Hello and welcome! My name is Katosepe and I’ll be your host for today’s Video Game of the Day.
When we talk about retro games, people often jump to console games like those from the NES or the Atari 2600. Sometimes, folks will talk about interesting DOS games as well but it seems that the Commodore Amiga rarely gets any love or attention. Today’s game is one of my personal favorites from the Amiga’s library. Today’s game is The Chaos Engine. Developed by The Bitmap Brothers and released on the Amiga in 1993.
The Chaos Engine takes place in a steampunk England where the Royal Society has gotten their hands on futuristic technology. Baron Fortescue has created a grand invention known as The Chaos Engine but it has gone out of control, creating beasts and deadly robots across England. People have fled and England becomes a quarantined nation. Players pick two mercenaries who agree to go into the quarantined zone in hopes of finding treasure and possibly stopping The Chaos Engine and saving England.
The Chaos Engine plays as a top-down shooter. While one player can play with an AI controlled companion, The Chaos Engine is designed with two players in mind, each controlling one of the mercenaries. Each level has players explore an area with plenty of secrets and enemies. Shooting nodes will open doors to allow players to continue forward. As levels are completed, players collect money and can then use that money to upgrade your characters stats such as unlocking new abilities, increasing strength or HP, or buying items for later use. There are six different characters to choose from at the start, each with different starting stats and potential abilities.
The Chaos Engine’s sales figures are unknown but it was critically well regarded and continues to be on lists of best Amiga games to this day. The game was ported to many different platforms including the Sega Mega Drive, the Super Nintendo, the CD32, and several more, although in the US, some versions of the game are renamed Soldier of Fortune. The game was remastered in 2013 as well which converts the game to widescreen but retains the original gameplay, graphics and sound. This version also allows for online play through Steam.
The Chaos Engine received a sequel in 1996 titled The Chaos Engine 2 but this game uses a very different gameplay style, turning the series to a competitive multiplayer deathmatch.
Thank you so much for listening and a big thank you to this week’s returning sponsor, Old School Gamer Magazine! If you follow me on Twitter @vg_oftheday, you’ve probably heard me talk about how much I love the game Myst so I was ecstatic when I saw my copy of Old School Gamer Magazine in the mail and it has a full three pages dedicated to the all-time classic. So if you want to hear more about Myst or check out their reviews and retrospectives, you can get a digital subscription absolutely free sent straight to your email by going to oldschoolgamer.com/day. That’s oldschoolgamer.com/day. Don’t forget to check back here tomorrow for another Video Game of the Day.
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Video Game of the Day 