What was the first CD-ROM Game?

[theoakwoody]

Does anyone know what the first CD-ROM Game was? I'm not talking about encyclopedia's and crap like that, I mean an actual game. I know what of the first successful CD-ROM games was King's Quest V and Wing Commander II but I know they weren't the first games to be on CD. Ahhh remember the days when CD's were so mysterious and they seemed so incredible. You have to admit that CD's allowed the Software industry to make huge strides towards making kick ass games.

[robotriot]

I don't know which game it was, but it probably was for the PC-Engine CD-ROM add-on from 1988, others here on the forum should know more about that than I do :)

[davidleeroth]

The first CD game on PC-Engine was Fighting Street, a precursor of Street Fighter series.

[theoakwoody]

I figured as much... but then again it seems weird that cd games were produced on a console before they were on computers.

[kai123]

I figured as much... but then again it seems weird that cd games were produced on a console before they were on computers.

I thought it would be for pc as well. ;)

[robotriot]

Well, there was a CD-ROM drive announced for the Atari 520ST, the Philips CM 100 (in fact the first CD-ROM drive ever), but I don't know if it was released and if any games were available for it.

The reason why there were no CD games for PCs in the 80ies was probably because drives were to expensive and PCs not really suitable for gaming - the first PC CD-ROM game was The 7th Guest afaik, but that was already in 1993.

[norkusa]

I think the first commercially released CD-ROM game was The Manhole for the Mac. That was in 87 or 88 I believe.

[YoshiM]

I think the first commercially released CD-ROM game was The Manhole for the Mac. That was in 87 or 88 I believe.

You know, that sounds right. I remember reading about it in maybe like 1989 or 1990/91 in either VG&CE or Game Players. Not sure if Manhole *is* the first CD game but it's definitely older than 7th Guest.


The first CD game on PC-Engine was Fighting Street, a precursor of Street Fighter series.

Actually it wasn't a precursor, it was an arcade port of the first Street Fighter game. It was just renamed so there wouldn't be any licensing issues (if I'm not mistaken).

[SoulBlazer]

So what was the first CD game for a PC, then?

And when was the first console CD game released in the USA? Would it for be the Sega CD in 1992?

I recall I got a new PC with a CD-Drive in 1994 and the first CD games I got was Star Trek and Command and Conquer. WOW, I was blown away with what a CD drive could do for gaming! I never looked back at disc games again. :)

[Ed Oscuro]

According to GameSpy (http://archive.gamespy.com/articles/july03/25smartest/index3.shtml), because they're so smart, it's The 7th Guest.

However, right in our own Royal Archives (http://www.digitpress.com/archives/timeline.htm), it's The Manhole.

Don't have much else to add.

[esquire]

So what was the first CD game for a PC, then?

And when was the first console CD game released in the USA? Would it for be the Sega CD in 1992?

I recall I got a new PC with a CD-Drive in 1994 and the first CD games I got was Star Trek and Command and Conquer. WOW, I was blown away with what a CD drive could do for gaming! I never looked back at disc games again. :)

I remember buying my first PC in 1994 and the sales associate tried selling me a CD-Rom drive with it. I chose not too, after all I had tons of floppy disks back then. Biggest blunder on my part. I ended going back months later and picking up a TEAC 6X CDROM drive. That was the shit back then. Anyways, I remember the selling point for the CDROM drive was that I could play this cool new game called Myst.

[Sph1nx]

Fing Myst. I hate Myst.
Well actually I loved the game... I hated my copy that I bought brand new.
The damn thing would not play on my PC.
Would play everywhere else but not mine.
Had the requirements beat by double but still no.
Resident pc guru from school + 2 hours of long distance tech support = still no go.

Damn Myst.

[theoakwoody]

Check out this link:

http://www.if-legends.org/~adventure/Sierra_On-Line,_Inc/KQ.html

It's definitely not official but it mentions that King's Quest V CD was released in 1991 about a year after the disk version was released. That would put King's Quest way before 7th Guest.

[robotriot]

And don't forget Rebel Assault which basically made CD-ROM *really* popular on PCs :)

[-^Cro§Bow^-]

Though I am not totally positive as I think "The Manhole" was first and it was also available on PC form as well. But I do know that King's Quest V was the first "Multimedia" CD-Rom game. And actually it wasn't quite a year after the disk version, because the catalogs of the day even stated that the CD-Rom "Talkiing" version was coming soon. I was one of the first to get it since I was a pretty heavy Sierra On-line fan of the day. Somewhere I still have my Conquest of the Longbow t-shirt from the contest that Sierra was running back when that game first came out too. Bit faded now I would imagine...hehe..

I also remember that Loom was another of the earlier CD-rom released games. the Diskette version came out way before KQV...but the CD-Rom talkie version wasn't too much after KQV.

Still, I would say that KQV became the main reason for most PC users back in the early 90s to get CD-Roms.

"Back in my day...all we could get were these slow as hell 1x external proprietary connected Toran drives...but Dammit! We were thankful!"

[davidleeroth]

I think the first commercially released CD-ROM game was The Manhole for the Mac. That was in 87 or 88 I believe.

You know, that sounds right. I remember reading about it in maybe like 1989 or 1990/91 in either VG&CE or Game Players. Not sure if Manhole *is* the first CD game but it's definitely older than 7th Guest.


The first CD game on PC-Engine was Fighting Street, a precursor of Street Fighter series.

Actually it wasn't a precursor, it was an arcade port of the first Street Fighter game. It was just renamed so there wouldn't be any licensing issues (if I'm not mistaken).

Thanks. I knew I asked for trouble when I wrote that. ;)

This quote is from Activision's own page (http://www.activision.com/en_US/news_article_cc/cc_historicaltimeline.html):

"1988: Activision changes name to Mediagenic and broadens focus to include business application software.
1989: Mediagenic publishes the first interactive entertainment product on CD-ROM, The Manhole."

Is it right or not, who knows, but if Mediagenic released The manhole, it pretty much eliminates 1987.

[norkusa]

I think the first commercially released CD-ROM game was The Manhole for the Mac. That was in 87 or 88 I believe.

You know, that sounds right. I remember reading about it in maybe like 1989 or 1990/91 in either VG&CE or Game Players. Not sure if Manhole *is* the first CD game but it's definitely older than 7th Guest.


The first CD game on PC-Engine was Fighting Street, a precursor of Street Fighter series.

Actually it wasn't a precursor, it was an arcade port of the first Street Fighter game. It was just renamed so there wouldn't be any licensing issues (if I'm not mistaken).

Thanks. I knew I asked for trouble when I wrote that. ;)

This quote is from Activision's own page (http://www.activision.com/en_US/news_article_cc/cc_historicaltimeline.html):

"1988: Activision changes name to Mediagenic and broadens focus to include business application software.
1989: Mediagenic publishes the first interactive entertainment product on CD-ROM, The Manhole."

Is it right or not, who knows, but if Mediagenic released The manhole, it pretty much eliminates 1987.

Yeah, I just realized after I made my last post that 1987 was way too early. I was just guessing. 1988 or '89 sounds more realistic. I actually remember reading that article YoshiM referred to. Think it was Game Players and I still have that issue somewhere. I'll dig it out tonight and see what it says about Manhole.

[GaijinPunch]

I think the first commercially released CD-ROM game was The Manhole for the Mac.

This is also the name of a gay bar in one of the cities I used to live in. Never got up enough courage to go in.

[rolenta]

The first CD-ROM game was definitely The Manhole.

In the first edition of High Score you'll see that Rusel DeMoria said that Myst was the first CD-ROM. I wrote to Rusel and told him the error and I believed he fixed it for the second edition (and forgot to acknowledge me :( )

[digitalpress]

I'm sure all of you used the search feature on the DP site and found this:

http://www.digitpress.com/archives/timeline.htm

So those of you who said "The Manhole" win :)

[theoakwoody]

Myst came out in '93. It's not even close to one of the first CD games:

http://www.mysterium.ch/myst/myst_info_e.html.

So let's get this straight.

FIghting Street was the first PC Engine game as well as the first CD Game we know of that was released in 1988.

There may be other CD systems such as Amiga systems that had CD ROM but we can't verify.

Manhole is the first PC based CD-ROM game but KQ5 was the first multidmedia CD-ROM game. What the hell does that mean? Is that referring to speech? How was Manhole not considered Multimedia?

[davidleeroth]

Hey, Fighting Street was released on December 4th 1988. I'm still standing. :P LOL

Ok, I just had to post this for the sake of confusion:

http://www.students.tut.fi/~tiainen2/images/manholepce.jpg

[davidleeroth]

Check this out (search the text for Manhole):

http://www.atariarchives.org/cfn/05/11/0179.php

I think that article dates from late 1989. I will die with my boots on. :)