10.
Populous
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The first of the god games. A truly unique idea in that you don't actually control the characters but instead control their environment which causes them to act in ways that you want. My dad and I would sit and play this game and get excited when passing higher levels, marking them down on a list next to the computer. I used to feel guilty about killing the computer's knights by drowning them until he suddenly stopped me from doing so. In many ways this is simple alife in action.
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9.
Black & White
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This is my dream game. When I first heard of it I thought that it was simply a continuation of the populous type model where you are a god that directs events by altering things and not getting directly involved. But the main idea behind this is your creature, and the AI is outstanding. After spending hours with your creature you will really start to think of him as alive. He'll get mad if you ignore him, or maybe he'll get used to it and wonder why you pay attention to him later. You can train him to be good and help out the villagers, he'll dance when they teach him and he'll help you out when you're busy with other things. But if you're not careful you'll teach him to destroy and then have to painfully teach him that it's wrong. I can't believe that you can play something like this at home when I used to dream about it not that long ago.
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8.
Defender of the Crown
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Marble Madness looked unreal, but Defender of the Crown takes the cake as the greatest looking (and sounding) Amiga game ever. The gameplay isn't much to write home about, but the graphics were unbelievable, and the sound that went with them seemed like it could be sold on records. This is the one game who's bugs seemed actually charming and fun to laugh about (I remember my dad telling me that he got 1024 knights in his home castle and campaign army once). I know that this was ported to many other platforms but it's true home was the Amiga and if I can think of one game that sums up the platform this is it.
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7.
Taipan
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The concept is simple, and has been copied a million times since. The recent game Dope Wars is a direct copy using drugs instead of of the usual arms, general, opium, and silk. All you do is sail around buying low and selling high, making sure that you can make it back to Hong Kong to pay off your loan so that they don't send ships out looking for you (A trick that we learned and loved was to over pay and watch as the computer put interest on the amount that it owed you). Every so often you get offered the chance to buy a cannon (although it always seemed to be that the more cannons you bought the more ships that came after you, I never tested the theory out to see the number of ships would still increase if you didn't buy any more). The only bad thing about the game was how slow the fights would be. When it got into the hundreds of ships I would leave the computer to fight it out and watch TV with my sisters (stupid ships that sink a pixel at a time!).
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6.
Lode Runner
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Although the game was fun, it was the fact that you could build any level that you wanted that makes it one of the greatest ever. I can vividly remember watching my dad do some of the levels that I made for him and realizing that some ideas just did not workout as planned. I had so much fun designing levels and thinking about how I would make them, and the game made it so easy to do so. It's unfortunate that games today aren't able to offer the same enjoyment to people (actually Ages of Mythology does) as you can get so much more out of it. Lots of strategy too as the enemy's movements are always predictable depending on how you move around.
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5.
Rescue Raiders
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If you were going to make Command and Conquer in 2D then this is what you'd do. You are a helicopter but really thats just your way of getting around and seeing the battle. What you're real job is has to do with deciding when to build tanks and men and other units to attack and destroy the computer's base. You have to build up resources though and if you're not careful you'll spend them all and have to wait for them to recharge while his men march towards you and certain doom. When I first saw Command and Conquerer I thought that someone had done a 3D version of this game. While I don't think that was the case, I'm sure that this was the original of the genre.
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4.
Lemmings
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"Let's go!". Anyone who played this game must know these words. Psygnosis changed the idea of games forever by giving the player anywhere from 10 to 100 different characters to deal with rather then just one. The puzzles were tricky and one wrong move resulted in restarting the level. Something about the way that the lemmings look make you want to try everything that you can so that you don't have to hear them say "Oh No!" when they blow up. But as good as this game is it gets even better in two player mode with two mice. It's the greatest thing setting up a trap where all of your opponent's lemmings will fall to their death when he or she doesn't realize. The graphics were fantastic and music so catchy I'd be thinking about it all day. Perhaps the coolest thing for me was how smoothly the screen scrolled when moving to different parts of the environment. It took so long for PC's and Macs to catch up and this reason alone made me want to stick with Amigas.
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3.
Starcraft
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The game that showed forever that you cannot beat an exciting storyline combined with great game play. Starcraft on it's own is a fun game, but when combined with a storyline in between (and also during) levels it's one of the best ever. I felt bad when Kerrigan was captured and didn't want her to hurt Jim later. But none of this would matter if the three different races weren't setup to be so perfect against each other. There is no advantage to being one over the other and considering how different they each are that's quite the achievement.
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2.
Civilization
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I know that most people feel that civilization 2 was the best, but the first one has everything in maybe a more unrefined way. Before I got civilization I had been writing a program that was similar. The idea was that you started up colonies and could build ships that would go out exploring and set up new colonies, etc... When I first got this game I stopped all production of my own creation and never touched the code again. Civilization is everything and more that I had dreamed of in this type of game. My favorite part has always been the initial stage of exploring the map and setting up new colonies. I know that a lot of this is actually based on the game Empire but by introducing the idea of better technology through research it surpasses it and moves several levels ahead. No other game before had me staying up all night (and having to keep track of time so that I would get enough sleep) and versions since have done exactly the same. Nothing special about the Amiga version here, they were all pretty much the same.
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1.
Sim City
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My parents came home from a weekend in Vancouver and gave me this present, little did I know how it would change my life. I don't know how many people who played this realized that what they had was something more incredible then a simple game, but an artificial world where all sorts of experiments could be tried out. I was obsessed with this game and tried all sorts of strategies to find the best way to get more people. I used to have all sorts of discussions with friends on how the best way to get a city going and manage it. I had strong feelings on the idea of cheating to get either higher taxes for free or just free money. It made me think about things like city design and more importantly, what computers could do for us other then just play games. Think about how just a few decades before people were desperate to get the game of life played on a computer, let alone watch the simulation of a city.
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