I noticed it has been some time since I posted a Bucket Weekly. Lately most of my time is being used on my new project the Redhouse File Manager. If you follow my articles you know what I am up to now. The last article was about me hunting for that bug. I found it which was a great relief. I will write some more about it later this week. Yesterday afternoon (Sunday) I played some Amiga games on my A1Se OS4 using RunInUAE. That was some great fun. I played License to Kill which is in my top 10 Amiga games of all time.
I was thinking that I maybe should do some game reviews. But for this I want to play them on a real Amiga and not using a emulator. Also I need to use the keyboard on my A1SE which is not really great. For the time being I might set up my Amiga 500 upstairs so I can play and review them. Another great thing are disk magazines. Currently I have The Vague running a lot. I love The Vague 2 the most because of the mod “Jakim – Clear Mind”. It just brings back all those wonderful memories. Making a disk magazine has always been high on my list. Would be really great if I ever get around making one.
Produced in the early 90’s by Datel this piece of hardware is one, if not the, of my favourite hardware add-ons for the Amiga. A co-worker of my dad was also into Amiga’s and informed me about this piece of hardware and let me borrow his Action Replay. For some reason (why mention you still have some kick-ass hardware from them?) it was never returned so I still have it as you can see from the pictures below. Two days after I got it from the attic and started to write about it here I was at my dad’s place. Strangely enough (we had the Super Nintendo on playing Super R-Type and I was looking for a cheat) he brought up the Action Replay including the bit that we borrowed it. How strange is that?
My Action Replay
I still have the Action Replay manual somewhere. It should be at my parents place. Next time I will bring it back and scan it. Maybe some people might want to have this.
One game for which the Action Replay was really useful was License to Kill. In a nutshell you go in to the menu of the Action Replay and provide the amount of lives you have left and leave the menu and back in the game you loose a life. Going back in the menu you provide the current amount of lives you have left and the system will locate the correct address holding this value. You can change it to 99 for example to have 99 lives. If for some reason you loose them all you can go back in the menu and change it to more.
Later this year I will set-up my Amiga 500 again and the Action Replay will have to prove itself again. Just like old times.
Thursday afternoon around 3:00pm and enjoying a nice cold beer outside when the temperature is just a bit above the 35 degrees. This is a time when fast drinking is advised since this heat will make that cold beer a warm beer in just a matter of minutes so to speak. Good thing there is a bit of a breeze otherwise this heat is just killing you. Now would be a good time to compile my top 10 list of old school Amiga games. If you read my blog before you know I could never make a permanent top 10 list. It is more of a feeling at that moment when making such a list. Chances are I would make a few changes within a week anyway. Mostly I would be adding “forgotten” games or move a game somewhat up or down the list. If I would have to make the list right now it would look like the one below.
1 – Kick Off 2
2 – Shadow of the Beast
3 – License to Kill
4 – Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Adventure Game)
5 – Run the Gauntlet
6 – Hybris
7 – Thundercats
8 – Ikari Warriors
9 – Dogs of War
10 – Pirates
Remember this is just a snapshot of my findings at this very moment. A lot of games I surely must have forgotten which will come to me at a later stage which will influence my top 10 list. Like I said before my top 10 list (or more) is never permanent.
Kick Off 2 is number one because I played this game the most. No game got played more on my Amiga’s. I did play the first version for a bit but when version 2 came out I jumped on it and never looked back. I never really played modern soccer games but I can tell you that none of them could give me the feeling that Kick Off 2 did. Anyone remember when the game just got stuck and nothing happened anymore no matter how long you waited? If you did a substitute the game would come back to life again.
Shadow of the Beast is just one of those games you showed everyone to impress them with the capabilities of the Amiga. The music, the graphics…. The first one is still the best one of all three versions. Remember you had to press and hold the left mouse button and joystick button (cracked version) after the intro for the trainer?
From all 3 versions of James Bond games released on the Amiga License to Kill was by far the best one. What I liked about it is that it followed the movie story a bit. That came in handy when I did not know what you do after I shot the harpoon into the back of the airplane. I was stuck behind it thinking I had to do this for a while to get to the next level. After watching the movie I saw he got into the airplane. After figuring out how to get closer to the airplane I indeed got into the airplane and to the next level. This is a game I really wanted to finish and did. Not many games gave me that urge of wanting to finish it as badly as this one.
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Adventure Game) is one of those games you give up on a thousand times and also try it again a thousand times. A friend of mine had the PC version and together we tried to figure out the clues and get further in the game. After giving up once again you watched the movie (I remember always around Christmas) and you gave it another try. The best adventure game on the Amiga, period.
Run the Gauntlet was a game I played a lot mainly because I was also watching the event on television. Soon they also had a Dutch version of Run the Gauntlet which made we want to play the game even more. I have some really fond memories of playing this game.
Hybris was a stunning looking game for a 1987’s game. This one I also played a lot and was really addictive. It is hard to explain having Thundercats up there but for some reason this game grew on me. I played it not so long ago to see if I was not mistaken and I started to even love it more. When I played it first it did not do much to me but this is one of those games you just start to love more and more over time. I am also really fond of Ikari Warriors. My fondest memories are the two player mode. Dogs of War is also one of those games that is in everyone’s top 10 list. To end the list I have Pirates. A game I seem to play a lot during the winter season. I have some really fond memories of snow outside and having hot coco in front of the Amiga playing Pirates.
I am really a sentimental geezer. 🙂
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