After the short-lived rise to fame and quick fall from grace, the Amiga series of computers revolutionized how graphics could be produced on a computer. The Video Toaster and other video cards for the Amiga showed the complexity and quality of early computer graphics, even if they were somewhat crude in the beginning. However, since the Amiga "died," a short while later, little attention has been given to it. Recently, Amiga was bought by Gateway 2000 and the Amiga platform seems to be on course for a revival.

Reviving a seemingly "dead" platform is a daunting task. This time around, the Amiga needs something that other platforms don't have or don't support well enough. Many of today's PCs are so well-equipped, that they are able to deal with the demanding tasks of the most sophisticated graphics applications. The king of graphics computing is the Silicon Graphics series, which continue to reign. With all of this competition, what does the Amiga have to offer? With Silicon Graphics and PCs powering the need for graphics workstations, the Amiga is left with its host of graphics capabilities, unused.

Gateway seems to see this dilemma, and has decided to take actions that may be able to resurrect the Amiga, and, simultaneously be able to compete with current "gaming workstations." Utilizing all of the Amiga's graphics capabilities and applying them to computer games, the Amiga may just be able to compete. Thus far, the Amiga has little more going for it than Gateway's support and its graphics capabilities. Now, the Amiga needs a marketable product -- big names in the gaming industry -- to publish titles for the Amiga.

The first of many games to debut on the Amiga platform is Myst. Now, we all may say that Myst itself is a "dead" title, but die-hard fans still exist. Additionally, many users partial to the Amiga haven't ever played Myst. With this in mind, the developers went to work, and the final product is a milestone for the Amiga, which may set examples for future games.

Initially, at the surface, Myst for the Amiga may seem exactly like its counterpart for the PC. However, deeper investigation shows how much improved the Amiga version really is. Textures seem to pop off the screen with realism and the scenes really do have a surreal "feeling." The gameplay is immersive, and the "new" features of games like Quake 2 (which feature directional lighting) puts all those others "cutting edge" games to shame.

All in all, the Amiga seems to be the promising platform for any new game. With Gateway and titles like Myst supporting the Amiga, it is only a matter of time before other great games debut on this platform. Combined with the awesome graphics capabilities of the Amiga, anything is possible.

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