ScuzzBlog: Diaries April 2020
Entry 3rd April 2020: Post 01: Doom and Gloom.
Doom and Gloom.
The title of this blog sums up how I felt in the late nineties
about the state of the Amiga. At the time 1998'ish the only games
that seemed to find their way onto the Amiga were Doom style
games , pinball games and the odd attempt to port one of the
more popular fighting games like Super Street Fighter.
I have never been a fan of the Doom genre though I did enjoy the
Duke Nukem series on the PC. For me the Amiga was left standing in
1995 with the release of the PlayStation. Although I did play a
few games on the PC post 1996 I got sick of games needing to be
set up and it was hit and miss if they worked. So I gave in and
got myself a PlayStation. That way I could guarantee games working.
The Amiga was plodding along and we had had so many false starts
on possible owners and new kit that it was starting to all become
a bit of a joke. The magazine pages got thinner and then the actual
magazines bit the dust. But before that we had this plethora of
Doom style games that seemed to feature one after another.
Sadly I had moved on and the Amiga no longer could provide the kit,
power and resources to drive these games without spending a ton of
cash. Sure you could play the Doom clones but you needed the 060
and a graphics card and either a big box Amiga or rip your A1200
to shreds and stick in a tower. None of that was appealing and
none were affordable to me in truth.
And so the Amiga struggled to keep its head above the gaming parapet
long enough to take a pot shot at anything. Vulcan did their best
with the Valhalla series to keep my interest, but in truth with
very limited extra cash I generally supported my PlayStation with
what games I could afford and with Tomb Raider and Final Fantasy
to play, which way more suited my play style, I found the whole Amiga
gaming scene a bit gloomy I have to say. I wouldn't have minded
playing Wipe Out and maybe Myst but times moved on.
When I reflect on matters it really was impossible in the fast
moving area of computer technology for the Amiga to keep up with
the massive financial injection the consoles were committing to
their machines. The Amiga was always chasing it's tail and so the
efforts to give the platform Doom clones, whilst being admirable
were just the last gasps of a dying computer gaming platform. That
doesn't take away any of the quite ginormous leaps and bounds the
Amiga made post 1995, but on the gaming front it was Coopers-Ducks.
And so for good measure I tried the Doom clone on the Amiga 1200
and it ran like I thought it would... like a duck wading thro' treacle.
Sad really, but then I wasn't really expecting anything more. I
still love my Amiga, but I tend to play games with a pre-1995 tag
on them and leave the other stuff to guys that can. Kudos.
One game that did kick some considerable ass was Alien Breed 3D.
Now that was worth playing. Man do I enjoy that game.
Doom and Gloom.
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