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10 OF THE MOST ICONIC CD-ROM RELEASES EVER

18/6/2018

23 Comments

 
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Remember when games first started arriving on CDs? Remember how that was going to be the future, and how they said that one day everything would one day be coming out on CD; movies, food, hats... even horseys?

Well, CD-ROM was the future... but before we got to that future we had to endure the awfulness of the first wave or two of CD-ROM games. You know: like having to walk through a carpark full of tramp manure before you can reach Lidl.

You can't really blame the developers of the era. It's not their fault that they were all idiots who didn't really stop to think that games could be made better by using the huge storage potential of CD. They just thought it meant they could do video, and saw it as an opportunity to reinvent the wheel. Indeed, this is the point at which "cinematic" cut-scenes were born, for better or worse, and all game developers began thinking they could be Hollywood directors.

It's telling, however, that while many of the earliest video games from the 1980s have stood the test of time, the vast majority of those early CD-ROM games... have not.

​Here are 10 that made the biggest stink at the time.
MYST
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Myst was pretty much ubiquitous on CD-ROM systems. Originally developed for the Mac as a rare "game for adults" - before being ported to almost anything with a CD drive in it - Myst got around the then-slow speeds of CD drives by breaking the game's environment up into a series of what were, essentially, pre-rendered still images.

It went out of its way to make its worlds "Myst-erious", with a backstory that was revealed in layers - and, of course, some people just lap that shit up.

Being charitable, it was quite unlike anything else at the time, and, consequently, a massive hit. Befuddled critics gagged on the hyperbole pill, and described it as "an artistic masterwork" and "a new standard". It may have been from certain perspectives, but it was also very, very, very slow and boring. 

Just because something's new and never-before-seen and boring... it doesn't mean it's good. I mean, based upon the reception which greeted Myst, these people would've heralded the invention of a new dog breed with a tap in its stomach which dispensed potassium.

​Furthermore, what does that even mean?!
THE 7th GUEST
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The 7th Guest? The Pevventh Vest more like!!!!!

Virgin Interactive's The 7th Guest was heralded as a new dawn in interactive entertainment, mixing live-action actors with pre-rendered 3D backdrops.

Certainly, the hype helped shift a lot of CD-ROM drives, and plenty of people were dazzled by the new technology. Even Bill Gates called it "the new standard in interactive entertainment", albeit probably because he thought it'd help him sell more copies of Windows 95. 

Many of us, though, felt that The 7th Guest was barely interactive, and - thus - barely a game. Unfortunate for Virgin, by the time its sequel was released in 1995 - two years later - most people had wised up; it sold around a quarter of what its predecessor managed. As a result, Virgin cancelled plans for a second big-budget sequel: The 13th Ponce.
NIGHT TRAP
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Sega's legendary Mega-CD "horror" game is best remembered for all the wrong reasons. A tame, tepid, B-movie nonsense wrapped up in some very shallow gameplay, it was heavily focused upon during a US Senate hearing into video game violence.

Because it featured some glamorous young women wearing wearing camisoles, who were occasionally abducted by low-budget "aliens", its ultimate legacy was in leading to the creation of the Entertainment Rating Software Board - or "E.B.R.V.F.K.".
STAR WARS: REBEL ASSAULT
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Arriving some 10 years after Return of the Jedi, Rebel Assault was a big deal for Star Wars fans; it featured the first new Star Wars footage for some considerable time.

Admittedly, all of the original Rebel Assault was ugly, pre-rendered, CGI - making it look as if the Star Wars universe had suddenly become populated by wax figures. The sequel did at least feature real actors against a pre-rendered backdrop - but the gameplay on both followed an archetypical on-rails shooter format, and was depressingly short-lived.
ENCARTA 95
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"Encarta?"

"No, she went of her own accord!!!!!!"


In some respects, Microsoft's Encarta - an interactive encyclopaedia thing - did a better job of showcasing the potential of CD-ROM than any "interactive" movie. Featuring images, videos and sound, Encarta also included a handful of mini trivia games.

​Though it was made defunct by the Internet, Microsoft continued to publish Encarta updates until 2009 - by which point, the encyclopaedia was straining beneath the weight of over 62,000 entries.
BURN:CYCLE
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A lot of the CD-i's library was comprised of limp edutainment nonsense, but - inevitably - a big chunk of it was made up of terrible adventure games that mixed pre-rendered awfulness with real actors. Burn:Cycle was one of the more high-profile examples of this most revolting of genres.

A bunch of tiresome puzzles dressed up as a cyberpunk-y load of old guff, it's notable that - despite being utterly awful - Burn:Cycle is considered as one of the better CD-i games. Though that's a bit like pointing out a open sore on a leper's buttocks, and insisting it's slightly nicer than all the others.
SEWER SHARK
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Another Mega-CD release from Sega, Sewer Shark was yet another example of that other ubiquitous CD-ROM genre; the on-rails shoot 'em up.

Though the plot was some post-apocalyptic rubbish about flying through sewers to shoot at mutants, it was reviewed positively at the time.

This was despite requiring the player to do little more than move a crosshair around the tiny play window, and press fire from time to time. You can have a similar sort of experience by moving a cursor around a laptop screen, and clicking the mouse button to open random files.
FREDDI FISH
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The surprisingly successful Freddi Fish series was comprised of five none-more-basic point-and-click adventures aimed at children. Over 2.5 million Freddi Fish games were sold, and even spun off into a range of books.

Humungous, the company which released Freddi Fish, was founded by LucasArts legend Ron Gilbert and his colleague Shelley Day. Other edutainment releases from Humungous included Putt-Putt, Spy Fox, and the you-wouldn't-get-away-with-that-these-days Fatty Bear.  

Interestingly, I took my children to the UK launch of Humungous at London Zoo. Along with assorted other journos and their squealing offspring, we were funnelled into a conference room to meet then-important TV presenter Shauna Lowry.

​Clearly, poor Shauna hadn't been briefed on her role at the event, and was left to fend for herself. In lieu of having a script, agenda, or any representatives of Humungous or its PR company to help her out, she spent the entire event trying to keep a crowd of unruly children entertained. 
STAR WARS: BEHIND THE MAGIC
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This was more like it. Released in an era before DVD special features were a thing, Behind The Magic was made up of two discs full of Star Wars deleted scenes, raw footage, an encyclopaedia of characters, planets and vehicles, and a full Star Wars universe timeline.

​Notably, some of the footage included on the discs has never shown up on any Star Wars DVD release, and thus... Behind The Magic has become a sought-after collector's item (current Buy It Now price on eBay? £4.79).
MAKE MY VIDEO
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Sega's Make My Video series allowed players to remix videos by the three biggest musical acts of the day; INXS, Kriss Kross, and Marky Mark And The Funky Bunch.

It was a reasonable idea saddled with terrible execution - all the video editing had to happen live as the existing videos for the songs played out. They proved to be an enormous financial disaster for Sega, and - as launch titles - ensured the Mega-CD got off to the most terrible start imaginable.
23 Comments
John Veness
18/6/2018 10:33:04 am

I love that Shauna Lowry anecdote! What was Humongous thinking?

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S Hawke
18/6/2018 10:41:46 am

I've been trying to remember of a nineties CD-Rom game where you were flying around the insides of a giant alien monster thing. My mate at school was well pleased with this game whatever it was called, but it all seemed a bit boring once you got past the graphics.

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Steve
18/6/2018 10:52:51 am

Microcosm?

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John
18/6/2018 10:57:10 am

Do you mean Microcosm? That’s sounds similar to what you’re describing only it was set in a human body if memory serves a la the movie Inner Space.

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S Hawke
18/6/2018 11:24:48 am

Yeah it was Microcosm. I didn't realise it was supposed to be in a human body though. That explains why I couldn't find out what the name was on Google

Col. Asdasd
18/6/2018 10:47:10 am

Ah, Encarta. AKA how an entire generation half-arsed their homework before Wikipedia came along.

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Col. Asdasd
18/6/2018 11:04:21 am

I never knew Myst was a Mac game. Explains why it's so self-serious and dull.

A game that could fit on this list: Virtual Springfield. Well, not so much a game as a walking simulator-eqsue multimedia experience. There apparently was some traditional point-and-click puzzling you could engage in, but it was so obscure most people who owned it didn't even realise it was there.

That Freddi the Fish artwork is undeniably beautiful for something so simple-looking. The composition is so clean and readable, the colours and sprites so charming. You can tell straight away that there's some talent behind it.

I was a kid for brief this window in PC gaming history, post-SVGA and pre-3D ubiquity, where you had a lot of sprite-based art in games. Where it differed from consoles was that PC monitors had a lot more real estate than TVs once you reached resolutions of 800x600 and higher.

So when software developers could get their hands on talented artists - not difficult when the supply of aspiring artists has historically always been greater than the demand - the result was lots of programs with uniquely beautiful, high-fidelity, "pixel art +" visuals: not just games, but all sorts of other applications aimed at youngsters would also feature bright and beautiful illustrations and animations.

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Spiney O’Sullivan
18/6/2018 08:12:29 pm

Virtual Springfield was one of the few PC games that owned, and I remember it fondly. Frankly I still think it’s about as good as Simpsons games ever got (if you can call it a game).

Steve
18/6/2018 10:54:43 am

Anyone remember Psycho Killer for the CDTV? Surely the product of a couple of coders with a camcorder spending an hour in the woods, we used to demo the CDTV with it, make sales because of the "real actors" and then one day I sat down and played it properly and completed the whole game in ten minutes.

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Jay
18/6/2018 11:17:41 am

Psycho Killer? Qu'est-ce que c'est?

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Old Ben K-Nobby
18/6/2018 07:02:02 pm

And right there, Jay wins today's round of The Internets

David W
18/6/2018 11:57:06 am

Psycho Killer is endearingly rubbish. The mundane locations, grainy colours, jerky first-person perspective, and weird acting create an unsettling atmosphere, despite much unintentional hilarity.

It was a rip-off, £29.99 for a student film, yet more characterful than most mid-budget sub-Hollywood CD jobbies.

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Wayne
18/6/2018 06:18:17 pm

"Eat my Reeboks, freak face!"

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RichardM
18/6/2018 10:58:20 am

Yussss. I like the aesthetic of the slightly later CD-ROM games, mostly the earlier C&C games: Einstein going back in time to kill Hitler must be the apex of the genre.

Completely forgot about that game in Encarta. What a curious thing... There was a boy at school called Ben Carter, too, who was smart and into computers and stuff: people called him Bencarta. What a time to be alive.

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David W
18/6/2018 12:17:10 pm

I love how the first C&C even made the installation screen part of the experience.

Confusingly, a different C&C, C+C Music Factory, featured in the Make My Video series. Though you probably couldn't make pop videos starring Einstein and Hitler with it.

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Alastair
18/6/2018 12:50:24 pm

I remember both those Star Wars discs from the LucasArts collection, played the hell out of TIE Fighter and put Rebel Assaults 1 & 2 carefully off to one side.

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IT'S ALL SO WRETCHED link
18/6/2018 05:43:11 pm

When I look back on lists like this, I feel a pang for my lost youth, stupid old me who YEARNED for more and more because the technology wasn't there yet, was very expensive, yet showed a lot of promise.

I used to think those "six feet of CD-ROM" shovel ware collections were really something.

And now, I'm old.

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Treacle
18/6/2018 07:59:08 pm

I spent far too long on Behind the Magic. After doing the tour of the Millennium Falcon, trying the weapons test on the unfortunate Storm Trooper and watching the Princess Leia fashion show I remember settling down with a couple of equally nerdy mates to tackle the 300 trivia questions on the two discs. Our belief that we'd breeze through quickly vanished as it became apparent they were based on obscure expanded universe trivia, e.g. What was the name of Nien Nunb's sister? Who built the engines of the Star Destroyer Avenger? And, what was Lobot's favourite flavour of crisps?

The undubbed footage of the cantina scene was fantastic though, as were the deleted scenes of Luke on Tatooine.

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Lobot
18/6/2018 08:14:44 pm

It’s Smokey Bantha flavoured Kessel Chips, if anyone was wondering.

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Konstantinos
18/6/2018 09:43:03 pm

Does anyone remember the amazing classic Quest for Fame, featuring Aerosmith? Its was not very good but I enjoyed the novelty as a kid. You could call it a proto guitar hero game if you were a very generous and forgiving person.

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Fatconan
19/6/2018 01:36:42 pm

I remember having a particularly awful example in my collection when I was younger: "Creature Shock". I seem to remember it being used as the game kids would play over the phone on shows like "Going Live" for a bit.

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Marro
19/6/2018 08:09:55 pm

Yes - you controlled your character by swearing at Five Star.

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Gaming Mill link
19/6/2018 10:28:17 pm

My Dead Dad bought me a Mac of some sort during the 'advent' of seedy-Ron's. Of particular note of the bundled disks was the abismal In Bred With Rednex (or whatever it was called)...oh, and the boring Myst. There was some encyclopedia included too which was okay for the time. Oh, and some shite game called the Deadalus Encounter (I think) that my much younger Smoking Brother seemed to really enjoy. That Mac came with an HDD that could store less than a full CD.

Not long after Full Throttle and Pro Pinball: The Web came out - both games I still enjoy today but I suspect most of the data was used for the soundtracks.

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