The Amiga was an important platform for computer games in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was the first home computer to gain major success as a games machine due to its graphic and sound subsystems, which were widely considered to be far ahead of their time. A game made for the Amiga platform generally had much better sound and graphics than the same game running on a IBM PC.
History
From the Amiga's introduction in late 1985, through to the early 1990s, Amiga games were developed in parallel with the Atari ST as both machines utilized the Motorola 68000 CPU. The Atari ST was, by default the industry's primary focus for 16-bit games development because it initially had a larger user base than the Amiga. Additionally, the ST became the default platform because developers found it easier develop software for. This was due in part to the ST's minimalist hardware design.
A major proportion of games developed from 1985 to 1988 were written specifically for ST, then converted to the Amiga. As a result, many Amiga games of this period were, in most cases, identical to the ST version. The only differences were apparent in audio effects and in-game music. This was an unfortunate development for the Amiga, because only its audio subsystem was demonstrating the Amiga's custom chipset, while its graphical subsystems remained untapped.
The ST continued to be the dominant machine until the introduction of the Amiga 500 in early 1987. Although the A500s chipset was more or less identical to its predecessor, the Amiga 1000, it was cheaper, making it the first "mass-market" Amiga. With the success of the A500, the games industry gradually shifted its focus to the Amiga. By 1988, an increasing number of games were developed specifically for the Amiga. At its zenith in the early 1990s, the Amiga continued to be the platform of choice of many games development companies. At that time virtually every game destined for the PC was first released on the Amiga to test the waters due to cheaper development costs.
The Amiga gaming scene was responsible for the rapid growth of small gaming companies including Electronic Arts who were contracted by Commodore International to produce the Amiga's standard graphics format IFF, and Electronic Arts' Deluxe Paint was included as standard with many Amigas thus giving them early access allowing them to gain a major foothold.
Important Amiga games
Early games
Popular games
Historically significant games
Games that have been distributed with the Amiga
Amiga game developers
Many famous game developers first established themself on the Amiga, although some such as David Braben has already established reputations from the 8-bit computer games. Famous Amiga game developers include:
Screenshots
See also
External links
Last updated: 10-12-2005 07:53:34
