Why the Amiga 500 is better than the SNES and Mega Drive – Reader’s Feature

metro.co.uk:

A reader offers a passionate defence of the Amiga 500 and why he feels its games were more memorable than anything on the 16-bit consoles.

Modern culture is not only obsessed with nostalgia, it’s obsessed with complaining about nostalgia, to the point where I’ve ended up questioning whether I really like the things I enjoyed as a kid or if it’s some kind of in-built response that I have no control of. But no, I believe in free will and I believe that the Amiga 500 is the best format of the 16-bit era.

This issue came to mind while reading GC’s review of the Amiga 500 mini-console, which I loved the sound of and will definitely be getting. The debate over the Amiga has rumbled on for the last few days and I’ve seen a few people saying that it didn’t really have that many good games and doesn’t deserve a mini-console, essentially dooming one of the most popular 90s formats to be even more forgotten than it already is.

I do not agree with this stance. For me the Amiga was one of the best video game formats I ever owned and yet in a way I do agree: it didn’t have that many all-time classics, but for me that doesn’t really matter. What it did have was variety and imagination, a breadth of titles that inspired me as a child and have kept my interest in video games ever since. Far more than if I was just subsisting on a diet of Call Of Duty and FIFA.

Reading about the Amiga 500 mini-console there do seem to be many classic games missing: Sensible Soccer, Lemmings, Rainbow Islands, The Secret Of Monkey Island, Syndicate, Midwinter, Flashback, Warhead, Populous, Hunter, Cannon Fodder… I could go on and on.

Now, in terms of making lists of the top 100 best games of all time, or whatever, most of these games wouldn’t stand a chance.