The CD-ROM Revolution

[parker311]

CD-ROM was, to the entertainment industry, the equivalent of an ant getting hit by a violent supernova. It changed everything, and is now a sadly underrated, yet overused medium. CDs were, at first, simply digital music. Remember how they were packaged like they were events unto themselves (I suppose some of them were)? CDs came in those long, artsy boxes that had the album artwork expanded. They were even longer and more wasteful than today's DVD boxes. As a matter of fact, musician David Byrne once made it so that his album artwork was labeled "This is Garbage” on the longbox in protest of what he thought was wasteful packaging. It was, but I'll admit that for the sake of memories, I've had my eye on a copy of U2's "The Unforgettable Fire" on ebay, still in it's original longbox, for some time.

CD's were an amazing new digital medium. They had at least twice the fidelity of LPs (likely much more, although audiophiles still knock them as not producing that nostalgic pop and crackle sound, something I uderstand nad sympathize with) and no rewinding or strategic setting of the needle. Cassettes didn't dissappear overnight, but they got dirt cheap and were rendered obsolete almost overnight (or at least until CDs became cheaper). I remember my older brother buying his new stereo system somewhere around 1990 or 1991. We listened to Queen's "We Will Rock You" and "We Are The Champions" all night, and he learned to put The Steve Miller Band's "The Joker" on repeat ad nauseum. This was new power, and the discs looked so . . . . . silvery, so shiny . . . so advanced. This was emphasized in ads for CD players, stereos, and especially in Sega CD ads in which seemingly label-less discs were shown peeking their heads out of the CD unit, and this shiny-ness was a selling point unto itself. Meanwhile, my brother Dan’s stereo system, still probably a decent system if it still worked, was the size of a dryer in the amount of space it and its massive speakers took up. Amazing.

On came CD-Roms. PC Games like The 7th Guest, Myst, the Doom series, and the Journeyman Project looked to the future. Videogame systems began to come out taking advantage of the medium as games were, for the first time, put on CD. Theses systems inlcuded the FM Towns and FM Towns Marty, the Turbo CD (PC-Engine CD in Japan), the Sega CD, the 3DO systems, and the CD-i systems, among other early entries. Let's not, of course, forget the mighty PC- CD-Rom drives that cost and arm and a leg and were, among my friends and I, spoken of in hushed circles. Even non-CD games began, like the TurboGrafx-16 games, to be packaged in ways that resembled CDs.

Early CD-ROM games weren't as impressive as people might have expected, but many still packed a punch, compared to the older games. The initial benifits, since most systems were still only 8- or 16-bit, came not in advanced 3D graphics so much as in longer length of games, more colors onscreen, full-motion video and animation, and sometimes ever so slightly crisper graphics, the result of a digital medium and one that could hold many times the amount of data of a cartridge, cassette, chip, or floppy disk could.

Full-motion video, in itself, became a revolution, although one whose underlying potential was put to rest mostly by lack of technology and lack of vision in many cases. The quality of many of these titles was horrible, but it would be hyperbole to deny that, for a brief, shining moment in the early nineties, the idea of “interactive cinema” was considered the wave of the future. Perhaps it would have been more so if the quality control had been better. Even so, the idea of controlling a movie only by pushing specific buttons at JUST the right time (reminicent of Dragon's Lair and Space Ace in the arcades on laserdisc, also enjoying a resurrection on the home market thanks to the storage power of CD) turned off many frustratted gamers not long after the initial novelty of the FMV visuals and REAL digitized speech wore off.

I remember reading about the gasps and the massive impressions felt and heard during a demonstration Sega gave for its new CD game "Sewer Shark" on Sega CD just before their mighty system hit the market. There really was excitement about all this. I also remember hanging out at a local game store early on, hearing the guys working there talking about this RPG that “talked” (it had real voices). I can’t remember which one it was, but, it was either Lunar on Sega CD or Ys Books I and II on the Turbo CD (Ys was the first ot have voices).

On the PC-CD-rom market, there was the groundbreaking 7th Guest, a still-decent game (although very dated) that combined advanced, crisp 3D visuals (albeit pre-rendered) with full-motion video of real actors and speech. This was revolutionary. The idea of real people coming from a videogame machine in full-motion (or at least at 24 frames/second) was unheard of. Sure, the Amiga computers of the late 80s and early 90s had animation equivalent to today's animated gifs showing motion in games like Crimewave, and Mortal Kombat has digitized actors, but this was FILM we were talking about. Videogames had attained the sensation of watching a movie, but your were in CONTROL . . . . . sort of. The HIGHLY controversial "Night Trap" came and sunk just about everybody's ship. The false statements made by politicians like our beloved pariah Joseph Lieberman and Tipper Gore about the action in the game caused its parent company, Digital Pictures (then headed by the affable Tom Zito, now hard at work as a photographer with his own studio) to go on the bliacklists of just about every middle class parent in America who could actually afford the game for their kids. Suddenly, parents were frightened with the new power game makers had in showing explicit content to their children with the power of CD-ROM. Digital Pictures, and FMV in general, limped along into the mid 90's before losing favor quickly with gamers as new systems like the Playstation and Sega Saturn hit the market and FMV slowly became even more passe. The new systems had impressive "photorealistic graphics" and 3D polygons, but you were in control again. Still, "Night Trap" is a cult favorite (albeit a forgotten game), and it's not a bad game in and of itself. It is often (mistakenly) cited as the first game to use FMV, but it was one of the earliest.

CD technology has gone though many iterations up until now. Soon after it began to dominate the audio market, its inventor, Phillips, attempted to create a CD that would do for video what CD had done for sound. Thus, they unveiled the CD-i (or CD-interactive). This flopped big time, as did their system for playing these, the Phillips CD-i. Although slipping under the radar, one game in particular, “Voyeur,” gained notoriety for its adult nature and unique presentation and was banned in some countries, apart from being considered the CD-is showcase piece. It should be noted, however, that the CD-i format was a triumph of vision, and that were wasn't just one CD-i player. As with the 3DO, the CD-i was a technology (a medium) that could be licensed by multiple companies and systems, and not just one console. There were even video-only and portable CD-is that functioned more like VCRs or early DVD players. Big budget films saw release on CD-i, as they did earlier with laserdisc.

CDs have also embraced audio mediums such as SACD Audio, redbook (the original format), DCC audio (on 24 carrot gold discs), and DVD audio, among others.

In the video and video game front, CDs have become everything to GD-ROMS (for Sega's Dreamcast and NAOMI arcade boards), DVDs, minidiscs, miniDVDs (also used on the Nintendo Gamecube platform), CD+G, Blue-Ray (used by PS3 and supposedly scratch-proof), HD-DVD (the loser in the HD DVD battle), CD-Rs (and DVD-Rs and RWs), UMDs (Sony's PSP), Photo CDs, HVD, Laserdiscs, SVCD, Video CDs . . . the list goes on and on.

In choosing my favorites of the massive CD games medium, I'll admit I have a bias to earlier games. In my defense, there is a reason for this. Necessity is the mother of invention. Because of the fact that the medium (the disc) was more "advanced" than the systems of the time (Sega CD and Turbo CD, MS-Dos, etc.) the games became lengthier in lieu of emphasis on making incredible graphics, putting emphasis on the gameplay and the 2d beauty of the graphics instead. This resulted in games of higher quality when quality control and vision shined through (which, in the early days rarely happened because of crappy quality control and because of the fact that progammers were just learning how to program for the massive new medium). The games became lengthier, prettier, and the soundtracks became scored by live musicians in studio recordings, often with full orchestral treatments. While not a real game music fan, it is always great to play a good CD-rom game with high quality music. I remember, for example, recently reading a blog in which a player commented that he got a copy of Beyond Shadowgate for the Turbo Duo system a week after buying the universally acclaimed Super Mario 64, and thought Shadowgate was the best game he’d ever played. Thus, I choose games that stretched the then known capabilities of the medium. Games with “easter eggs” and lots of extras. Games that took existing franchises and injected new modes of play into them to take advantage of increased storage capacity. Games with massive sprites and beautiful 2D rendering. Games with fully-scored soundtracks. Games with replay value. Games with multiple endings. Games with crisper graphics. And much more.

An example of this, and one of my favorites: Sonic CD. When I was a kid, I would have died for that game. When I got it on Christmas day at age 13, I told my family (and was fully convinced) that the rest of my life lay in that shiny box. I had played it at the store (Ventura's Hi-Tech Center) on a massive TV and had caused my mom the trouble of having to rent it, along with a huge suitcase containing a Sega CD. The graphics just looked CRISPER (and it says so on the back of the box, right?). There weren't just a few bad guys. There were hundreds, in all different, crisp colors. When warping to thwe past, they looked shiny and new. When going into the future, they looked old and malfunctioned. The BOSS encounters were massive affairs and were far more elaborate than the old cartridge games. The backgrounds were crystalline and smooth, and the frame-rate, even when moving at light speed, seemed a consistent 60 FPS (even though it really wasn't.) time warping and added gameplay modes, along with a nice animated intro featuring FMV, sweetened the deal. Is it any surprise that in spite of all the more accessible and common cartridge classics, and despite the new 3D graphics, that this Sonic is most often voted the best of all of them? It is a HUGE game! Same with Twisted Metal 2. I remember telling my friends they filled that disc up to the maximum limit of storage space. So many easter eggs!

Get my point?

Then without further adieu: These, in my humble opinion, are the greatest works of gaming art ever committed to CD-ROM, at least in the early days:

(AHEM)

Sonic CD - Sega CD

Contra: Shattered Soldier - PS2

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night – PSX

Full Throttle – PC CD-rom

Dracula X: Chi no Rondo - Turbo Super CD

Snatcher - Sega CD

Alundra - PSX

Lunar: The Silver Star - Sega CD

Policenauts – NEC PC-9821

Darkseed – PC CD-rom

Star Control II – 3DO

Metal Gear Solid – PSX

Final Fantasy VII – PSX

Grandia 2 – Dreamcast

Call of Cthulu: Dark Corners of the Earth – PC CD-rom

Quake 4 – PC DVD

Rebel Assault – PC CD-rom

Diablo – PC CD-rom

Warcraft 2 – PC CD-rom

Beyond Shadowgate – Turbo Super CD

Silent Hill (series) – PSX, PS2, others

Doom II - PC-CDROM

Vagrant Story – PSX

Lunar 2: Eternal Blue – Sega CD

Einhander – PSX

Dark Forces – PC CD-rom

Twisted Metal 2 - PSX

Rayman - PSX

Doom 3 – PC DVD

Resident Evil - PSX

Quake - PC

Quake 2 - PC-CDROM

R-Type - Turbo CD

Gradius 2: Gofer's Ambition - Turbo CD

Ys Books I and II - Turbo CD

Metroid Prime - Gcube

Tie Fighter-X-Wing – PC CD-rom

There are many more, and I'll update this list as it gets bigger and I try more of these oldies.

[theknod]

give neverhood a shot
definitely the best pc game on cd i can think of

also the residents made a few cd roms
ths gingerbread man gives an experience one will not soon forget

[portnoyd]

At the very least, please stop posting all of your blog articles until there has even been a chance to discuss the first one.

[cityside75]

How in the world did Quake 4 make the list?

[Enigmus]

There is an obvious lack of Myst here.

It may be boring, but the landscape is amazing.

[Oldskool]

I personally hate CD technology. At one point in time, in the early 90's I liked it because of what it brought to the table. Massive games, digitized video, cd-quality sound, etc etc. But now, all these can be done without the need for CD technology. Things I *HATE* about CD's are the unreliability. Moving parts always fail eventually, and scratches happen. All the older great CD consoles are now starting to fail because the lasers are wearing out, or the drive motors are wearing out, etc etc. Then there's the problem of having to get games re-surfaced because of some idiot that didn't know how to take care of it before.

Personally, I'd like to see everything go back to carts and/or flash memory. Hell even though I am opposed to the whole DLC thing, at least it will be reliable since it's all run off the HD and/or flash memory.

Nintendo had it right with the N64 and DS. Cart/Flash media is the best way to go for games. Sure it cost an arm and a leg to produce an N64 game, but these days you can surely create a blue-ray quality game and place it on the drive or flash media.

Problem is, anything but CD's cut into their bottom line. It costs then 10 cents to press a CD, so the other $59.89 is pure profit.

If they had to spend $5 to make a cart or flash based games, it would be the end of the world.

It all boils down to money. CD technology is not the best there is anymore. Optical media is very unreliable and showing it's age.

I see a future where everything is flash based.

[Callin]

There is an obvious lack of Myst here.

It may be boring, but the landscape is amazing.
My thoughts exactly. Mentioned in the article but not included in the list at the end...?

[Singularity]

Problem is, anything but CD's cut into their bottom line. It costs then 10 cents to press a CD, so the other $59.89 is pure profit.


Agree on a lot you're saying about cd's. But surely the retail price of a game does not cover just the cost of the reproduction media. Those $60 include coverage for dev cost, marketing, distribution, etc. And of course a margin for profit for the publisher.

Any medium has it's flaws. Cartridge contact/pcb's wear out, etc.
They have more longevity than cd's , I agree. CD rot is also something of a concern (I've had priceless music cd's suffering from this and it's NO fun).
DVD's as well... great medium , I'm a crazy DVD collector... but walk into a video store (at least in this country) and 4/10 times you rent an unplayable dvd. VHS had much more durability (my parents owned a video store in the 80's / 90's).

The format discussion can be seen everywhere. Music fanatics flamewars on vinyl superiority, etc. I've seen it in every forum for years. Then again , I think the focus of the OP is more towards the CD medium's impact in a nostalgic / retro sense. And he really hits the right chord... I also have fond memories and some lesser fond memories of those times when CD was the magic medium :) Nights playing 7th Guest being amazed..... remembering the "magic" of Mega CD when it was announced and I finally got to play one.

And yeah, agreed the FMV trend on consoles was fracking crap.

[Emuaust]

nevermind

[Jorpho]

At the very least, please stop posting all of your blog articles until there has even been a chance to discuss the first one.He can't even constrain himself to just one.

http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/202-cd-rom-revolution-part-one
http://fragfan.blogspot.com/2010/05/greatest-cd-rom-games-ever.html


The initial benifits, since most systems were still only 8- or 16-bit, came not in advanced 3D graphics so much as in longer length of games, more colors onscreen, full-motion video and animation, and sometimes ever so slightly crisper graphics, the result of a digital medium and one that could hold many times the amount of data of a cartridge, cassette, chip, or floppy disk could.I cannot readily think of an example where the CD-ROM meant a longer game with more colors in the 8- or 16-bit era.


An example of this, and one of my favorites: Sonic CD. When I was a kid, I would have died for that game. When I got it on Christmas day at age 13, I told my family (and was fully convinced) that the rest of my life lay in that shiny box. I had played it at the store (Ventura's Hi-Tech Center) on a massive TV and had caused my mom the trouble of having to rent it, along with a huge suitcase containing a Sega CD. The graphics just looked CRISPER (and it says so on the back of the box, right?). There weren't just a few bad guys. There were hundreds, in all different, crisp colors. When warping to thwe past, they looked shiny and new. When going into the future, they looked old and malfunctioned. The BOSS encounters were massive affairs and were far more elaborate than the old cartridge games. The backgrounds were crystalline and smooth, and the frame-rate, even when moving at light speed, seemed a consistent 60 FPS (even though it really wasn't.) time warping and added gameplay modes, along with a nice animated intro featuring FMV, sweetened the deal. Is it any surprise that in spite of all the more accessible and common cartridge classics, and despite the new 3D graphics, that this Sonic is most often voted the best of all of them? It is a HUGE game!No, in retrospect, Sonic CD really isn't that much more advanced than the other Sonic games of the time.

[Singularity]

He can't even constrain himself to just one.

http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/202-cd-rom-revolution-part-one
http://fragfan.blogspot.com/2010/05/greatest-cd-rom-games-ever.html

Dude, look at your post count.
What's with the hatred, elitism. Is this another one of those forums?

[Oldskool]

At least he's contributing to the community with some decent material instead of the same old stuff that's posted repeatedly day in and day out.

[portnoyd]

Decent is very subjective in this case.

It's one thing to write an article for your blog, it's another to cross post it when it doesn't get the attention you want, especially when it's likely his motivation for coming here/coming back.

And yes, this is another one of those forums.

[Singularity]

Decent is very subjective in this case.

It's one thing to write an article for your blog, it's another to cross post it when it doesn't get the attention you want, especially when it's likely his motivation for coming here/coming back.

And yes, this is another one of those forums.

Grumpy oldschooler, I salute thee. :p

You'll have to excuse me sir. I'm kind of taking things at face value here, not very much "in" on the whole scene.
Just thought the contents of the posts were an interesting read. I can imagine however, forum regulars tend to focus on the meta layer of the contributions.
For some of us, including myself, (retro) gaming is still something of an obscure personal thing. There's virtually no "scene" where I live... so please bear with me :)

[Berserker]

Grumpy oldschooler, I salute thee. :p

You'll have to excuse me sir. I'm kind of taking things at face value here, not very much "in" on the whole scene.
Just thought the contents of the posts were an interesting read. I can imagine however, forum regulars tend to focus on the meta layer of the contributions.
For some of us, including myself, (retro) gaming is still something of an obscure personal thing. There's virtually no "scene" where I live... so please bear with me :)

Linking to a blog post can be a good way to spark a discussion. I think the frustration comes more from the fact that he just kind of dumped four of them off here in short order, and seems to be doing the same on other forums.

To me it illustrates that he's more interested in getting people to read his blog postings than he is with having an interesting discussion: listening attentively to what others are saying, and reacting accordingly - much like you're doing right now. To me, that's a much more valuable contribution.

[kedawa]

I understand the cost benefits to using CDs for storage, especially back in the 90's, and I'm glad I didn't have to pay NeoGeo prices for my PS and Saturn games, but I just hate optical discs.
They're a read-only medium that requires moving parts in order to access, have horrible access time, are easily damaged, give developers an excuse to waste more time and money on non-interactive fluff, and worst of all, they allowed patent trolls and greedy tech cartels to ruin the removable media industry by saddling the writable versions with proprietary software requirements.
I've never had to buy software to write to a tape, floppy disc, magneto-optical disc, or flash card, and I've never had my computer tell me I can't play any of those things because they're not authorized for my region. In five years time, optical discs will be on their way out, and I say good riddance.

[sixwayshot]

How about games like Another World (Out of This World in the US)? Goddamn, the 3DO version of that game is easily my favorite. Beautiful, stylized graphics and a great musical score.

Android Assault is another one of my favorite games. This Sega CD shooter is really fun. It's a bit generic, but I like it better than Silpheed or Robo Aleste. Easily one of my favorite shooters ever.

[tomaitheous]

I personally hate CD technology.

Hmm. Well... I personally hate you, for personally hating CD technology. Sorry.

[Enigmus]

I personally hate CD technology. CD technology is not the best there is anymore. Optical media is very unreliable and showing it's age.

If you hate CDs, then you surely must think 3.5 in. floppy disks are much better and more reliable.

In reality, none of these mediums can last. CDs scratch and warp to death, floppies get killed by magnets, even carts will die someday, including the chips. The only thing that has lasted is stone, which is quite ironic. Our floppies get killed in an instant by magnetic blasts, and stone is worn down over millenia. Nothing lasts.

Yeah, I know it's sad, but it's just a thought. If things are taken care of gently, the carts could last up to a century at the most, IMO. It all depends on how you handle the medium. If you carefully handle the discs, they will not be scratched much and still in good condition. I have CDs from 1987 that are barely scratched, and that's 23 years right now. It's truly about how you take care of your things. Don't treat them as another "meh" convienence and screw around with them like they're common clothing, treat them as they are: a source of entertainment brought by scientific ingenuity and advancement.

Atari carts have been around for over 30 years and they're still going. CDs have been around since October 1982, and that's coming up on 28. They do last, but not as long as natural things. Just use them while they're still around, and have fun with them while they last, all while being careful with them.

EDIT: Kitsune brought up a good point. Unless the manufacturer was one known or is one known for making CDs of dubious quality, they can last a long time. If the manufacturer is a bad one, they will suffer bitrot from a bad process.

[Kitsune Sniper]

Unfortunately, even brand new CDs can suffer from deterioration. I have several old CDs from the 80s and 90s which are completely unusable because they developed pinprick holes in the reflective layer. Sometimes the CDs just go bad because they weren't manufactured with long-time use in mind. :(

[Jorpho]

They're a read-only medium that requires moving parts in order to access, have horrible access time, are easily damaged, give developers an excuse to waste more time and money on non-interactive fluff, and worst of all, they allowed patent trolls and greedy tech cartels to ruin the removable media industry by saddling the writable versions with proprietary software requirements.
I've never had to buy software to write to a tape, floppy disc, magneto-optical disc, or flash card, and I've never had my computer tell me I can't play any of those things because they're not authorized for my region. In five years time, optical discs will be on their way out, and I say good riddance.What are you talking about?

For starters, writing to media really doesn't have anything to do with region locking. And even then, the whole PAL/NTSC thing provided effective region encoding well before DVDs put it into effect.

I suppose it can be said that the Redbook standard is not available for free, but so what? There's a bazillion freeware burning programs out there that can be used for doing pretty much anything you might remotely want to do.

For that matter, region locking doesn't do squat to prevent anyone who is even slightly determined from watching anything he wants anymore - and it's been that way for quite some time.

But that said, region locking is here to stay and it's not going to go away because "optical discs" suddenly get replaced by something else. Have you not noticed that Hulu is available exclusively in the US? Yes, SD is an open standard, but when's the last time you saw preloaded content being seriously marketed exclusively on SD cards?

[stonecutter]

Dam that was a long ass post. I couldn't read all that wall of text, but I skimmed it.

I prefer my games in cartridge format as well, not saying I hate cd's, I just like carts as a medium for games.

I do remember those long box cd cases as I was an early adopter of the technology for music, funny how it slips away in your mind until mentioned in a post like this.

What were your first music CD purchases? I can't recall my very first exact title for sure, it may have been Supertramp Breakfast in America I think, and it blew my mind at the time. Funny thing was I bought a new stereo and I had a 12 gauge wire for speaker wire, and it had Yorkville on it who do professional sound equipment and wire. I recently gave about 60 ft of that wire to a buddy for his system, he was like holy crap look at the size of this wire and its by Yorkville. He thought it was crazy, but I was into my music at the time lol.

The other comment that stands out to me as well, is the game Myst, I agreee, how did that not make the list, I know in my mind it distinctly stands out, what was it, 4 cds I think, though I never got into the game totally I was like wow, this is crazy.

[Haoie]

Rather ironic that UMDs have been a total flop, no?

[parker311]

Wow. You grumpy gamers need to calm down. You don't have to read them. I just like writing and wrote some articles I thought I'd like to share. Not against the rules, and I'm sure there are worse quality posts. I didn't share them because I wanted more attention per se, but because the original forum was more of a political/cultural forum, not a game-related one. Makes sense, ey? No one has to read these.


Linking to a blog post can be a good way to spark a discussion. I think the frustration comes more from the fact that he just kind of dumped four of them off here in short order, and seems to be doing the same on other forums.

To me it illustrates that he's more interested in getting people to read his blog postings than he is with having an interesting discussion: listening attentively to what others are saying, and reacting accordingly - much like you're doing right now. To me, that's a much more valuable contribution.

[parker311]

The post is not about how wonderful the technology ids, but about how creative minds took advantage of it in its early stages. The reliability/viability of optical disc technology is another point altogether.

What are you talking about?

For starters, writing to media really doesn't have anything to do with region locking. And even then, the whole PAL/NTSC thing provided effective region encoding well before DVDs put it into effect.

I suppose it can be said that the Redbook standard is not available for free, but so what? There's a bazillion freeware burning programs out there that can be used for doing pretty much anything you might remotely want to do.

For that matter, region locking doesn't do squat to prevent anyone who is even slightly determined from watching anything he wants anymore - and it's been that way for quite some time.

But that said, region locking is here to stay and it's not going to go away because "optical discs" suddenly get replaced by something else. Have you not noticed that Hulu is available exclusively in the US? Yes, SD is an open standard, but when's the last time you saw preloaded content being seriously marketed exclusively on SD cards?

[parker311]

OUt of this World should be added, especially the 3DO version. Myst is debatable, but then again I haven't ever finished it, much less started it in earnest.

Android Assault is masterful, and Robo Aleste is wonderful, with good sound quality. Silpheed is underrated, but I'm not sure if it deserves mention as an all-time great of the medium.


How about games like Another World (Out of This World in the US)? Goddamn, the 3DO version of that game is easily my favorite. Beautiful, stylized graphics and a great musical score.

Android Assault is another one of my favorite games. This Sega CD shooter is really fun. It's a bit generic, but I like it better than Silpheed or Robo Aleste. Easily one of my favorite shooters ever.

[parker311]

Not sure why this upsets anyone, but if I wanted more readership, I could do a lot better than to post these on here (I would also include a link to my blog, which I haven't, or haven't you noticed?)

Linking to a blog post can be a good way to spark a discussion. I think the frustration comes more from the fact that he just kind of dumped four of them off here in short order, and seems to be doing the same on other forums.

To me it illustrates that he's more interested in getting people to read his blog postings than he is with having an interesting discussion: listening attentively to what others are saying, and reacting accordingly - much like you're doing right now. To me, that's a much more valuable contribution.

[RASK1904]

God damn! Another one? Man you should get some sleep. I read the first one. A little. Something about movies taking over reality? or something. No way I was reading the 2nd. Browsed this one saying it's number 4? Someone please link me to number 3! JK. I will give you diferent but that is it. Why make a new thread for each one?

[Oldskool]

Hey man, I think it's good reads. No matter how far out it may get sometimes.

You have to remember that a lot of people here have very short attention spans (including myself) - that's why we have like 500+ games piled up in the game room, so that may be too much for someone to want to go through and read (even though members will surely read through 10 pages of a thread without thinking about it - including myself).

Don't take offense. Just take it all with a grain of salt, it seems that you have done well with it.

Don't let these kids run you off - we need some more intellect around here. :image:

[portnoyd]

Don't let these kids run you off - we need some more intellect around here.

I didn't know intellect entailed the inability to spell check, proofread and having unfocused commentary.


Not sure why this upsets anyone, but if I wanted more readership, I could do a lot better than to post these on here (I would also include a link to my blog, which I haven't, or haven't you noticed?)

Usually when a new member makes 4 threads that are literally copypasta from their blog (which would have been more, had you written more than 4 game posts), it reeks of spam and whoring for attention. Do you see me crossposting any of my Log posts here, especially considering I have a whopping 4 readers at any time?

As Berserker said, you didn't exactly get off on the right foot.

[Thrillo]

Nintendo had it right with the N64 and DS. Cart/Flash media is the best way to go for games. Sure it cost an arm and a leg to produce an N64 game, but these days you can surely create a blue-ray quality game and place it on the drive or flash media.
I wonder if Nintendo's experience with the Famicom Disk System influenced their decision to go with carts instead of CDs for the N64. After all, the FDS seemed like it would solve the whole storage limit of carts (and introduce a sound chip and a decent mapper while doing so!), but after a few years ROM prices fell and a FDS disk held less than a cart, so the add-on died. Sure you could span games over multiple disks, and some did, but action games like Super Contra or Life Force would just plain suck with disk-flips and load times. If they could have been created at all....

Which brings me to my next point, one thing that's understated about the FDS is that the programmer was stuck with the limited FDS mapper, and there was no real way around it. But with a cart, a developer could toss in whatever wacky or super-advanced mapper that was needed to get the results they wanted! Complex games like CVIII(Jap), Gradius II, TMNTII, or Lagrange Point would have been impossible or heavily watered down on disk.

Maybe Nintendo was banking it's hopes that this situation would repeat itself and that they could eventually heavily emphasize the whole "No load times!" thing. Then again, they did create that N64 disk drive...

[Gameguy]

The other comment that stands out to me as well, is the game Myst, I agreee, how did that not make the list, I know in my mind it distinctly stands out, what was it, 4 cds I think, though I never got into the game totally I was like wow, this is crazy.
Myst was on 1 CD, the sequel Riven was on 5 CDs.


OUt of this World should be added, especially the 3DO version. Myst is debatable, but then again I haven't ever finished it, much less started it in earnest.
I haven't played Myst though I do own a few copies of it, even so it was a game that got people buying CD-ROMs just so they could play it. It was an important game to the history of CD-ROMs.

[Oldskool]

From what I understand, one of the major influences for Nintendo canning the FDS was due to the rampant software pirating that was going on. The chinese bootlegs got out of control. I'm sure the bootlegs get out of control for ANY media, but from what I hear, the FDS was highly pirated. I cannot verify this statement however, just something I've read a time or two. The FDS could have been something special. Imagine them running on ZIP disks?

Now CD's have in no way fixed this problem, and really it's gotten worse. Back in the day before CD burners, the only choice was to play on an emulator. Playing a copied game on your console was basically impossible short of having a bootleg. Of course cart/flash based media is easy to pirate these days with all the flash carts and so forth. Look at the DS, great idea for the media technology (no wait times, solid as a Honda, stores decent amount of data) - but the pirating has got out of control.


I wonder if Nintendo's experience with the Famicom Disk System influenced their decision to go with carts instead of CDs for the N64. After all, the FDS seemed like it would solve the whole storage limit of carts (and introduce a sound chip and a decent mapper while doing so!), but after a few years ROM prices fell and a FDS disk held less than a cart, so the add-on died. Sure you could span games over multiple disks, and some did, but action games like Super Contra or Life Force would just plain suck with disk-flips and load times. If they could have been created at all....

Which brings me to my next point, one thing that's understated about the FDS is that the programmer was stuck with the limited FDS mapper, and there was no real way around it. But with a cart, a developer could toss in whatever wacky or super-advanced mapper that was needed to get the results they wanted! Complex games like CVIII(Jap), Gradius II, TMNTII, or Lagrange Point would have been impossible or heavily watered down on disk.

Maybe Nintendo was banking it's hopes that this situation would repeat itself and that they could eventually heavily emphasize the whole "No load times!" thing. Then again, they did create that N64 disk drive...

[Zama]

That was a good read! :) I didn't know CD-ROM was that meaningful in terms of media. I now learned something new today. :bday:

[blue lander]

CD's were an amazing new digital medium. They had at least twice the fidelity of LPs (likely much more, although audiophiles still knock them as not producing that nostalgic pop and crackle sound, something I uderstand nad sympathize with) and no rewinding or strategic setting of the needle.

Audiophiles don't prefer LPs to CDs because of "pop and crackle sound", in fact they spend hundreds and thousands of dollars on fancy LP cleaners to remove any pop and crackle. Many, but not nearly a majority, of audiophiles do prefer LPs because they prefer analog music over digitally encoded music. And if by "fidelity" you mean less distortion, lower noise floor and wider frequency range, CDs do outperform LPs but not nearly by "twice".

...but I digress. As far as games go, It took me a long time to accept CDs. A CD didn't feel as real as a cartridge did. If I'm paying $30+ for a game, I want a box and a hunk of plastic, not a CD and a jewel case. I have the same problem with downloadable games, but I guess I'll have to get over that soon to.

[tomaitheous]

I wonder if Nintendo's experience with the Famicom Disk System influenced their decision to go with carts instead of CDs for the N64.

I doubt it. I think it had more to do with thinking that rom prices were going to fall. I wouldn't doubt that rom prices were the major factor in the later release of the N64. There are some other key advantages carts have over CDs, but ultimately I think Nintendo made the decision too soon. The memory market just wasn't ready for competing with CDs for storage per price ratio. Nintendo's decision to build the wanna-be zip drive was evident of that (I'm sure their pride prevented them from going with a CD addon, which would have failed anyway). Funny, cause the roles were reversed for the PSP and DS. Nintendo made the right decision and Sony make the wrong one.


After all, the FDS seemed like it would solve the whole storage limit of carts (and introduce a sound chip and a decent mapper while doing so!), but after a few years ROM prices fell and a FDS disk held less than a cart, so the add-on died.

More than the piracy, that's the biggest flaw in the FDS setup - IMO.

[kedawa]

What are you talking about?

For starters, writing to media really doesn't have anything to do with region locking. And even then, the whole PAL/NTSC thing provided effective region encoding well before DVDs put it into effect.

I suppose it can be said that the Redbook standard is not available for free, but so what? There's a bazillion freeware burning programs out there that can be used for doing pretty much anything you might remotely want to do.

For that matter, region locking doesn't do squat to prevent anyone who is even slightly determined from watching anything he wants anymore - and it's been that way for quite some time.

But that said, region locking is here to stay and it's not going to go away because "optical discs" suddenly get replaced by something else. Have you not noticed that Hulu is available exclusively in the US? Yes, SD is an open standard, but when's the last time you saw preloaded content being seriously marketed exclusively on SD cards?
I never said region locking has something to do with being writable. I don't know how you arrived at that conclusion. It's just stupid that DVDs use region lockouts that are coded into the drive firmware.
I agree that region encoding will always be around, and there will always be a way around it, whether it's through a hardware hack or a network proxy.

[kedawa]

Audiophiles don't prefer LPs to CDs because of "pop and crackle sound", in fact they spend hundreds and thousands of dollars on fancy LP cleaners to remove any pop and crackle. Many, but not nearly a majority, of audiophiles do prefer LPs because they prefer analog music over digitally encoded music. And if by "fidelity" you mean less distortion, lower noise floor and wider frequency range, CDs do outperform LPs but not nearly by "twice".
It's also worth pointing out that a lot of audiophiles have more of a problem with how CDs are mastered than they do with the underlying technology. Vinyl never fell victim to the loudness wars, after all.

[Jorpho]

I never said region locking has something to do with being writable. I don't know how you arrived at that conclusion.What exactly is this supposed to mean?
...to ruin the removable media industry by saddling the writable versions with proprietary software requirements.
I've never had to buy software to write to a tape, floppy disc, magneto-optical disc, or flash card

[skaar]

I'm cool with the article, but agree that it was delivered in rather an attention whore-y way. Maybe let these ones ripen before cracking open another one, eh?

Good read.

[kupomogli]

Some of the games you listed aren't CD format.

[blue lander]

It's also worth pointing out that a lot of audiophiles have more of a problem with how CDs are mastered than they do with the underlying technology. Vinyl never fell victim to the loudness wars, after all.

I agree 100%. Digital technology allows studio engineers to do all sorts of unnatural, unholy things to the music that just doesn't sound right. I don't believe there's anything intrinsically superior about LPs, they just tend to be mastered better. CDs are mixed to sound good on cheapo ear buds or car stereos, not hi-fi systems

[Mister_Pal]

Vinyl never fell victim to the loudness wars, after all.
^ This

[Black_Tiger]

R-Type - Turbo CD

This is an example of a game made worse on CD.




He can't even constrain himself to just one.
I cannot readily think of an example where the CD-ROM meant a longer game with more colors in the 8- or 16-bit era.

For length, try Tengai Makyou II, Tengai Makyou The Apocalypse IV or Lunar Eternal Blue. For color/detail, try the PC Engine Arcade Card Neo Geo ports, in particular World Heroes 2. To see the difference CDs make for length and color/graphics, compare cart based digital comic/adventure games to those on CD.

Many of the benefits of CD games don't get noticed by most people. Dracula X PCE actually has an insane amount in-game animation. For a console like PC Engine that relies on animation for many special effects like advanced parallax, the CD format makes a huge difference.

Neo Geo games don't look special compared to Genesis/SNES/TG-16 games because the system is more powerful, what sets them apart is the huge size of the carts/roms. CD-ROMs dramatically cut the difference between Neo Geo or other large arcade games and regular consoles (checkout World Heroes 2 PCE vs Neo Geo). A good example is the graphics between Forgotten Worlds Genesis, Turbo-CD and arcade.

On top of the visual benefits, streaming voice and full CD quality sound are alone make the format worthwhile.

[Rob2600]

a lot of audiophiles have more of a problem with how CDs are mastered than they do with the underlying technology. Vinyl never fell victim to the loudness wars

From what I understand, vinyl *can't* fall victim to the loudness wars because of the physical limitations of the format. Supposedly, if the ridiculously brickwall-limited audio on most modern CDs were pressed onto a vinyl record, the needle would jump off the groove during playback.

If vinyl records could handle it, believe me, record companies would've destroyed the sound quality on their vinyl records, too.


I agree 100%. Digital technology allows studio engineers to do all sorts of unnatural, unholy things to the music that just doesn't sound right. I don't believe there's anything intrinsically superior about LPs, they just tend to be mastered better. CDs are mixed to sound good on cheapo ear buds or car stereos, not hi-fi systems

It's not just the mixing, it's record companies' obsession with releasing *seemingly* louder and louder CDs. The stupid thing is that the more dynamic range is stripped away, the *less* loud and powerful their music sounds. Most CDs from the last 12-15 years have been mastered to sound like distorted mush. :(

Here's a great example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTBoMlsw-0I

The exception is The Beatles remastered CDs. They're actually mastered fairly well...much, much better than most other modern CDs.

[Jorpho]

My my. That is honestly the most sensible argument I've ever heard in favor of vinyl.

[blue lander]

From what I understand, vinyl *can't* fall victim to the loudness wars because of the physical limitations of the format. Supposedly, if the ridiculously brickwall-limited audio on most modern CDs were pressed onto a vinyl record, the needle would jump off the groove during playback.


Actually the loudness war did start on vinyl. Every year they made records "louder" than the year before, and thus with less dynamic range. However, like you said there's a physical limitation to how loud you can cut an LP and there's no such limitation with digital media.

[Rob2600]

Actually the loudness war did start on vinyl. Every year they made records "louder" than the year before, and thus with less dynamic range. However, like you said there's a physical limitation to how loud you can cut an LP and there's no such limitation with digital media.

You're right. Mastering engineers have always been pushed to come up with ways to make vinyl records louder. I meant the *modern* loudness war. Even an old vinyl record that was mastered to be very "hot" sounds better than today's CDs because of the physical limitation.

However, a properly mastered CD will always sound better than a properly mastered vinyl record...but good luck finding a properly mastered CD these days.

[SpaceHarrier]

The irony of CD-Roms to me is.. the more aged or rare it is, the more gingerly I handle it (only touching the very edges!) and therefore the more readily and easily it tends to slip from my hand and get juggled in the air, bounce off the entertainment center, bounce off the SNES and land on the carpet.

Always data side down.

[FxMercenary]

I pre-orded the StarCraft II collector's edition, and it comes with the original StarCraft pre-installed on a thumb drive! I hope flash gets very cheap, replacing CD and DVD technology will increase the bandwith speed of the data as well as the life of the product.

[Jorpho]

Cheaper than a stamped disk? Not bloody likely.

[Tokimemofan]

I personally hate CD technology. At one point in time, in the early 90's I liked it because of what it brought to the table. Massive games, digitized video, cd-quality sound, etc etc. But now, all these can be done without the need for CD technology. Things I *HATE* about CD's are the unreliability. Moving parts always fail eventually, and scratches happen. All the older great CD consoles are now starting to fail because the lasers are wearing out, or the drive motors are wearing out, etc etc. Then there's the problem of having to get games re-surfaced because of some idiot that didn't know how to take care of it before.

Personally, I'd like to see everything go back to carts and/or flash memory. Hell even though I am opposed to the whole DLC thing, at least it will be reliable since it's all run off the HD and/or flash memory.

Nintendo had it right with the N64 and DS. Cart/Flash media is the best way to go for games. Sure it cost an arm and a leg to produce an N64 game, but these days you can surely create a blue-ray quality game and place it on the drive or flash media.

Problem is, anything but CD's cut into their bottom line. It costs then 10 cents to press a CD, so the other $59.89 is pure profit.

If they had to spend $5 to make a cart or flash based games, it would be the end of the world.

It all boils down to money. CD technology is not the best there is anymore. Optical media is very unreliable and showing it's age.

I see a future where everything is flash based.

Except that it isn't easy to make a multi-cartridge game when the media is too small and these guys seem to be 10 times worse than Hard Drive designers (read about the bios limits)
I only know of 2 haphazard implementations of a multi-cart titles the Sonic & Knuckles Lock-on feature and the Golden Sun Save Transfer Function, I'll tell you one thing punching in a 260 character password is NOT one of my fond memories of playing games.
Also a little thought: Quality! That is the real problem my 2 PS-ONEs I have had died because of a bad solder joint on the power socket, none due to the laser. 8-9 Playstation 2s dead due to lasers (30001 39001 and 50001 all represented BTW) PSP 1 dead 1 working both no problems with lasers. Haven't had any trouble with Gamecubes although I've heard of a batch that does have problems. Mixed Record to be sure but the PC Engine/Turbo systems and the capacitors are another matter, as are the blown Dreamcast Controller Ports, Blinking NES Syndrome, Flimsy Power Socket Solder Joints, I don't think those were caused by CD lasers going bad. BTW Bonus points for Half Working Sega 32xs that break even further when faced with the horror the model 1 lock-out, can you guess what happens to Lunar II if you have a ram cart in the doom shroom?

In all seriousness it is a problem but the laser failures are a bigger threat to systems that are heavily used and are prone to mild but repeated over-heating. Luckily for us the lasers for older systems are easy to obtain but we should have a data base for this stuff. Proprietary lasers only became a problem with PlayStation (Please confirm?) and all of those are and should remain in good supply except possibly for the Dreamcast where controller ports are a bigger threat. A possible exception is the Laseractive because those while they are standard the supply of parts is restricted by the format. I would suggest a joint project with the Laserdisc and Audio CD enthusiasts out there to compile a list of lasers known to be found in different models, I remember seeing a kss-240A and similar lasers in many old CD players if we had a guide it would be useful to both communities. In the Sega CD I have seen 4 different lasers, 2 are common in CD Players, 1 is also used in the Sega Saturn and the fourth one seems to be a bit trickier. I would expect it to be similar with other early CD Consoles/Addons

[HyperDuel]

I will have to say that I'm glad that Laserdiscs weren't more common as game data disc because Laserrot sucks. I never had a problem with CD games because either I get them in great condition or I get them brand new (I usually import stuff from Japan and Japanese people usually take care of their stuff).

I think there's no such thing as a bad format IMO.


Audiophiles don't prefer LPs to CDs because of "pop and crackle sound", in fact they spend hundreds and thousands of dollars on fancy LP cleaners to remove any pop and crackle. Many, but not nearly a majority, of audiophiles do prefer LPs because they prefer analog music over digitally encoded music. And if by "fidelity" you mean less distortion, lower noise floor and wider frequency range, CDs do outperform LPs but not nearly by "twice".

A VPI 16.5 record cleaner is $550 before tax new. I have one a few steps away from me. Just because a record is clean doesn't mean it will remove all the pop and crackle off the LP. Sometimes it could be the vinyl and how it was press that cause the pops. Of course most of the time it is from people who abuse their LPs like there's no tomorrow.

I prefer analog sound but digital is not crap.


However, a properly mastered CD will always sound better than a properly mastered vinyl record...but good luck finding a properly mastered CD these days.

Disagree. It all goes according to the master source if it's analog or digital. If the master source is an analog tape then vinyl will be better. If it's a digital source then it will be better on a digital format.

All the younger kids are buying vinyl because their favorite 60s/70s bands sounds better on vinyl (which make sense because all the music back then were recorded in analog and will sound better on vinyl).

For my setup any album that's recorded on vinyl will be purchased on vinyl. If it's a digital recording then CDs will be better.

Lets talk Kraftwerk for example: Starting with The Mix in 1990 I believe they start recording 100% in digital. CD versions of their later albums sounds better than vinyl. Yet if you listen to Electric Cafe/Techno Pop and below then they sound better on vinyl than CDs (since they were recorded on analog tape).

[blue lander]

Personally I don't see the point on listening to digitally mastered music on LPs either, but audiophiles have successfully ripped LPs to CD with no perceptible loss in sound quality. That says to me that the CD itself isn't at fault, it's the way it was mastered. And if a guy with a $10,000 hifi system can transfer analog to a digital medium, there's no reason a recording studio couldn't. It's the digital mastering they do that mangles the recording.