100 Amiga Games

Certainly provides a good hit of nostalgia. My favorites were the non-linear, story-heavy, point-and-click type of logic games, like Myst or Maniac Mansion, though this is a bit before that era. Deja Vu, #76 in the video, is that kind of game. I liked pretty much anything I could afford with a teen/pre-teen’s disposable income, but I gravitated towards those genres most often.

I liked this video compilation since the maker put the actual title next to the games. Most other comps put them in the description or through Youtube’s annotation system, which doesn’t always work well.

One thing these games remind me of is the annoying mechanism of taking damage just because you touch an enemy, as opposed through hit detection. 8-bit generation side-scrolling games are notorious for embracing this. I can see that being okay, maybe, in flight shoot ’em ups, or if the enemy were spiked or had some kind of curse to imply touching = pain. It never made sense to me to incur damage through mere contact and it seemed a short cut to make the game more difficult with less programming.

Looking back, I really first noticed this idea when fighting Shadow Link in Link’s Adventure. You wouldn’t incur damage just from merely touching him. He had to whack you with his sword, like normal Link does when he fights.

On earlier systems like the Amiga I can understand because of technical or memory limitations. Fortunately, I don’t notice the mechanism present as much in more recent games.

2 Comments

  • Ed Hurst says:

    I’ve noticed game developers can be truly perverted. More than once I’ve played some of the simplest games and the logic is designed to punish being normal. Some even punish proper survival instincts. I doubt it’s all that threatening to our fragile psyches, but it does contribute to the notion that coders are so good at computers because they are so bad with people.

    • Jay says:

      Speaking of survival instincts. I’m playing Rise of the Tomb Raider right now, and a good deal of it is just surviving…literal wilderness surviving. There is some fighting against human elements but the bulk of the game is searching things out and building up your inventory to craft things, etc.

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