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Hitting the Books: Amiga and the birth of 256-color gaming
In his new book, legendary game designer and programmer Warren Davis recalls his halcyon days imagining and designing some of the biggest hits to ever grace mall arcades.
Internet Archive adds 10,000 Amiga games and applications
With zero fanfare, the Internet Archive uploaded a new collection of software last week from the Amiga, a mid-80s personal computer famous for its impressive-for-the-time game graphics. The new collection is no tidy sum, either, with over 10,000 games, applications and demos. Whether this is the first time these items have shown up on the archive is uncertain, but should you want to relive a golden age of personal computer gaming, head over and play them straight from your browser.
Blood flows in PS4's 'Shadow of the Beast' on May 17th
You'd be forgiven if you didn't play Shadow of the Beast when it first came out on the Amiga in 1989, but don't make the same mistake with the upcoming PlayStation 4 version. The absolutely brutal side-scroller looks like a throwback to beat 'em ups of yore like Streets of Rage, however the combat appears to have a fair bit of depth to it. Protagonist Aaraborn may start out in chains but he's far from helpless: there are a pair of positively massive claws attached to his hands he uses to rip enemy creatures apart. Combat is heavily timing-based and, well, vicious.
'Sensible Soccer' is getting a modern remake
For kids growing up in the early 90s, the Commodore Amiga was the pinnacle of gaming hardware. It was no doubt helped by classic titles like Sensible Soccer and Cannon Fodder, which were the brainchild of Sensible Software founder Jon Hare. It's been eight years since the last Sensible Soccer game hit the Xbox 360, but with Codemasters still holding on to the licence, Hare's decided it's about time for a reboot: Sociable Soccer.
Commodore returns as a 5.5-inch, nostalgia-powered smartphone
It hasn't been a legitimate name in computing for over 20 years, but somehow the Commodore brand always manages to find a way back into our lives. In 2004, it came back as a simple TV-Game joystick. In 2011, Commodore USA sold gaming PCs stuffed into retro-styled keyboard chassis. Today, the brand is back again--as a nostalgia-stamped 5.5-inch Android smartphone.
An '80s-era Amiga controls the heating for an entire school district
Think the Windows XP workstation you use at the office is ancient? It doesn't hold a candle next to what the Grand Rapids Public School district is using to control its climate systems. All 19 schools covered by the authority depend on a nearly 30-year-old Commodore Amiga 2000 to automate their air conditioning and heating. It communicates to the other schools using a pokey 1,200 baud modem and a wireless radio so behind the times that it occasionally interferes with maintenance workers' walkie talkies. Oh, and a high school student wrote the necessary code -- if something goes wrong, the district has to contact the now middle-aged programmer and hope that he can fix it. It's a testament to the dependability of the Amiga in question, but you probably wouldn't want to trust the well-being of thousands of students to a computer that's probably older than some of the teachers.
How Amiga hackers saved Andy Warhol's digital images
A new documentary from the HIllman Photography Iniative (see the video below) has revealed exactly how those now-famous Andy Warhol Amiga works were extracted from decrepit 3.5-inch floppies. First, researchers had to figure out that the image files were actually saved on the original graphics program diskettes due to quirks in the early Amiga 1000 system. Once the disks were found, Amiga forensics specialists wanted to be the last people to touch them for the sake of their preservation. Since the magnetic material was separating from the substrate, they made sure to read the floppies just once to create a disk image. From there, they used an Amiga emulator to dive into the filesystem, with the "Eureka!" moment coming when they saw filenames like "campbells.pic" and "marilyn1.pic." A quick conversion later, and the images appeared -- as dramatic a moment for the programmers as spotting a Warhold painting at a flea market.
Lost Andy Warhol artworks discovered on Amiga floppies from the '80s
Rediscovered artwork like a napkin Picasso or unearthed Matisse can be identified on sight, but pieces crafted in the digital age by pop-artist extraordinaire Andy Warhol and encoded in an outdated format are far more difficult to ascertain. In fact, it took the retro know-how of Carnegie Mellon University's Computer Club and a team of artists, archivists and curators to wrangle some of Warhol's lost pixels into the physical world.
Gameloft and Amiga Games to release 56 titles on Windows 8, WP8 before 2014
Sure, Microsoft's battle for next-gen supremacy starts in November, but those who lean on Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 for their gaming just got a little something to look forward to. Gameloft is readying a total of 15 games that'll arrive within the next 12 months and launch simultaneously on both platforms. Before the year's up, you can expect to see Asphalt 8: Airborne, Despicable Me: Minion Rush, Dungeon Hunter 4, Six Guns, Total Conquest and UNO & Friends, with the remaining games breaking cover next year. The recently-acquired Amiga Games will churn out 50 titles of its own onto Microsoft's desktop and mobile OS before year's end, and could bump the total up to 500 afterwards. Details on which games we'll see first weren't divulged, but the outfit says they'll make use of the operating system's features such as live tiles and Snap and Share, as well as cross-platform data sharing. For a look at what's to come, head past the break for a fresh Asphalt 8 trailer.
Amiga Games (and our childhood memories) acquired for $500,000
Forget Mac versus PC, there was a time when Amiga reigned supreme -- at least in the heart of many computer gamers of a certain age. The Amiga 500 simply blew other computers from the '80s away, especially in the gaming department. But then the '90s happened (and you know where this is going): Microsoft won, Apple nearly went bankrupt and Sony introduced the world to Crash Bandicoot. So what about all those old classics like Alien Breed and Wings? Amiga Games Incorporated, and its library of over 300 titles, have been purchased for $500,000 by Writers' Group, a company that acquires and distributes digital content. The new owner is promising several announcements over the next few weeks, and hopefully one of them has to do with Overdrive.
Amiga Forever Essentials for Android promises to expand your emulation options
There's already a number of Amiga emulators for Android, but using them has so far required you to provide your own Amiga system files to actually get that emulation started. Cloanto's set out to change that today, though, releasing its Amiga Forever Essentials app for Android that comes complete with officially licensed ROM and OS files for the reasonable cost of one dollar. As the company explains, it worked with the makers of Amiga emulators like UAE4Droid, AnUAE4All, UAE4All2 to ensure the system files are auto-detected (you'll still need to use at least one of those other emulators in conjunction with Forever Essentials), and it's thrown in a few bonuses like Workbench 1.3 and the First Demos disk images to get you started. It also says that this is just the first of a planned series of "Essentials" packages for other platforms, but it has few specifics to share about those at the moment, saying only that it's hopeful it can "help make retrocomputing more accepted on other app stores."
Why I Play: EVE Online
Sci-fi MMO EVE Online is possibly the most polarising online game in existence. It has some of the genre's most loyal fans and spawns some of its biggest news stories, but most people just can't stand the user interface and gameplay. It's been called boring, overcomplicated, and a griefer's paradise, but even those who don't play it often still watch from the sidelines as each insane story of theft or corruption emerges from the sandbox. Most games can only keep my attention for a few months at a time, but somehow I've played EVE for over eight and a half years. I've heard it said that EVE is a long-term commitment, a statement I find hard to argue with as at only 26 years old I've been playing EVE almost continuously for a third of my life. It's not just been a game to me; at times it's been a way of life, a refuge from stress, a way to stay in touch with friends, and even a place to learn skills that can apply to the real world. Thanks to Massively, my attachment to EVE has even grown from a hobby to a career in writing and games journalism. I've had numerous periods of low activity in EVE and even quit for months at a time, but something always brings me back to the world's biggest sci-fi sandbox. In this article, I look back at what drew me to EVE initially, some of the unusual factors that have kept me playing EVE over the past eight years, and the reason I'm still motivated to subscribe to this day.
Cinemaware is back at it with a Kickstarter campaign for Wings: Director's Cut
Cinemaware recently announced plans to remake its 1990 Amiga game Wings (no, not that Wings), and hopes to fund it with a Kickstarter campaign. The developer's goal is to reach $350k on the funding platform in order to complete Wings: Director's Cut, which would include new missions and story elements not seen in the original game.Per its Kickstarter page for the project, the game is in development for PC and both Android and iOS mobile platforms. Additionally, the company noted its excitement for the Ouya console (which finished its own crowd-funding campaign at $8.5 million this past week), saying it "became official supporters of the Ouya campaign on Kickstarter, and are in line to receive a development kit." Ouya support is in the works for Wings: Director's Cut since Cinemaware has to use that development kit for something, after all.
Project Unity stuffs 20 classic consoles into one: if you can't play it, it's probably too new (video)
Most gamer who want to play with more than one or two vintage console platforms often turn to software-based emulators that may or may not be above-board. How about stuffing all of the authentic hardware into one controller and one base unit? Modders at Bacteria's forums have developed Project Unity, an attempt to natively address 20 consoles across 17 actual platforms folded into a single device. The gamepad, arguably the centerpiece, includes two each of analog sticks and directional pads, along with multiple shoulder buttons and a central button grid that can either be used to steer an Intellivision or fill in for otherwise missing controls. Stuffing the unique controller hardware into one gamepad obviously presents problems with board sizes and the laws of physics, so much of the relevant circuitry sits in modified NES cartridges. Our only dismays are the lack of original Xbox support and the slightly imposing challenge of aggregating and modifying that much classic gaming componentry in one place -- if you're more concerned about convenience in your retro gaming than preserving the original feel of that Sega Master System or SNK NeoGeo, though, you've just found Utopia.
Commodore Amiga Mini PC revealed: Core i7, 16GB of RAM and a Blu-ray drive
Yeah, an optical drive. You know, for folks who still appreciate the passing fads of life. Bitterness aside, Commodore is following up its retro-fabulous C64x with a new small-form-factor PC, the Amiga Mini. While not much of a looker, this box houses a potent 3.5GHz Core i7-2700k CPU, 16GB of DDR3 memory, NVIDIA's GeForce GT 430 (1GB), a WiFi radio and a 1TB HDD that can be swapped out for a 300GB or 600GB solid state drive. There's a slot-loading Blu-ray drive by default, internal space for a pair of 2.5-inch drives and a predictable Amiga logo burned right onto the front panel. Unfortunately, the well-specced base model tips the pricing scales at $2,495, but that does include a copy of its Commodore OS Vision. The company's also revealing the C64x Supreme, the new VIC mini and a more powerful VIC-Slim keyboard computer (which now includes an HDMI output), all detailed in the presser past the break.Update: Citing "consumer outcry," Commodore has lowered the entry price of the machine you see above to $1,995. For those of you who paid $500 more yesterday -- well, as least you've got a refund headed your way.
iAmiga Amiga 500 emulation system coming to iPhone
Pay attention, nostalgia fans. iAmiga is a soon-to-be-released Amiga 500 emulator for the iPhone. It's from Manomio, the same group that released the C64 emulator that was pulled from the App Store, only to return minus a pesky BASIC interpreter. Way back in April, we saw a tech demo of the iOS Amiga emulator, and now Touch Arcade has a first look at the real deal. From what they've seen (you can watch a demo video after the break), it looks great. They report dead-on graphics and sound, smooth gameplay and faithful interpretation of several titles. Manomio has pulled it off by using tuned ARM assembly language. Note that the app will only support the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4, or the iPod touch 3rd generation and up, so those with older devices are out of luck. The folks at Manomio say that they're working with several developers to secure licenses for their emulator. In the demo video, you'll see Defender of the Crown, Battle Squadron, International Karate +, R-Type, R-Type II, Speedball, Stunt Car Racer, Shadow of the Beast, Virus and Xenon 2: Megablast. Of course, there's no assurance that any of those titles will make it into the final product. Right now there's no solid release date or similar information, so we'll keep you posted. This one looks like a lot of fun.
Commodore USA to relaunch Amiga brand with series of AROS desktops
Barry's back, kids! The CEO of Commodore USA just informed us that, in addition to slapping Commodore stickers on various all-in-one PCs, he has acquired the rights to the Amiga name (we only hope that the process went a little smoother this time around). The plan is to sell machines that fully support AROS -- an open source variant of AmigaOS 3.1 that y'all seem to go crazy for. We can't wait to get a look at these bad boys, but for now we'll have to settle with the picture of an old Amiga 3000 he inexplicably included with the PR. The PR, that is, that can be seen in its entirety after the break.
Commodore Amiga celebrates its 25th birthday, Andy Warhol still dead
It was on July 24, 1985 that the Amiga 1000 computer had its debut at Lincoln Center in New York City. As you're no doubt aware, we have quite a fondness for Commodore in general and its Amiga offspring in particular, so it's only fitting that we would make a note of this auspicious anniversary. And if you're an unrepentant Amiga fanboy (the original fanboys), there was so much to love: color graphics! Stereo sound! Something called "multitasking!" This was a machine that took on all comers, and it coulda licked 'em, if circumstances (and some wonky decisions) on the business end of things hadn't got in the way. For a trip down memory lane, hit up the source link. As for us, we're going to go fire up our copy of Neuromancer and take it for a spin. Some things never change, indeed.
Google replaces hints of Chrome OS hardware from Acer, Dell, and HP with even better hints
As you may recall from a few days ago, Google offered some of the clearest evidence of Chrome OS hardware from major manufacturers yet by letting some build configurations for Acer, Dell, and HP slip out into its public code repository. Now, that wasn't too surprising considering that each of the companies have already made their Chrome OS intentions pretty clear, but Google seems to have done a bit of backtracking nonetheless. It's replaced the files with what you see above (the files, not the Caruso), which now suggest that Chrome OS hardware is coming from the likes of Amiga, Commodore and Atari. Way to raise expectations, Google.
Commodore USA unveiling Eee Keyboard rival?
We're not sure where things stand as far as Barry Altman's rights to the Commodore name, but a little red tape isn't going to stop this Commodore fanatic (and all-around good guy) from moving onwards and upwards with his Commodore USA venture. Recently, a photo of a keyboard PC with resistive touchscreen popped up on the company's website, labeled Commodore Invictus. Details are scant, but a certain "BigBentheAussie" over at the amigaworld.net forums is really excited by the thing. Apparently, this Eee Keyboard-doppleganger sports an Intel Atom processor, wireless HDMI, NVIDIA ION chipset, and five hours of battery life -- in addition to the aforementioned touchscreen display. Currently there is no price, street date, or detailed spec sheet available, but we're sure that all will be revealed in due time.
