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Saturday 22 February 2014

Pinball Fantasies 20 Million Playguide & Review

The Lemon Amiga videos continue to land on YouTube, with a Pinball Fantasies 20 Minute Million Playguide and Review being the latest addition to their ever-growing online video library.

Developed by Digital Illusions, and released by 21st Century Entertainment in 1992, Pinball Fantasies is one of the best pinball simulations available for the Amiga platform. The presentation is first rate and the game features excellent ball physics, great graphics and fantastic sound effects.

Here's what Dan from Lemon Amiga has to say regarding his latest YouTube production;
"This game is yet another top class favourite among Amiga gamers and is fondly remembered. Despite my Pinball skills, I attempt to make 20Million on each of the four tables in the game. Hope you enjoy".
If you visit the YouTube page for the video Dan also explains how the video was put together and the efforts he want to in order to resolve a number of voice over issues.

You can find the video below.


Dan has put together a number of other Amiga videos over the past few weeks, but due to work commitments I've not had time to give them the coverage they deserve. Recent videos cover the classic platformer Gods and the strategy game Battle Chess. Both videos are up to the usual high standard you'd expect from Lemon Amiga, with the Battle Chess program bringing a smile to my face, not just for the fantastic animation, but for just how long it takes a stock Amiga 500 to decide on what move to make next.

Thursday 13 February 2014

JetHunt AGA - Coming 2014

Due to land on the Amiga scene at some point in 2013, it would seem that the JetHunt AGA has been delayed, and will now see the light of day this year instead.

Here's JetHunt programmer Coagulus, with an update;
"Sorry all, I didn't manage to get this out in 2013 [...] - had some display issues and some silly bugs which stalled me over Christmas."
He continues;
"It's still coming, and to prove it here's a new vid. Now some of the effects are flicker based and seem to pulsate on the vid but they are shown at least.

Still fits on a single floppy! Just. Although I could crunch the exe and get more I reckon.

Some of the sound effects are in and working, sadly the music and sound effects option is working but not properly so I may have to do music OR sound effects. I hope not, more coding needed...

And more still to do, like fix level 10 so I can continue, the map is messed up there at the moment.

Onwards...."
Coagulus finishes by saying;
"[I] am still determined to finish this. And also determined to get it looking as good as I can. The game has been "haunting" me as something I should finish since the 90s! Once done I shall be writing more games for the Miggy for sure."
If Coagulus posts any further updates I'll post them to the blog. In the meantime you can follow the official JetHunt AGA thread over on the English Amiga Board here.

Footage taken from one of the latest builds can be found below.

Wednesday 12 February 2014

Amiga Gamer Now on Twitter

Those of you with Twitter accounts can now follow Amiga Gamer on Twitter, as I've just set up an account to help promote the blog.

The majority of tweets will appear when a new article is posted up to the Amiga Gamer blog, but there may also be the odd relevant retweet or short snippet amongst the blog article link tweets.

Please follow the feed, and if you feel there's an Amiga related feed I should be following do let me know.

You can find the feed at: https://twitter.com/AmigaGamer

Tuesday 11 February 2014

Cinemaware's Ken Melville Passes Away

I'm a little late with this one, but on the 4th of February the Cinemaware Press Relations Facebook page announced the sad passing of Cinemaware's Ken Melville.

The press release from Cinemaware's Press Relations reads;
"It is with great sadness that we announce to the Cinemaware community and gaming press the passing away of Ken Melville. 
Ken was one of the most creative (and funny) guys we have ever collaborated with, and he was giving us great input during the Wings RE development process. Ken was one of the writers and composer of the original as well as the writer on It Came from the Desert. 
We will miss him and honor his memory during the development of Wing RE. He truly was one of gaming's heroes."
For further reading please visit this thread on the Cinemaware Press Relations Facebook page.

Perhaps it's time to fire-up It Came From The Desert in celebration of Ken's life.


Monday 10 February 2014

Obligement's Top Amiga Games of 2013

On Saturday the online French Amiga magazine "Obligement" released the results of what they consider to be the Top Amiga Games of 2013.

As the site covers the Amiga 68K, OS4.x, Morphos and Aros platforms they've split their award rankings into separate charts for each of the four platforms listed. With this blog (currently, at least) only dedicated to gaming on 68K Amiga's I wont' be covering those.

So, what charted in the classic Amiga rankings? Well, in third place came Anachronia's platform based shooter "Enemy 2: Missing in Action". In second place is polished platform romp "Solid Gold", by Night Owl Design, and in first place is the long awaited "Putty Squad".

It's of little surprise to find "Putty Squad" landing the number one position, what with it being a commercial title when it was completed (but not released) all those years ago. What is nice to see is the standard of the other two games listed.

I've yet to review "Solid Gold" in this blog as I want to give the game a bit more of my time before I post about it. One thing's for certain, it's a really polished title indeed. I also need to find time to download install and play "Enemy 2". I'm simply struggling to find the time at the moment!


Solid Gold Amiga

For the full lowdown of 2013 charts for the other Amiga related platforms point your web browser over to: http://obligement.free.fr/hitparade/award2013.php

Sunday 9 February 2014

MIA "Og! AGA" Now Found and Available For Download!

Og! AGA - Title screen
While the hunt for the full version of Scavenge continues I can, in today's blog post, reveal that another long lost Amiga title has not only been found, but is now available for download.

Written by Dave Parsons, Og! was the second game he programmed for the Amiga. Although quite clearly a Wonderboy rip-off, it's a colourful, playable and extremely polished title that I really recommend you download and play.

Following the release of Commodore's AGA graphics chipset Dave decided to revisit the world of Og! and release a special AGA enhanced edition for Amiga 1200 and 4000 platforms.

Here's Dave;
"Og!" (originally called "Trog") was the second game I wrote for the Amiga. It was a fairly short, sideways-scrolling game in the Wonderboy style. It used pixel-perfect collision detection routines and ran in 32-colour mode.
I revisited it later and made a much more colourful AGA version which had 64 colours, much smoother sky colours and screen fades, and a 1-bit parallax background layer.
Outside of the game itself, it's really not very polished, and has pretty awful music (that's the downside of doing everything yourself!)."
For many years the AGA version has been considered missing in action, with Dave posting the following on his web site;
"Unfortunately, my Amiga Hard Drive seems to have died, and I can't find a version on floppy disc. So for now, this version is officially lost."
 Thankfully, the situation changed a few weeks back, with Dave updating his web site and making Og! AGA available for download. At present we're not sure how this previously thought lost version has finally surfaced, but if we hear anything further we'll let you know.

From what we can see, the AGA version plays identically to the ECS/OCS version in that it's just as difficult to play through. For example, there's a double bouncing rock section near the start of level one which will have you pulling your hair out before you finally make it past after umpteen goes.

The AGA version features some lovely looking parallax scrolling which really adds to the look of the game. All colours in the game have gone from the previous vibrant style to an almost pastel-like look. It really looks lovely.

Og! AGA - Released at last!
If you'd like to download Og! AGA you can find it in the Trog section of the Confused Pelican Games web site, at www.confused-pelican.com/trog.html.

My thanks go to Christian Clarke over at AmigaPD.com for giving me the heads-up on this one, as I'm certain I'd have missed the release without him.

Monday 3 February 2014

The Ultimate Guide to Amiga PD Games - Front Cover

Work continues apace on the forthcoming e-book release, "The Ultimate Guide to Amiga PD Games".

Edited by Amiga PD web site maintainer Christian Clarke, with contributions from Graham Humphrey, Lifeschool and Robert Hazelby, this promises to be an exciting release for the Amiga community when it's made available for download in March or April of this year.

In Christian's latest book update he reveals the front cover artwork. Take a look below.


Commenting on the image used, Christian states;
"Darren Ithell has kindly agreed for us to use the graphics from his game, Dithell in Space for the cover of our up coming e-book (The Ultimate Guide to Amiga PD Games - The very best Shareware and Public Domain games for the Commodore Amiga)."
To keep up-to-date on the progress of the book I suggest you pay regular visits to this blog or the AmigaPD.com web site.

Saturday 1 February 2014

Lemon Amiga's Extra Special Review - IK+

This latest addition to the ever growing Lemon Amiga YouTube video library is the legendary beat-em-up International Karate+, from 1988.

What makes this review "Extra Special" is the amount of effort Dan over at Lemon Amiga has put into this production. Dan contacted me earlier in the week, telling me;
"This weekend is EXTRA special, because it features IK+; a review I've been working on for two months solid. It's one of my favourite playguides so far"
The amount of effort in this production really has to be seen to be believed. The video kicks off with a detailed lowdown of the 16 moves available to you, complete with close-ups and joystick movement diagrams, before then moving on to the game itself.

Throughout the 26 minute documentary we're treated to not only the usual tips and tricks you'd expect from a Lemon Amiga video, but also music track comparisons with the C64 version, easter eggs, snippets of trivia appearing on screen, and even screens within screens comparing IK+ to other titles.

The commentary throughout the production is also interesting and informative to listen to. There's no waffle, and it all sounds like it's coming from a carefully planned and tested script.

If you've yet to watch a Lemon Amiga video then make this your first. If you're a regular viewer then you'll certainly find this the most polished yet.

Check out the Lemon Amiga video below.


Happy viewing!