Atari vs. Amiga

Ask computer users from that era which software defined it, and the answer would probably be Turrican II. For years it set the standard for 16-bit action games, with the same appeal to Amiga owners that Sonic had for Sega fans and Mario for Nintendo players. This owed as much to Manfred Trenz’s game and level design, developed alongside the Commodore 64 version, as to Factor 5’s accomplished implementation, which opened the international software industry to the Cologne team. Chris Hülsbeck’s soundtrack also secured the game’s place in Amiga history. The Amiga’s Paula custom chip gave it audio capabilities that other computers could not match for years, including a much wider range of musical sounds. Commodore 64 music, and 8-bit music more generally, retains recognisable sonic characteristics even when compositions differ greatly in style. The Amiga, by contrast, has no single immediately identifiable sound. Technology had reached a point where artistic expression depended less on the medium. The first CDs released during this period reflected a new recognition of computer musicians as artists rather than merely providers of background sound, no longer confined to the computer itself. Scene stars such as Jochen Hippel, mainly active on the Atari ST, and Hülsbeck released enhanced studio versions of their best work. Conversely, chart hits were licensed for games including Xenon 2 – Megablast (Bitmap Brothers, 1989, music by Bomb The Bass) and Ooops Up (Demonware, 1990, music by Snap). Amiga sound was surpassed only when CD-ROMs made CD-quality music available, around 1993, roughly six years after the Amiga’s debut: an impressive lifespan for unchanged hardware.

For musicians, the Atari ST’s decisive advantage was its built-in MIDI interface. With software such as Cubase, it became an affordable and remarkably intuitive studio tool from 1989. In games, however, it lagged noticeably behind the Amiga. Turrican II provides a useful comparison because Factor 5 developed both 16-bit versions in-house. The team was regarded by press and fans as a leader in 16-bit action games and could be expected to get the best from both machines. Sprites and tiles were transferred to the ST at a 1:1 scale, but other graphics were weaker. For example, the Amiga’s Copper effects for the first world’s backgrounds were unavailable. The visible play area was only about 70% of that in the Amiga version. Many sound effects were absent, musical arrangements were simpler and instruments sounded less organic. The exception was the title music, largely reproduced on the ST, apparently using samples.

The comparison between Amiga and Atari ST is so interesting because it not only shows the technical possibilities of the two computers, but also illuminates a piece of player culture of this time. One cannot talk about 16-bit computers without touching on the rivalry between Atari and Amiga owners, which seems absurd today. An important source for this are the game magazines — especially the ASM — whose letters pages were a forum for discussions held over months, on this subject too.

Two other peculiarities of the 16-bit era can be found in Turrican II: the game already had a legendary reputation, which it could only have had because the interest in computer games had reached a critical mass that created its own culture, with its own magazines, fairs and a thriving, fast-paced market for new games (this classification is purely temporal and concerned not only 16-bit but also 8-bit computers). On the other hand, the sales figures of Turrican II show that large parts of users used pirated copies. The CPC version, for example, was sold in the three-digit range, according to Factor 5. The figures for the 16-bit versions will have been much better, but may have been below expectations. For this reason, Factor 5 wanted to develop Turrican 3 only for the Sega Mega Drive and produced an Amiga version only as a concession to the fans – which in turn underlines the relevance of the player culture.

Other 16-bit computers besides the Amiga and Atari ST (such as Archimedes or Sinclair QL) were marginal phenomena in Germany and occupy less space.

The fact that the hall also contains 8-bit latecomers in the middle of the 1980s fits well into the picture, since much of what concerns game culture is not exclusively limited to the 16-bit computers, but also transferred to the 8-bit computers.