrog was one they would often champion. It actually was quite a good platformer taking some influence from Sonic's speed and level design but ultimately still being a very European experience.
Toki (Ocean)
A port of TAD Corp.'s only hit arcade game. Back then I was pretty disappointed with the console renditions of Toki (NES, Genesis). The Lynx version was great but if you wanted to get close to the arcade experience in terms of design, quality, and screen size, the Amiga and ST versions were the best routes to go.
Turrican series (Factor 5/Rainbow Arts)
You can't go wrong with any of the three Turrican games on Amiga. Part 2 is probably my favourite. It was a refinement of the first game's formula and more exploratory than T3 and the console games.
Virocop
Weird ass action/shooter.
Walker (DMA Design/Psygnosis)
Wiz Kid (Sensible Software/Ocean)
I thought Wizball was odd but this sequel's even moreso. I'm not sure I could describe it briefly (much of the game involves smacking objects into enemies in weird environments) so here's the wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wizkid
So that's around 50 of the games/series' on the system, and there are many more cool games I left out and I'm sure there are some I forgot. It's a system with a strong and influential history for games even though Commodore itself went bankrupt not long after attempting a console version of the system with the CD32 in 1993. Not that many Amiga games have had sequels in recent years (there has been the occasional downloadable like the new Super Stardust and Alien Breed). Sony's purchase of Psygnosis means they're sitting on a nice chunk of Amiga franchises.
Let's discuss the Commodore Amiga, its games, and anything else related to the topic. If you're interested in trying out the games I recommend the emulator WinUAE. www.lemonamiga.com is a great source of info and pics, and the game archives (google it) has lots of games to download.
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