The Amiga CD32 - Game Sack - Review
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- Опубликовано: 26 сен 2024
- Episode 140 - Commodore released this peculiar system in September of 1993 and it was marketed as 32-bit. It only lasted until April of 1994. Let's take a look at the system and some of its games!
Thanks to Robert "Fight Club" Hubbs for lending us the system! Check out his site at www.gamingvisio...
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I came back to watch this again after that avgn video
Kinda disappointed that he only focused on the bads then the good games. He should had played superfrog over kang fu.
@@markurbanowicz6619 - I don't think that Superfrog is a particularly good game. If people want to know about the games that are actually worth playing on the Amiga they should read some old copies of Amiga Power.
@@AnthonyFlack well, yeah, it wasn't the best. When my bro had an Amiga, i enjoyed it. Many people did. But i was more into Jazz Jackrabbit. Those were the times, we just appreciate what we got, but i as times moved on, we can see better games in the past like Mario and Sonic. I got happy to know Turrican and Ruff n' Tumble.
@@markurbanowicz6619 - indeed, we did appreciate what we had back then. I speak as somebody who actually completed Superfrog, and played Ruff n' Tumble enough to know that it gets pretty repetitive after a while (despite looking very nice). Turrican was always a little too mazey for my tastes.
But I remember well enough that Superfrog was not universally praised at the time, and Zool was actually pretty heavily panned by critics and gamers.
I know that Game Sack only do consoles, but a proper understanding of the Amiga games scene really should start with the A500, and the games that were actually highly regarded in the Amiga world, like for instance Cannon Fodder, SWOS, Syndicate, Stunt Car Racer, IK+, or the Amiga port of Rainbow Islands, to pick a few random examples off the top of my head.
Certainly it seems misguided to compare an Amiga-based system to the PS1, or even the SNES and Genesis. We are after all talking about a system that originally launched in North America in the same year as the NES (at least when talking about the OCS chipset that most classic Amiga games are built on).
@@AnthonyFlack got a good point mister. I agree, those games could be repetitive. Tjey compared consoles and amiga to hard, they are different in their perspectives, comsoles had better platformers while computers had RTS and poimt and click. I just moved on when i got N64. I kinda want to try cannon fodders :). Amigas few best games most be Monkey Island.
As a true Brit gamer who owned an Amiga 500 (16 bit) computer from 1990-94, I see most of these games as being the top of their league when they were first released in their 16 bit incarnations. Team 17 were champions of the era. Superfrog sold loads of copies and that intro sequence had it's own disk for the Amiga 500 version and was believe it or not mind blowing for it's time. As were Chaos engine, Alien Breed etc. Tower Assault actually came after Alien Breed 2. Alien Breed 1 was infamously challenging. So much so they needed to release a special edition which was a bit easier. I would only take a CD32 with the box enabling to turn it into a A1200. But realistically - buy an A1200 and upgrade the ram and use it with an RGB monitor.
+Tom Lee I agree on the whole.
Tom Lee One of the first discs I put in my eBay-special A600 (bought it just for the included Philips monitor, lol). Blew a good couple hours trying to get to level 3... hard as nails but totally addictive.
Then I tried Apidia or whatever it was called and nearly lost my lunch on the level with the wibbly sinewave effects. Top Copper-abuse. Which weirdly there seems to be very very little of here...
+GameBoyLegacy Amiga 1200 and 4000 were also 32bit.
There were several 32-bit Amigas, same as there were at least a smattering of official 32-bit Ataris (and many more unofficial ones). The lower-end home computers were all 16-bit until the A1200 and CD32 came along, but there were enough more professional "pizza box" (ie desktop PC-like) ones which used higher end processors (020, 030, 040) with buses to match.
Replying 8 years later and all :) IMO most Team17 (and Psygnosys) games on the Amiga were absolutely overrated due to their (for the time) nice graphics. These dudes did not really care about playability or responsive controls, I had the feeling that they remained true to their demo scene roots even when they attempted to write games (I get that the classic 1 button joystick was what it was but still). This became absolutely obvious to me the first time I had the chance to play some SNES and MD games - japanese platformers and SHMUPS are my all-time favourites.
"Flashback" was one of the best games for the CD32, it had all the cutscenes and speech of the PC-CDROM version and looked fantastic on a big TV.
Stardust is and still is today my favourite top down asteroid style shooter. Super Stardust HD on PS4 currently the best version imo. Classic I love that game played it for weeks on end!
Flashback was too hard ironically after being so good at Stardust... Great graphics though.
@@DailyCorvid Flashback was on everything at the time, even the CD-i
"It has a resolution of like... I don't know... three."
"It has a frame rate of negative six."
lmao I laughed way too hard
I love my CD32, it took me forever to find a NTSC version but it was worth it. Unlike most people I really love this console and have a blast playing it.
The CD32 had amazing potential for the time. It was let down by a Commodore that was on life support, and developers knew it. This is why you mostly saw nice-looking 16-bit ports with enhanced sound. There were some really good games, but never any that took advantage of the 32-bit processing, or storage capacity.
The CD32 was just a consolized Amiga 1200 with a CD-ROM. Yes, it was technically a 32-bit machine and the console marketing of the time weighed heavily on that sort of thing, but it was still based on a 9-year-old microprocessor and an 8-year-old sound chip.
The CD32 was technically better - on paper - than its only rival at the time of launch in summer 1993, the Sega Mega CD. But the 3DO and Playstation were just around the corner and 3D games like X-Wing and Doom were being released on PC. By the start of 1994, it was clear the Amiga architecture was hopelessly out of date and Commodore, which had totally failed to keep investing in and improving the Amiga, had run out of money. A sad end.
I don't know why people think a 32-bit CPU is inherently going to massively increase the capabilities of a system. Yeah, it is beneficial to have a 32-bit CPU, especially if you're doing 32-bit math, and you can also load/store values to memory in fewer operations, but if the graphics hardware of a machine is on par with the contemporary "16-bit" consoles (technically, the Genesis has a 68000 CPU which is like a 32-/16-bit hybrid), it's mostly going to feel like a 16-bit console. An example of the exact inverse of this is the TurboGrafx-16, which has an 8-bit CPU, based on the 6502 which both the NES and C64 were based off of, the graphics hardware is what made that console competitive in its era.
It's worth noting the background to this machine...
Commodore were wasteful of their phenomenal technology and acquisition of Amiga in the 1980s (which produced the first pre-emptive multi-tasking multimedia computer). The release of the Amiga 1000, and consequent affordable Amiga 500, saw truly excellent 16-bit graphics, colours and sound in an age of pure 8-bit consoles. It dominated in Europe, and Commodore unfortunately rested on their laurels by simply repackaging the Amiga 500 and producing poorly marketed products.
The management at Commodore USA (the over-arching business) was wasteful and tended to pocket the money for themselves (see the Mehdi Ali ownership fiasco). The Amiga CD32 was a repackaged Amiga 1200 and had RAM expansion slots for a truly phenomenal 32 bit gaming experience, however the writing was on the wall for Commodore. With poor management decisions, the company filed for bankruptcy at the same time as trying to market and release the CD32. Software houses weren't keen to develop for a system that was facing an end before it had even truly started, and as a result, lots of Amiga 500 games were just simply ported over to the Amiga CD32 without any enhancements whatsoever. It spelled the end for a truly amazing company, and the consumers never got to see what the Amiga CD32 was truly capable of as a result.
It's unfair to compare it to the 3DO et al when it was completely hamstrung by bad management. On a side note, Commodore UK was still a profitable arm of the company owing to the European presence of the Amiga, and its CEO David Pleasance was keen to take over Commodore and the Amiga following its fall; he had planned to truly expand upon the gaming library and make it a competitive and cutting edge home console, however he was trumped in an eventual takeover by the German company Escom who ended up going bust themselves shortly afterwards.
It makes you wonder what Commodore could have truly done if they weren't so wasteful, and if Commodore UK had managed to takeover the running of the company.
A total shame.
It never made it to US due to not paying Royalties on a previous product. The courts blocked it's importing.
It's perfectly fair and reasonable to compare it to 3do, etc.
The mismanagement of commodore doesn't change what the machine is/was. It's unfortunate sure, but that doesn't stop it being, technologically, somewhere between the megadrive/snes and the 3do and jaguar.
The irony is the 3DO has Amiga DNA from Dave Needle and R. J. Mical
They should of Kept old Jack Tramiel , i know he failed at Atari but Commodore was his baby, i think once they lost him it was curtains for the C Rainbow C=
@@willeysingleton3057 by all accounts he was nuts but then 100% of the USA management was! the only UK guys knew what they were doing!
I love these dudes!
Disposable Hero is a masterpiece and its clear that you have not understood how to play, the large glass domes are shops where you can buy additional weapons
The CD32 was my first home console and also my first Amiga! I have most of the games that came out and there are a few more that are better than the games shown here, but nothing really ever pushed the system to its limits or showed its potential. I eventually installed the SX32 expansion with 8MB extra RAM (that's four times more than the system comes with) and an internal hard drive, so it was a full computer system that I could even go online with, browse the web and download more games. I can even run Doom on it now, and it's smoother than the crappy native FPS games that were released for the system! It was a very solid machine with so much unrealised potential, and I'd love to help develop some new homebrew games for the system since it's the easiest console in the world to develop for with so many programming languages and game making tools available on the Amiga and the console reads CD-Rs.
Why none of the reviewers ever mention that? You know that, I know that as I had mine expanded with the ProModule add-on, but most of over 300k viewers will never know and will develop an biased opinion based on playing a mixed bag of games.
@@spavatch ...And it still has 4 channels of audio.
@@ReviewUSA-ri5dv and still does better than your beloved NES with its 5 channels of plinky plonky shit ;)
spavatch I think the point of this video was to show off a system a chunk of the world barely knows exists, with what games they had available to them. I wouldn’t put it past Joe to be aware of how upgradable this thing is, but he lives in a country where it was never released. I think this video was pretty fair, especially when you compare it to just about anything similar in RUclips.
@@meWASHER It's true to some degree, these guys did a much much better job than AVGN. However, if you want to make a truly fair introduction to people who didn't know it before I think you should take the trouble of preparing all the stuff needed including importing some more software from Europe, and only then present all its features as well as flaws. Otherwise it would end up being a bit like this: muscle cars were never imported to Europe so I review one of them, ida know, a base model Dodge Charger for instance. I mention its huge 3,7 liter 150 hp engine and complain how low powered and thirsty it was for its cubic capacity compared to European cars of similar class (we pushed that kind of power from 2 liter four bangers back then and still managed to offer twice the mpg), how unrefined the suspension was, making it unusable on twisting roads, how impractical it was with its huge body not fitting any parking space and how it rusted just after leaving the showroom while totally glancing over its imposing looks, stunning sound and the ability to order it with much more powerful engines that made it drive and sound even better, and ducking the issue of its context, the circumstances it was conceived in, the overall difference between the two worlds these cars come from - wide roads, vast distances versus ultra-narrow streets of medieval Italian cities. Doesn't give you the whole picture, does it? Now that's some piece of shit, the viewers would think. Nobody would throw a second glance at muscle cars after such introduction. And predictably the muscle car fans in the US would be furious after such unfair presentation ;)
Just wanted to comment on how well-produced this show is. You guys deserve way more recognition for your work!
I've never really noticed until now, just how bad ass those stop motion sequences actually are that show the consoles being stripped down.
How much work actually goes into those particular parts?
However long they take, it's definitely worth it! Keep up the good work guys!
Did you know?
Jk Rowling had an Amiga 1200 computer, mainly for word processing, she loved playing Simon the Sorcerer. Which inspired her Harry Potter books😊
Dave’s surprised face in the skits cracks me up every time.
Man, I love that you guys do this weekly now -- you've been my favourite gaming-related RUclipsrs for awhile.
+Game Sack Just a quick note, Alien Breed Tower Assault was actually the THIRD instalment of the franchise, There was Bog Standard "Alien Breed" before that on the Amiga - Which was a simple top down Run and Gun without the "traveling to bases and shooting rats" bonanza.
Back in its day (Hell, even now!) Alien Breed stood its ground and has seen successful re-releases in its old format and has even since had a serious upgrade to a Full 3D... I have played teh new one and its cool... But the nostalgic in me still prefers the original.
And you hit on the BIGGEST problem with all the 32 Bit Systems... All that extra power and no one really knew what to do with it... AMIGA in my view did the worst (Atari tried too but its not even worth mentioning as the Computer was so Expensive and unpopular that NO developers I know of actually bothered releasing any games for it... It became a poor selling Business PC).
AMIGA Failed very badly as almost all these games were just 16 Bit conversions...
But the European Platformers? Guys!!! Yes many were rushed but lets be honest, We had some GREAT European Platformers... In fact, I think its time you guys tried to have a look back at the Home Computer Era and review among others NEBULUS across the multiple platforms... A European Platformer that Totally CHANGED THE GAME!
Warren Marris Beat me to it! (A1200 owner here)
Jodi Johnson You are lucky! LOL! I got the Atari 520ST... It was a damn fine computer, but everything went to Amiga first and the ports to Atari were always sub standard - Case in point - James Pond 2: ROBOCOD... Great game, and more or less perfect between ST and AMIGA but the ST Version had all the backgrounds cut out! WHY???
Warren Marris And Donkey Kong Country by Rare was a British Company..
Antony Reynolds Well spotted! When Game Sack talk about Rare, its one of the few times they do compliment EU developers.. LOL! But they miss so many... Mainly as the biggest hits they had were on Home Computer and NOT CONSOLE!
+Game Sack You got to branch out guys... OK! You may have to go the Emulator route but we can forgive that... Where are the Home Computer Reviews???
Firstly I'm glad game sack is weekly now.
In all my years of watching Game Sack, this was the only console review without a game I would want to play.
¿Not even with the Philips CD-I?
you wouldnt even wanna try out the arabian nights game? it looks pretty fun tbh
They should cover Amiga 500 because it has lot of good games.
@@ajsingh4545 Only problem with that is that the best Amiga games were only released in Europe. It didn't really catch on in the US outside of its video and music production utility. Blame IBM and their stranglehold on the US market with the PC and IBM-compatible clones.
Bubble and Squeak is awesome...what you're "missing" is that you can kick the blue dude when he's in "wait" mode, and he rolls around like a ball...notice the ramps on the right side of that tall platform you couldn't get him up on....kick him toward them and he will do a 180 and get up on it.
Man it's to bad that Dave never does episodes anymore. Seems like he could be a guest once and a while
Agreed.
I like these old videos because it reminds me that you used to be a duo show. Joe is doing amazing but I do wonder how Dave is these days. I hope he is doing well. Thanks for keeping the Sack alive though Joe.
A 32 bit system means there is a 32 bit data-bus-mainboard architecture. CPU (M68020EC) + co-processors, RAM etc. It doesn't mean 32 bit colors. This system got a 24 bit color palette by the way (16,8 million colors), which is the maximum even in modern systems (if you select 32 bit on a modern PC; 8 bit is used for alpha masks/transparency, not colors).. CD32 is capable of maximum "8 -bit" 256 colors on screen at once, or 256 000 colors in a special mode (HAM-8). If the controller feels bad, you can use a normal Atari interface joystick (Amiga, C64, Atari ST etc.) on it as well.
Something that I really enjoy about Game Sack is the stop motion visuals and disassembly, such a small detail but it adds so much charm to the videos! And of course every Game Sack episode ever is pure perfection, I never even knew this console existed! Plus that controller looks like a real shit sucker! Amazing video guys!
Here's a fun fact: The Amiga CD32 was NOT the first CD-based 32-bit system. It was actually the Fujitsu FM Towns Marty released only in Japan. That system isn't as well known, but it is notable for having the best port of Splatterhouse on the market.
Not exactly. The FM Towns Marty had a 32-bit processor, but a 16-bit bus. The CD-32 was a full 32-bit system
Thanks Gamesack for making my childhood/early teens look like it was utter rubbish in a great video. I wanted one of these back in the day over my A500+. As many stated below, all it had was the most popular A500/1200 games ported over, so it didnt get a chance to shine. A lot of devs out of Europe would not touch the Amiga, more than likely due to its rampant piracy, so we missed out on a lot of good console games. They always gave the excuse of "limitations of the system". We got our own games, we thought they was good...maybe we just didn't know any better.
And Joe, you missed the opportunity to play Yo Joe.
Ohgod. The "Now this is more like it" ending sketches is my favorite :')
Just a few things to point out:
The CD32 was essentialy a console A1200 with a CD drive built in, so a lot of the games you played on it were 16bit re-hashes. A handful were actually new to the 32bit generation, but the CD32 had something the A1200 didn't have: Chunky to planar, which was used for a lot of advanced 3D games on it, which I really don't think you played any of the games that actually utilized it. So you ended up playing a lot of random Amiga titles with a crappy controller. I can kinda understand the bias comments, but play the games in this review on an A500 or A1200 and your opinions may change slightly.
Audio was run though 4 channels, and the stereo audio from the CD would occupy two of them, so it was a balance of music and little SFX or lots of good SFX and no music. This is why audio would only come from one channel as the audio constraints were so very tight.
+Daren Page besides guardian, there are no other 3d games that took advantage of the chunky to planar. the only other 3d games were horrible fps games that could barely function let alone run on the system.
+GameBoyLegacy if you set the resolution really low and made the screen size small then it would run smoothly but if you want to see anything the game would run choppy as hell.
The Amiga CD32 and Phillips CD-i are the only two systems I've sold from my collection and don't miss...and R-Zoooooonnnee!!!
The CD32 is an amiga 1200 with an Ikiko chip that was really quite useless. Yes, the games are really 32 bit, for most were simply Amiga ports, with some added colours via the new AGA chipset. Nevertheless, the real roots of this machine was 1985, which during it's day was an incredible bang for the power, but by 1992 when AGA chips were invented, they were modestly improved with a 32 bit bus, more colors, but I do not think sprite support was even improved...still, it's an old favorite by me, but a downer regarding new 32 bit hardware.
Akiko*
Being a British you'd expect me to enjoy the games on the Cd32 but in reality euro computer games do not appeal to me at all. Japanese all the way in the 8bit,16 bit and 32 bit days.
yeah i always noticed that when you do Battle of the Ports. you never really give the euro ports of certain games high praise. if you do, it's mostly something for the Commodore 64 as you can tell, i am a huge fan of your content. especially Battle of the Ports. Always been impressed you have put one out every week for the last three years.
You need to play the original games to get the full vibe of the euro computers. The ports are 95% pure crap. European computers have been the ideal platform for dozens of wonderful point and click adventures. if you wanted the action you'd go for the Japanese consoles, if you wanted depth and brain work you'd go for the European computers. Well, you could find your share of action in European computers too, but the Japanese consoles were generally much better at it.
Yup
I think what many American reviewers fail to understand about the European scene is that it was based around COMPUTERS, not consoles, and many of the games were written by independent small companies or, in many cases, bedroom coders. It was much closer to the indie games scene of today than the big American and Japanese console publishers. Anybody could write their own games and many people did. A lot of people who went on to have major careers in the games industry got their start in the European computer games scene. It's certainly nothing to be sniffed at.
The Zool level shown off with all the sweets was because it was heavily tied to Chubba Chubba which was a sweet brand here in the UK and they backed the game as a promo item.
*Chupa Chups.
The candy is called chupa chups, they are from Spain but they sell them around the world
CD32 = milking to death aging Amiga hardware.
It was aging at the time, remember the tech was based off the Amiga 1200.
Thats completely incorrect. The CD32 was based one the 1200 and AGA hardware, which was from less than a year earlier. Now much of the ported software was 16-bit leftovers, but not the hardware
Like nintendo.
i love how european video games looked so vibrant but also dim. it's a sort of dulled smoothness that has such a neat aesthetic that seems largely unique to this area of world at this time in the late 80s early 90s
Another great episode, guys! You missed pointing out the fact that Pinball Illusions was made by Digital Illusions...better known today as DICE (Digital Illusions Creative Entertainment). Thought it was worth pointing out!
Simon the sorcerer was voiced by Chris Barrie, by the way. Aka rimmer from red dwarf.
He was also in the tomb raider movies.
I have no experience with the Amiga, but I think the ability to make it into an actual Amiga is pretty cool; kinda like the Atari 7800 being compatible with Atari 2600 games. Despite not having much experience with the platform, I would say the best games, IMO, are the following:
Slam Tilt - Awesome pinball game with awesome presentation and my favorite of the 21st Century Entertainment games!
Ruff N Tumble - Action-Platformer that could possibly make an Amiga believer out of inexperienced gamers.
Virocop - Considered to be the best top-down action game on the Amiga.
Wiz N Liz - Fast-paced collectathon platformer with impressive graphics and nice difficulty.
Turrican series - Yes, it has the dreaded "Up-to-Jump" but I can't deny the awesome music and incredible graphics of the first two entries.
Lemmings - An Amiga essential that ended up being one of the only Amiga games to get ported on every platform. Even featured on the Japanese show Game Center CX.
Delphine Studios games - Ditto.
IMO, even though the Amiga will most likely never grab gamers who lived outside of PAL regions, it's still a legend of a computer series that helped kickstart interest in home gaming for PAL regions.
PinMike It's a shame most of those games weren't even released on the CD32, although it's easy to burn the Amiga versions to a CD-R to play on one.
+PinMike8666 You forgot Worms, was first also a Amiga only game, and has been now on almost all computers and game consoles.
Plus: Cannon Fodder. Mega Lo Mania. Syndicate. Stunt Car Racer. IK+. Speedball 2. And, a bit of a left-field choice and a simple freeware game, but still the best Breakout-style game ever... Poing.
Congrats for the show!
I wanna share some games that I like, and Game Sack didn’t cover them yet.
Maybe in the future…Here we go:
Genesis: Chiki chiki boys, Rainbow islands extra, Sonic 3D blast, The Lion King, The Hyperstone heist, Tiny Toon ACME all stars & Buster’s hidden treasure, Wani Wani World(please check it out this great crocodile game made in Japan…2 players mode).
SNES: Marvel war of the gems, Maui Mallard in cold shadow, Tiny Toon Buster busts loose & wild wacky sports, Top Gear 2 & 3000, X-men mutant apocalypse.
Neo Geo: Aero fighters 2 & 3.
GBC: Zelda oracle of Seasons/Ages.
Long live weekly Game Sack!
Cheers:)
32 bit only from the name. The same as Atari Jaguar was 64 bit. Milking marketing, Commodore without spending money on technological development, which stopped in 1985, thought the world was standing still. Consoles equipped with the cheapest possible 32 bit processor, which had to be backwards compatible and it was Motorola 68020EC clocked only 14MHz from 1984. For 3D games you need at least 68030 / 25MHz processor and additional memory with full 32-bit access, the memory used in the cd-32 is only 2MB shared with other components, even 14Mhz processor could not reach full speed because he had to wait until he had access to it. The Amiga 1200 had the same problem and it was enough to add only 1MB of memory only for the CPU to get a rate increase of 80-90%. Another thing needed for fast 3D graphics was the chunky pixel mode, the graphics processor would continue to write graphics in the form of bitplanes, which further slowed down all operations, mounted a special converter but its performance was tragic and not much improved. So cd-32 is more or less 1988/89 technology with cd-rom. 1993 way to late no wonder it was relised only in Europe/Canada and Brazil I belive.
On the other hand CDTV was just that, 88/89 technology with a CD-ROM, and it was way too early for anyone to understand it even in 1991. Is it a computer? Is it a video game system? Is it a fancy CD player? No-one could really tell.
Coming back to CD32, the hardware wasn't too powerful for the time I admit, but on the other hand no other console was as upgradeable. The guys mentioned the back slot for FMV module but it also acted as a slot for turbo boards up to 030/50 MHz and 64 MB of 'Fast' RAM and some games, Gunship 2000 for instance, IIRC, actually made use of extra memory and 68882 math coprocessor I had in mine. With those expansions it absolutely flew (Gunship 2000 pun not intended). It had a hard disk with AmigaOS installed and from that it's just a step away of going to teh internetz and chatting on gg via 28.8k modem attached to the parallel port. I know that probably tripled the price and was more of an exercise rather than something I'd want to use daily for a prolonged period of time (I had an A4000 for that), but it was possible and I doubt a Sega CD or SNES could match that ;)
@@spavatch Which is why today the CDTV is renowned worldwide for its fantastic library of games compared to the SNES and Sega CD LOL
Yes! I love getting off work and seeing a new video in my subbox.
Love Dave's skit reactions. Comedy gold.
Anyone noticed in the Arabian Night game the sound effects come from one speaker and the music comes from the other?
juice hedgehog The large majority of games on the system are this way. The only ones that aren't are the ones with CD-based soundtracks.
+Game Sack thats the way the amiga sound chipset worked, sounds were panned to left or right to create stereo imaging. Very noticable when using headphones.
petestowne Yep. I always hated it. Flawed design.
+Game Sack not that its an excuse, but the sound hardware dates back to the original amiga from 1985. Anyway, loved the video as always. I think you clearly showed that some games stand the test of time, and some dont.. I also dont need to get a cd32 now :)
petestowne The Amiga 1200 had the most advanced audio chip at the time, it was capable of so much even today it is still used in the music industry.
Great episode!
I have a CD32. I like it, but it has its flaws. A good thing is you can play with a Genesis controller, which is SO much better, but it only fits games which uses 1 or 2 buttons. Simon the Sorcerer is the best game IMO. You can burn a compilation disc of hundreds of Amiga 500 games, that's neat!
Zebbe Nice hat!
"The console so good it had to be discontinued and declare bankruptcy after six months to give everyone else a chance." -Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw
this was a really fun episode. obscure or lesser known consoles are always fun to look at. thanks guys!
Perfect timing! thanks for working on these videos! =D
Nice,video guys. To bad that the CD32 is a mixed bag.
Most of the games are ports from the A500 (ocs), and some from the A1200 (aga).
It is really a shame that they never port Turrican 2 to the CD32.
MrFixer1983 If you do a Google search for *"Unofficial CD32 Ports"* you'll get a blog that has a massive list of high quality custom Amiga game compilations for the CD32. One of those listed is a *Turrican compilation*. It's one of the best ways to play the Turrican titles on real Amiga hardware.
These compilations also come complete with nice load screens, video intros, custom control mapping (no more up for jump) and HQ game covers too. The Amiga CD32 might have been a commercial failure but it ended up being a nice parting gift to the Amiga fan thanks to the contributions by the hardcore Amiga community :)
Edit: These also work great through emulation via WinUAE.
Turrican4D
Psh. What do you know Turric... Oh.
Jokes aside, as a child of the 80s and a huge Turrican fan, I respectfully disagree with your opinion. There's a very good reason why no popular platformers in the last 20 years have used 'up' for jump and it has nothing to do with level design.
Yes but those are the OCS versions,there are no special AGA versions made of those Turrcian games.
@@FerrariKangaroo - there's also a very good reason for Amiga games using up as jump - there's no jump button on a standard joystick ;)
@@spavatch Just shows how the Euro scene was light-years behind everyone else. No jump button? LOL
Great video, Thank you guys, being able to watch this every week revives in me the memory of saturday mornings. Every sunday I wake up, get myself a big bowl of ceral and watch Game Sack.
Neat. I really enjoy your profiles of these lesser-owned systems.
very happy to see this console get some coverage, but I felt like you left out a great deal more games that are better than the ones you reviewed.
Your sketches at the end are getting better. I laughed out loud, twice!
Before I watch even a second of your videos, I just mash that like button, as it's always a good show.
Now I got something to eat breakfast to. Thanks guys
The problem with the 32-bit Amigas. The 16-bit Amiga based on the 68k was an amazing system, easily 10 years ahead of its time. But when the 32-bit versions came out, they...didn't really do anything other than swap the processor for a 68030 without really changing much else. So the graphics weren't any better than the 16-bit Amigas, it just had more CPU and RAM. And the CD32 didn't quite have the full feature set of the 32-bit Amiga computers.
CD32 would have been amazing, IN 1991.
a 37 minute new episode in the span of a week?? my diminutive human brain cannot handle so much gamesackness! thanks! :D
by the way, I love these ending skits you do at the end of your console-focused episodes, where Dave plays the hip, smart "Dude" ridiculing the poor clueless Joe! especially the CDi one! console manufacturers should have (and would have) hired you back in the day, had youtube existed back then! :D
The screaming noise from gloom came from Aliens when the Alien jumps on Dietrichs back.
its when the queen tears the android in half
Pirates! Gold on the CD32 was pretty sweet though. It's similar to the Sega Genesis version but with superior sound and music.
You guys never disapoint me with knowledge of gaming systems.
The Amiga sound hardware was technically partially obsolete since the Japanese release of the NEC PC Engine CD-ROM-ROM add-on on December 4, 1989 which features a 12-bit AD (Adaptive Differential) PCM audio channel and already fully obsolete for Europe when the SNK Neo Geo AES with its 7 ADPCM audio channels (6 12-bit, 1 16-bit) launched there in 1991 (presumably on June 18) but Commodore never upgraded it substantially from 4 8-bit PCM channels in order to compete with this and the subsequent SNES and its 8 16-bit ADPCM channels. What the CD32 did have to offer over these, though, was its 32-bit AGA which could theoretically display a different 24-bit color in every pixel of a 1440X576 (or even larger with video output through a flicker fixer) array with a practical perceptual color depth equivalent to a high-color display whereas no 16-bit console GPU could drive a full high-color display at any resolution. Sadly, though, nobody came anywhere near fully utilizing the full power of the Amiga AGA before the Amiga 4000T was discontinued in 1997.
In fact most games for Amiga CD32 were just ports of A500 Games..like arabian nights is exactely the same game on my old A500..same grafx and same music
After the game crash of 1983. The UK and the EU region sustained itself with our own computers and video games.
The crash really wasn't that bad for us. We had Commodore with C16, 64 and eventually Amiga. We had Spectrum, our own developers. We were doing alright.
The NES didn't really make much of an impact here at first. It was actually the Master System that re-introduced the console here.
But things really swung back to the consoles with Sonic on the Megadrive. Then Street Fighter 2 on the SNES. The Amiga really was struggling at this time. Commodore clearly didn't understand the then modern gamer.
They simply turned their computers into consoles, thinking that would win the players back.
Yeah. A bad habit of thinking "We already have a ton of last generation games that we could port over". I never understood that.
The ZX Spectrum 128k was my first system. I bloody loved it.
Turrican4D Similar with the ST, but the rot set in a bit sooner as it didn't have quite as much power. Software houses started dropping it around 92 and by 94 there were hardly any left. Amiga managed 1 or 2 extra years but even at the time the CD32 came out they were definitely struggling and trying to whitewash the wall that the writing was on... both companies tried to do too many things in too many areas without enough money and ended up making multiple pieces of trash that wouldn't sell instead of one standout system that recaptured the public's attention.
Turrican4D Amiga had a very good run at that time. I remember hoarding most of those games myself.
But it also began to lose it's appeal as 'top dog' around that time.
I think thanks in part to games like Sonic the Hedgehog and Street Fighter 2.
When Amiga was playing on it's strengths, it was awesome. But when it tried to be like the 16 bit consoles, that's when it went sour.
I mean, Amiga could run video footage, it's digitised sound was much better than the consoles and it's 3D games like StarGlider 2 were way out of the console's league.
Wykesidefruitmachine Spectrum had it's own comfortable spot. A legendary machine. Have you seen that new console version of it?
mspenrice Alas the poor ST. Do you remember the banter ST and Amiga users used to have?
Strangely I remember both companies having a laugh about it.
stufaman Yeah, it was a fairly friendly rivalry really. Both had their own strengths. In fact when it came to the 3D games, the Atari had the slight edge (stronger CPU / bus) even though it was rather outclassed for traditional 2D titles. Thanks to eBay, I now have both and the best quick summary I could give is that the Amiga is more impressive in terms of what it can do but the ST seems to be more thoughtfully and usefully engineered in general, which is odd given their development histories...
European this, european that, holy fucking christ! Europe is not one country
Game Sack If you'll massage them at the next con you'll visit, maybe.
Assiman
Deal.
Game Sack you just earned a new subscriber
Game Sack All i have to say to this is Jag"wire" ....Jag"wire" everywhere
Assiman You're a... peon. Burn. Triple-score.
If you were an Amiga lover or into the awesome ST, referring to the A500 and it's comparative models in it's generation, Alien Breed was a very fun and important game. European gaming had it's own vibe, lots of cool games on the Amiga and ST before consoles became the norm. Legacy joysticks held them back a lot on arcadier games but there was also alot of tremendous creativity on those systems. I was always jealous of multi button controllers with a NES/MS style D-pad when using a legacy joystick. But i played some absolute gems on an A500 as a lad.
Being a 16 bit home computer gamer in the late 80s/90s had it's own place in a European gamer's heart.
beneath a steel sky is a really amazing game! the history is surprisingly good. I hope someday you guys make an episode about point and click adventures.
You can upgrade your weapons in Disposable Hero.
The little spinning things you can pick up are basically blueprints for new weapons and ship upgrades. It will take a bit of time for them to be developed, though, but that happens just as you play. You have to land (read: touch) the stations with the green bubble on top. That will take you to the upgrade screen.
While it's true that Disposable Hero is sometimes really hard, I don't think it's fair to dismiss it as "disposable". It has a good amount of weapons and possible combinations - later in the game you even get another ship that you can select. :) There's a lot of variety in levels. The second one will take you to an alien-like organic place (best description ever) and another level will even take you underwater. :D
So, you keep mentioning that all these games look like they belong on a 16bit system.
I think that's because the hardware of the system was pretty old when it came out. The computer it was based on came out in 1987 and with a 7 MHz CPU was actually *slower* than the Genesis CPU.
The systems known for 32 bit games had processors running at 20 -> 30 MHz. Waaaay faster than this machine.
Amiga 500's CPU 7Mhz clock speed is based on custom chipset's 28 Mhz clock speed crystal. Higher clocked CPU is nearly pointless with stock A500/A1200/CD32's shared memory bus architecture.
Amiga 1200/CD32 should have 32bit bus 1.5MB RAM for IGP while 32bit bus 512 KB for CPU.
Amiga 1200/CD32's 14Mhz CPU is based is based on custom chipset's 28 Mhz clock speed crystal.
Intel 386DX CPU would have 32bit memory bus itself while SVGA has it's own VRAM bus.
I had an amiga cd32 back in the day and i can assure you it was a steaming pile of dog poo, though not as bad as the cdtv that they released. The reason commodore never released it in america was because a judge placed a restriction order on them untill they paid off they're bad debts, and of course they folded before they could. Best game on it was banshee which is in the review and a shareware galaga clone where you picked up coins and letters dropped by the baddies. American's may not realise, but commodore were huge in europe back in the 80's and 90's especially in the uk and germany. However this was the straw that broke the camel's back, one thing commodore shared with sega (sorry joe) was a ridiculously bad management running the show
It was my 💩
22:45 - "...that european platformer feel..."
We (read: the international classic gaming community as a whole) need to coin a specific word or name for this, because it's impressive that so many platformers from disparate european developers all have that same strange "feel." Maybe it's related to 50hz gameplay, maybe it's related to the hardware limitations of many euro 'micro' computers at the time, who knows, but god damn if I don't hate just about every european side-scroller/platformer i've ever played... they're either way too frantic and slippery, or clunky and stilted; there's almost never any middle-ground.
Zool!!!! FINALLY!!!
After 15 years I finally found this game that no one could remember! Don't know how to thank you guys!
the amiga sound chip was far from limited. in actuality it is far more capable than genesis or snes everyday of the week. the limitation to sfx or music in some of the games is due to lazy porting from the amiga 500 which in the base model had only 500kb of ram and couldn't support both at the same time due to low ram NOT due to lousy sound chip
I have my original A500+ and a MIB CD32 in my loft, and I'm here to tell you it was a woeful sound setup for the 90's. Four 8 bit channels? Terrible. The SNES S-SMP, on the other hand, had a DSP that could output 8 16 bit (32Khz) voices.
udio quality is much better on the Amiga. The SNES was severely limited by the amount of RAM available for sound, despite having a technically superior audio chip.
jim krom irrelevant as the sound hardware was better. Not to mention the lager cart sizes used later in the SNES lifecycle.
it would be irrelevant if it could use the hardware to full potential. since it couldn't in a game, the result was worse sound quality than the Amiga and hence more sound pleasing games in the Amiga than in the snes. End user is always concerned about how the product works, not how it could work but doesn't.
Your argument in the OP stated very clearly that the Amiga hardware was better. It isn't, so stop changing your argument.
LOL its got a resolution of.... 3?
GamerNRetro sure fuckin looked like it =/
GamerNRetro frame rate of -6 lol
GamerNRetro 32 BIT HELL YEAH !!
on a screen smaller than a game boy
Why it was released on the Amiga cd32 is beyond me. The game was made for a beefed up Amiga 1200 with accelerator
GamerNRetro -And not even wide-screen aspect-ratio.....
This console doesn't look like a high provider of entertainment
It ain't.
Being an American, I never got to see any Amiga games growing up. I had always heard there existed in Europe a computer that played completely different games than what I'm used to. Now I'm thinking about buying one off of Ebay. Dreams do come true.
Here are what the symbols the each of the buttons represent:
Left Shoulder button -> Rewind
Right Shoulder button -> Fast Forward
Start Button -> Pause/Play
🟢Green Button/3 1 2 Button -> Skip Music Track
🟡Yellow Button/Curly Arrow Button -> Repeat Music Track
🔴Red Button/Arrow Pointing at the Line Button -> Download
🔵Blue Button/Square Button -> Stop Music Track
Rayman is a European platformer (French actually) and it's Bad Ass!!!
I will give Rayman it's due props
GameSack don't understand what the hell their saying when they say European developers can't program games.
SilverBack That's a rubbish theory but yeah feel free to spread misinformation, allow US gamers to be none the wiser.
P Ferreira Its not misinformation. Its opinion. Truth is this console is an absolute failure from over 10 years ago. You can fight it all you want but its wasted time and energy. But losers take up the mantle of losers so have fun with that.
P Ferreira No somebody who has played them and formed that opinion would say that.
"You can also get this game on..."
"It's like the SNES version, just with CD audio"
I am very surprised this console didn't catch on. So very surprised.
Zool wasn't that good even back then. But the magazines hyped it up to be the next Sonic or Mario, so a lot of people bought it. Even Superfrog was much better.
But you NEED toplay Surf Ninjas on the CD32. It's THE BEST. (lol no)
CarozQH - Yep, Marvins marvelous adventure, Fire and Ice or The Misadventures of flink are better examples IMO
Zool (same as Cool Spot, Fido Dido, Superfrog etc) was sponsored fame or playable advert from Amiga 500 time. Zool was sponsored by Chupa Chups.
CarozQH
Nah, they're pretty good.
Just get it over with guys and make an episode about your favorite games with parallax scrolling in it. It's hilarious how you guys are so fascinated with that, though I'm the same way with ragdoll physics I guess.
I will never get tired of this ending skit.
Anyone here from AVGN?
Me. These guys kinda suck though.
@@GameSack Nooooo you guys rock as well!!
Yeah, me. I wanted to check if you guys have something to add.
AVGN did a great comedy video and I enjoyed it but this one's a bit more factual and more valuable for those who never heard of the CD32 before. 'More factual' because at least you picked a mixed bag of titles instead of picking what somebody rightfully thrown into the dumpster (which is an equivalent of judging the NES only by LJN titles). Just 'a bit' though because you failed to point out main differences between this and any other console, differences that basically come from these two major factors: 1) the concept of a gaming console wasn't nearly as popular in Europe as it was in the US and 2) the Amiga was one of the most popular consolesque platforms in Europe, all of which resulted in CD32 becoming the best selling console in Europe during its production run. Without mentioning it it's hard to understand its place on the market. Now I kinda understand how it feels when Europeans ridicule your cars of that era for being slow, wobbly and thirsty ;)
@@spavatch NES = 5 channels of audio, CD32 = 4 channels of audio
HAHA
@@spavatch wich part of Europe was this popular?! Not where I lived
It's a shame that most of the games were shovelware from the ECS/OCS Amigas. Commodore's last gasp before going bankrupt.
whats does the game sack mean? is it in reference to dragging your stuff over to your buddies for a night of gaming?
Jason Brown If that's how you perceive it then yes.
Jason Brown a sack of games. they dig up old games and consoles and review them. It is nice you wanted to share your homoerotic fantasies with us, but I doubt that is an universal one.
Geir Eivind Mork Weirdly, you're the only one who's mind immediately jumped to homoeroticism. Nobody else did. You know what a sack is right, just to check? It's basically a bag. There's more than just the ball-sack, you know. Or maybe you don't know
Superfrog is one of the best platformers ever.So much fun.Well at least on amiga 500.
Great to see an amiga review! Nice one guys :)
I had an Amiga 500 back in the day. At least half (if not more) of the games you showed were available on the amiga 500, which used a 7mhz processor. I'm surprised the CD32 used so many of the same games as it had a double speed processor and 2-4x the RAM. Maybe they did it to give it a decent games library at launch?
Also, you can use the good ol Sega Megadrive controller on the amiga if you hate their supplied one. Muuuuch better.
Loved hearing some of that amiga music again. Nothing sounded quite like it!
INVENT ME THE MICROWAVE OVEN SO I CAN ENJOY MY HOTPOCKETS AND PIZZA ROLLS!!!
Gamesack is awesome
I beat up my friends for using precise controllers too.
That's because you are a teenage virgin.
And you're a 30-year-old virgin.
Nope.
50
Game Sack going weekly is a beautiful thing. You guys are the best! Keep up the awesome work!
I love weekly episodes! I look forward to it every Sunday. Please keep up the great work.
Pliskin194 oh wait i thumbs you up twice on two different comments XD
4 channels of sound is unacceptable for a 32 bit system.
+EX Heihachi It's an Amiga 1200 in disguise.
It is when u remember that other systems used sound synthesis, where the number of channels makes a difference, and this is all PCM i.e. digital audio. It's essentially a mixer. This makes it both simpler and much more capable than anything else available at the time.
I wish the European reviewers would be more objective about this hardware. Nostolgia Nerd and Larry Bundy Jr. act like you insult their religion if you call a spade a spade about this system. It could never be competitive with the other 32-bit systems like the PS1 or Saturn. It was barely better than the 16-bit Sega CD. Region loyalty and exclusivity doesn't automatically make it a good console.
It didn't gave a chance to flourish after commodore went bust and games developers moved away from it. Most of the games shown on here are ports from older amiga machine.
Growing up we had an Amiga computer, and we could use a Genesis controller for it, can you use a Genesis controller on the CD32?
I was thinking the same....
Dustin Gibbons Yes you can. And if you do, some games are even fun to play.
Dustin Gibbons Yes.
They both use the atari joystick pinout, but they multiplex the signal differently for the extra buttons so it will just work as a regular 2 button joystick. two of the pins also need to be swapped in order for it to be safe for the console.
Dustin Gibbons Absolutely! Same connector, no upside-down shenanigans (hi, Microsoft!), and some games actually supported more than one button!
I don't think too many devs besides Factor 5 and some other German outfits actually made use of it, though.
Do read up on it though before experimenting, I vaguely remember something about certain pads having to modified so they don't blow up the CIA chip.
The hieroglyphs on the buttons matched the controls of a CD player at the time, so when you played Audio CDs, you could press the corresponding button for shuffle, etc.
That made sense in 1992 :)
The CD32 was made during the headless desperate days of Commodore. It is completely gorgeous, like the Amiga 600 - needs to be behind a glass cabinet.
Bubble and Squeak: You were meant to have Bubble kick Squeak towards the curved things, he will roll up them.
Watch Me Die Thanks! I didn't know you could kick him and I felt like I tried everything.
Game Sack Dave 3:46-4:05
It's Resident Evil 5 all over again. LOL
Game Sack Dave Joe/Dave, British fan here. This episode has made me think, you guys would be an awesome collaboration with British RUclipsr Guru Larry Bundy Jr. Your styles would compliment each-other's perfectly, and he really knows his stuff when it comes to obscure retro games: /watch?v=S5uC0ymZK3s
Game Sack Dave Guys... have you tried GameFAQs? :D
(Can't guarantee that it'll be any help, but always worth a look)
+Game Sack Dave Don't mean to be rude but if you played the game for more than five minutes you could figure that one out. I'm terrible at playing games I figured that out quickly.
never heard of this system
THE MORE YOU KNOW ... 😄
The brits seem to actually say "Jagyooer". I find it entertaining.
this may be the least impressive library of games ive ever seen no wonder this thing never came out in the us
I know right?! And it was supposed to be a thirty-two bit system, but of all the games they showed, only one was 3D, and it was terrible. Almost all the games are ports from other systems, and none of them looked like must-play games either.
I think the Philips CD-I and the Pioneer Laserdisc (not counting the Genesis and PC engine games that can be played on the Laserdisc modules) has the CD32 beat when it comes to least impressive library of games, but that's also like saying that a bank account with just $20 in it is better than someone else's account that just filed for bankruptcy. Either way, its slim pickings to find good games on the CD32. Honestly though, I'd rather have any of the three aforementioned consoles than an Atari Jaguar or Ouya. At least the Laserdisc, CD-I and CD32 are more interesting in concept.
@@ethanschultz3089 You obviously don't know anything about the Amiga system.
@@hotshot6674 You shouldn't have to rely on almost decade-old 16-bit A500 games to boost the library of a 32-bit CD system.
Actually, that's not the reason. Commodore had a bad habit of not paying for things, like the patent dispute that kept them out of the US, or the Phillippine warehouse owners that were forced to eat the costs on storing a shitload of American-bound CD32s until Commodore went bankrupt. The few CD32s that made it here were all gray market. or imported from Canada This thing was never officially sold here.
How the hell Mehdi Ali and Irving Gould escaped criminal prosecution for the way they mismanaged Commodore is beyond me.
Greetings and salutations once again, GameSack friends! I am overcome with joy at the rapid deployment of fun and informative videos as of late, although each new video does in fact result in yet another soiled adult diaper on my end. My replenishment of said diapers had become accustomed to your two week schedule, so with this surprise upload I have run my allotment dry ahead of schedule...however I can't think of a better reason to ruin my coworkers' day tomorrow with the unpleasant stench of rotting bodily filth than another one of your award-winning internet RUclips programs! Keep up the grand work, in the name of friendship!
In Disposable Hero you can land on the green half-circles which are shops and you can buy new weapons and ships that you have found the blueprints to throughout the game. It's actually much better with that aspect as you try and locate all the blueprints to get the best stuff.
Yes, we do say Jaguar that way, because there's no W in it.
Don't argue with English people about how English is spoken, you lose by default.
Dont listen to the review on disposable hero. That is an amiga exclusive that every sidescroller shut-em-up fan should play. It quite difficult but NEVER is it the games fault when you die. it has pixel perfect collision detection and detailed gfx.(ok the bk grounds are a little bland). The weapon upgrade system it is detailed and great.If you like r-type play that game!