Nathan Wain Profile



Current favourite       The Settlers: Always a favourite I think. Yep!

                        Fire and Ice: First and probably best platformer

Most loathed            Fears: Great concept turned into a pants game.

Most overrated	        Turrican 2: I just couldn't get addicted

Most underrated         Red Storm Rising: Suspense despite simple graphics

                        Roketz: Puts many commercial titles to shame

Most like to see        Alien Breed 3D:  high resolution edition

                        Hired Guns AGA

Comment
I started as an Amigan late in the game around 1992 with and old Kickstart
1.2 A500, (had been reluctant to leave the awesome world of C64 gaming.)
From there I've had both an A1200 and A4000, each being expanded over
time, as detailed pretty well in my reviews.

So though I missed the earliest days of Amiga games (which may well have
been a good thing), I got to see some of the earlier classics such as Fire
and Ice, Buggy Boy, IK+, and Rick Dangerous. And I was still an Amiga
fanatic at the very end when AB3D2-TKG was rushed out to an ever-shrinking
market. Which also meant I got to see real gems like Virtual Karting,
Worms: The Directors Cut, JETPilot, and Virtual Grand Prix. All of which
the authors had obviously put a huge amount of effort into, despite there
being such a small market left to enjoy them.

In that time I have been amazed by the sheer addictiveness of "The
Settlers", (which still takes my time, even today), the adrenaline-pumping
speed of Uridium 2, the amazing virtual 'ecosystem' created in the ageing
Virus, and the frenetic intellectual workout that is joining atoms in
Atomino.

Though I have never been particularly good at them, I have always loved
flight, and other simulations. From my first look at an A2000 running F-18
Interceptor (which just blew my mind, by the way), to a long addiction to
ThunderHawk, which I have bought and played to completion more than once.
Red Storm Rising came out of nowhere and grabbed my by the
short-and-curly's for many months with an addictiveness I have seldom
known. And Fighter Duel Pro 2 equally suprised me with its cunning
simplicity and amazing physics engine that made me realise that World War
2 era dogfighting is the purest form of pleasure. Then Indianapolis 500
amazed me at the skill and concentration required to coexist on a little
oval track with twenty other cars all racing for the chequered flag.

And finally, very late in the game came a couple of gems in the form of
JETPilot, truly a labour of love, a game I never mastered, but always
appreciated as the most accurate Jet simulator the Amiga will ever know;
and its equivalent in Formula 1 racing: Virtual Grand Prix, which threw
textured polygons around the screen quicker than I ever thought possible.
And then showed me that every racing game I had played in the past was a
computer assisted dreamland. A steering wheel and 110% concentration is
what's required to be finishing amongst the winners here.

Arcade-style games have also been my other main love. From the strange mix
of space-ship racing and combat that is Roketz, to the sheer brilliance of
execution that made The Chaos Engine one of the all time best ever games I
could never quite categorize. Simple old-school stuff like Top Hat Willy
and remarkable reinventions in the form of Deluxe Pacman, Deluxe Galaga,
Monsters of Terror, and Star Defender, kept me interested in the cool
things to download off Aminet.

I could probably go on for ages about the games that I thought made the
Amiga great: Uridium 2, Alien Breed 3D, Lemmings, Stunt Car Racer,
Masterblaster, UFO: Enemy Unknown, Super Stardust, Shadow Fighter,
Zeewolf - the list goes on and on, but you'll probably be able to tell
better through my reviews, where I waffle enough already.


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