7 Greatest Psygnosis Commodore Amiga games of all time

Founded in 1984, by Jonathan Ellis, Ian Hetherington, and David Lawson. Psygnosis would become an iconic brand within the 8 and 16-bit home computer markets. The UK based studio was best known as the publisher of Shadow of the Beast and Lemmings. Pushing limits and technology really was much of what Psygnosis was about, with a high focus on the Commodore Amiga platform. It was eventually acquired by Sony in 1993.

While the objective of Lemmings is the same for each level, it never becomes a monotonous experience for several reasons. Those miniature tri-colour creatures that are falling from the sky are the lemmings. They look like tiny blips in your visual field. Tiny, baby, pixel darlings that just need a bit of a hand to get from A to B. Your job is to assist them to reach their burrow in safety. The next thing to point out are the multiple different tabs at the bottom of the screen, which are like command buttons. Each one has a different function. For instance, the ‘blocker’ lemming stops any other lemmings from getting past it, and the ‘digger’ lemming is able to break through surfaces. Players must use the cursor to click on the desired function, and then click on a lemming to assign it that function. In level 1, a digger lemming is all you need to win. This is nice and basic, the perfect way to get players into the swing of things.

Shadow of the Beast Is a platform game developed by Reflections and published by Psygnosis in 1989. The original version was released for the Amiga. The game was known for its graphics, with many colours on screen and up to twelve levels of parallax scrolling backdrops. It’s not the most pleasant experience in the world to be kidnapped by a bunch of wicked mages and taken away for a life of slavery and misery, serving the evil Beast Lord. Still, that’s happened to you. And to ensure faithfulness to the master, the mages have imposed years of hypnosis and brainwashing. As a reward for all those years of service, they have turned you into a powerful, agile and swift half-human creature with few feelings and little compassion, especially for the humans who must often be herded together for the ritual sacrifices.

Walker, is a fast-paced shoot ’em up which puts you in control of a 30-foot human killing machine code-named the AG-9. Looking like a cross between ED-209 from Robocop and the huge mechanical transports seen in the Return of the Jedi movie, the towering machine is capable of spewing out an endless torrent of death from its twin machine guns mounted beneath its swiveling head. The aim of the game is simple: guide your Walker assault vehicle across a horizontally scrolling landscape blasting as much military hardware out of the skies as possible, while also taking care of the assorted ground battalions, mortar emplacements, tanks and other such obstacles.

Agony‘s in-game graphics look so good that you won’t be missing additional eye-candy though. The music is extremely well done, it is very inspired and powerful and truly conveys a sense of undertaking an overwhelming quest against the furious forces of magic and nature. Agony is an (un)fairly challenging shooter, and it will require some time and dedication to be successfully completed especially because the last 2 stages are very hard. Set your joystick on auto-fire and try to save all the spells you have for the last two stages because you will certainly need everything you have. To conclude, if you enjoy shooters and feel like getting back into Amiga retro gaming, you should definitely consider starting out from Agony, it will not disappoint you.

Armour-Geddon Is unique because it manages to fuse a range of game styles. Armour-Geddon has a huge play area of 80 km by 80 km, including mountains, lakes and buildings, You play the leader of the Sheltered Ones and live in an underground headquarters equipped with a few basic vehicles and weapons to arm them with. The world has gone up in a cloud of nuclear smoke, which few have managed to survive. You are one of the lucky folks who found some shelter when ‘it’ hit the fan. There are six vehicles in all which can be developed: a fast attack fighter, stealth bomber, gunship helicopter, hovercraft, light tank and heavy tank. You can simultaneously have six vehicles active of any type. However you also have teams of scientists and engineers to make new systems. All the vehicles have their own performance capabilities and can carry their own appropriate weapons – such as laser cannons, free-fall bombs, rockets and missiles.

Leander is well-polished: fluid character animation, coupled with easy controls and a gallery full of classy graphics. Perhaps the secret of Leander’s success lies in the unadulterated slickness of everything. Arcade quality in every aspect, it’s the carefully developed little details which add up to a satisfying jump and slash adventure. It is little touches like these, coupled with the addictive gameplay that raises Leander head and shoulders above most other platform games, and is certainly recommended.

Amiga Developer Digital Images did something unimaginable in 1999 and released Wipeout 2097 on the Amiga platform. Wipeout 2097 offered amazing graphics and awesome soundtracks and the Amiga version was no exception. Wipeout 2097 required an Amiga 1200 with a PPC card, CD-ROM drive, hard drive and 24MB RAM. So you needed a very pimped and expensive Amiga in 1999.

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