The Desire To Build A Complete Amiga 500 Games Collection

The time is 10pm, March 30, 2022.  With the recent creation of the Amiga Retro World YouTube channel, the hobby has connected my love for the Amiga 500 with a renewed passion to create a 1990s computer hardware and software museum with its own channel online.

The hobby has allowed me to change my YouTube viewing habits, to watch more videos on topics related to the Atari, Commodore 64, Commodore Amiga, and the heyday of computing in the 1990s.  I find myself absorbed in videos about different cards, adapters and devices (both retro and modern) that I can procure to make the Amiga 500 run like a beast. 

Buying an Amiga 500 Computer in the 1990’s

In 1993 as a fourteen year old kid in Australia, in order to purchase an Amiga 500 that my best friends Jett and Imad had, I took a job delivering pamphlets for five months.  Once I purchased an Amiga 500 from some bloke called Peter in Liverpool, I placed the boxed Amiga 500 on my pushbike’s handlebars, rode to the train station, marveled at the Amiga 500 box on the train ride home, and rode the boxed Amiga 500 on the handlebars back home that day. 

I would spend two more months delivering pamphlets to purchase an A500 Expansion pack with a 512k RAM memory expansion so that I could play games like Flashback and Indiana Jones The Fate of Atlantis.  Now, in 2022, I can afford what was considered a luxury to a fourteen year old kid back in the 1990s.

Completing the Amiga Bucket List in the 2020’s

Last night I ordered two payloads of Commodore Amiga games bundles, 141 x Double-Sided (DS) double-density (DD) 3.5 inch Floppy Disks in two Organiser Trays. 

One bundle had 72 floppy disks with Amiga games. The other bundle had 69 floppy disks.  

The spread of Commodore Amiga games was quite wide. There are some game titles I have owned before but copied over the floppy disk to make way for new games, otherwise I still remain a forty-year-old virgin to those Amiga 500 games.

Toki is one game title in the bundle.  I used to own Toki, but formatted over it to make way for one extra save disk.  It is going to be good to get Toki back. 

The games bundle also has games like Blues Brothers. It’ll be fun to play that again. It has Street Rod.  I used to play Street Rod marathons before the floppy disks were copied over.  Rainbow Island was also a great game. I am looking forward to being engrossed in its fun atmosphere. 

Rodland is another game in the bundle that I used to own.  Rodland featured on one of my Game Tapes recorded between 1993 and 1995.  Now I can get Rod Land back on these floppy disks to experience all over again.

Simpsons is in the games bundle too.  I never had a chance to play the Simpsons game, so I am keen to test out the gameplay.  Altered Beast is on these disks.  I never had a chance to add that to my Amiga 500 games collection in the 1990s.

Giving My Amiga 500 Away In The 1990s

Sadly, with the purchase of a PC on October 15, 1997, I gave my Amiga 500 away to a friend three weeks later.  I bundled together 40 floppy disks to hand him.  Being sentimental, I did not hand over all the floppy disks in my collection.  I kept the roughly 240 floppy disks worth of games, save disks and software titles underneath my bed. 

Those floppy disks remained under the bed for twenty five years, up until I purchased a second-hand Amiga 500 in 2020.

My floppy disk collection from the 1990s is numbered from 1 to 220.  My collection has 38 floppy disk numbers missing. Those Amiga 500 games that I recall though are not in my original games collection coincides nicely with my recollection of how many games I handed over to my friend when I gave up my Amiga 500.  It would be an interesting finale to collect more games over time until I recoup all the Amiga game titles I used to have as a kid.

Building A Complete Games Collection

This game bundle of 141 floppy disks will complement the 368 floppy disks I already own, of which 299 floppy disks hold original games, software, backups and save disks from the game collection I accumulated from 1993 to 1997, 49 floppy disks are from the seller who sold the Amiga 500 to me in 2020, and the other two dozen are PC disks.  When combined, my total floppy disk collection with this new addition will be over 500 floppy disks.

I saw in Facebook groups some Amiga owners have hundreds to a thousand floppy disks and Commodore Amiga game titles in their collection.  That is a solid commitment to retro gaming! 

There is still a bundle of 80 floppy disks from another supplier in Australia that I haven’t purchased.  I have also seen hundreds of other Commodore Amiga game bundles in the United Kingdom, France, and other countries around the world.  I am no longer a financially depraved kid anymore, so I will pinch money elsewhere from my budget and look into more purchases of retro Amiga hardware and software in the coming weeks.

I believe these types of procurements, while pointless to some, will provide a return on investment in the next few months as I play through those games on the A500, record them to DVD, and upload them to YouTube.  I have uploaded longplay gameplay to almost all games in my Amiga 500 games collection. 

The new game bundles will provide a continuation of gameplay. 

In most cases, this will be the first time I would have ever played some of those Amiga 500 game titles in the new game bundles.

The Footy Card Swaps Analogy

One really cool moment when I purchased these 141 Amiga 500 games was how Double Dragon, Indy Heat, Paperboy, and Altered Beast were games in the bundle.  It reminded me of flicks at school.  When we collected footy cards, we swapped cards with other students to collect different cards.  Some of those cards were similar to collector’s edition cards. 

We played flicks against a wall to win more cards. If you play flicks very well, then you win the cards. Normally our most valuable cards remained pocketed.  However, if you did play your collector’s card, it counted as a kind of power up. The exact value escapes me, but a collector’s card could equals 3 flicks instead of 1, a second chance if you lose. 

When I came to these Commodore Amiga game bundles on eBay, the pictures by the seller showed an overhead view of 20 floppy disks laid out on the floor.  The disk labels were visible, and the disks numbered from 1 to 200. I marvelled at the disks presentation.  When I came across Shadow of the Beast, I thought, “Wow!  That’s a collector’s edition item. I need to buy this whole set just because of that game!” 

The Desire To Play Classic Amiga Games

I watch YouTube videos about the Amiga 500.  Lots of kids in the 1990s talked about how Shadow of the Beast was the pinnacle of the Amiga 500 gaming experience.  Shadow of the Beast used a high frame rate, beautiful graphics with up to twelve levels of parallax scrolling, and deployed with a high caliber of technical skill.  All this action was happening on an Amiga 500. 

Shadow of the Beast pushed the Amiga 500’s gaming technology envelope. 

It was an instant classic.  So, naturally, I want to play that game myself.

Ironically, I remember playing Shadow of the Beast once in the 1990s but never liking the way that the main character was drawn in Shadow of the Beast.  The beast character graphics turned me off.  Funnily enough, as a kid I passed on Shadow of the Beast because I didn’t want to play as this ugly alien beast.

Twenty five years later, with so much fanfare piled onto Shadow of the Beast, I’m keen to load up Shadow of the Beast and to play other game titles for the first time once these Amiga 500 floppy disk games bundles arrive to my doorstep.  I am quite pumped.