Recorded Amiga Games

Recorded Amiga Games is the premier source for Amiga game speedrun, longplay and high score movies, and not just because it's the only one in existence.

The site serves to host video captures of exemplary gaming sessions immortalised by way of WinUAE's output feature. All genres are represented and the movies are available as either direct or BitTorrent downloads.

If using cheat codes and trainers to reveal all a game has to offer seems too much like hard work, this is the perfect compromise. Please note that I sound sarcastic only because the dial on my crank-o-metre is stuck in the 'overkill' position. Honestly I'm a big fan of this project. I love kicking back with a mug of coffee and watching far superior gamers than I ever was making mincemeat of the end-of-level baddies who floored me way back when.

I've always been curious about what strange worlds and wacky inhabitants await beyond these merciless critters and how the loose ends will be tied up in the finale. I know I'll never have the patience, time or dexterity to plod through to the end of all these games myself so this is the next best thing.

I've even found myself checking out some of the games I thought were totally overrated just to see if they miraculously became more entertaining after advancing past the stage where I would typically be vaporised, beheaded or otherwise dispatched. They didn't actually (especially in the case of the Shadow of the Beast series), but at least now I know I wasn't missing out on anything.

In particular I was looking forward to savouring the 'closing curtains' sequences of many games for the first time. I was genuinely taken aback by just how feeble many of them are - even some of the ones annexed to the most highly acclaimed titles. The developers must have reasoned that since so few people will cross the finishing line, it's not worth the trouble of applying the same rigorous quality control standards to this portion of their work. Either that or they simply got bored or ran out of steam.

Whatever the reason, flashing a vanilla 'The End' message on screen for a nano second before fading to black somehow doesn't strike me as an appropriate reward for spending countless hours plugging away at the same game into the wee small hours of the night. It's like getting to the final page of Lord of the Rings and reading, "...and then Frodo woke up - it had all been a dream".

I can appreciate the "journey, not the destination" approach to most aspects of life, but surely the budget would have stretched to a couple of party poppers and some silly string.