The Amiga CD32 : Better than you've been lead to believe

Welcome to Gouldfish On Games where today we're going to be talking about a machine that's gotten a lot of flack over the years but i really like it so let's check out the CD32 [Music] the Commodore Amiga CD32 to give it its full title was released in europe in 1993 and has quite the history but i feel that tends to overshadow the actual machine so instead i want to focus on the CD32 its games and some improvements and if you're interested then we might look into its history another imt The top of the machine is half taken over by this cd-rom drive which was a speedy for the time 2x drive [Music] there's a reset button that replaces the classic three finger salute of the amiga keyboard along with a headphone jack with volume slider just to get that full stereo separation the joystick ports are along the side of the unit rather than the front which is one of odd choices of the machine next to it is an aux port which is a combination serial and keyboard connector that just so happens to be compatible with the A4000 keyboard and if we go around the back we find the expansion bay a power switch the power jack which is different to the standard amiga connector and then we have three different av choices RF S-Video and Composite the machine's code name was Spellbound which we'll find if we look inside and this is one of the few instances where a B52's track wasn't used as the code name the heart of the machine is this tiny chip the Motorola 68020 cpu well it's the cheaper EC variant of it as it's a console, it doesn't really need to be able to access more than 16mb's not when it comes with 2MB as standard the custom chips were the core of the amiga and this is based off the A1200's Gdvanced Graphic Architecture chipset we have Alice and Lisa working together to provide the graphics as well as other features like the fast memory access and the Copper co-processor between them in their standard video mode they can draw 256 colors on screen at once, but using some of the other video modes as well as some Copper tricks that number could be boosted higher the audio is still provided by Paula it would have been nice if they had provided more audio channels as it's still just those four fixed stereo pcm channels as the original amiga, though this is tempered by having cd audio and lastly there is a brand new chip Akiko which is a jack of all trades it handled talking to the cd-rom drive and it was also the controller for the save ram and they even managed to find a little bit of space for a developer requested feature a function that handled graphics conversions between the two main graphic memory layouts of the time and with the basic hardware covered let's take a quick look at the controllers and yes this is the standard controller that came with the CD32 the design is interesting and does get a lot of flack but actually i don't mind it i find it sits in the hands well enough but i will admit the d-pad isn't the best it's at a slight angle which is a bit weird and the feeling isn't great but i have used a lot worse but button wise things are much better as we have a decent number of them way more than any amiga joystick we had as there's four main face buttons with that red one being the equivalent of a regular joystick button which is why it's slightly bigger than the rest there's also two shoulder buttons as well as a start button sorry that's a start pause button but before we get into the games i think we should take a quick look at the firmware [Jingle] as it has a few features that are worth talking about as it has a built-in music player if you wanted to listen to your music cds and it's all nicely animated but probably more important is the NV-RAM viewer which is where we get to see our save games and with just one kilobyte of space there isn't much here to work with and due to there being no real standard for how you handled saves on a console at this point they got a bit creative as their solution was everything in the save ram was volatile so it could be wiped by any other game if they needed the space that is unless you lock the save data in this menu first which is what this key is all about you can't delete anything saves will just be overwritten as required so you do have to be careful if you jump from one game to another without at least first going into this menu to protect your save if you want to keep it as some games could use alot of space and speaking of the games i think it's time we looked at how they got packaged as they came in a range of styles we got the big boxes just like the regular amiga games well in some instances exactly the same boxes as the original games with just a new sticker Microprose liked having these tall cardboard style designs where mindscape went with a smaller cardboard design instead and then there was the dual and single jewel case designs now it's time that we actually look at some games and due to the untimely end of the machine it never really got any exclusive titles as ones that had been planned that way ended up getting ported back to the amiga 1200 so instead of looking at its exclusives or checking out all the bundled games i've decided to show off a few of my favorites as well as a few interesting games these are all ones that i've not already covered in a full reviews previously first up is Microcosm which was one of the early titles to be shown off with the machine and was even used in the advert and then it was even in two of the four bundles that commodore released and this was all down to the fact that this was an fmv heavy game and it had this long intro sequence with cgi and live action parts because that is what cds were all about huge storage for fmv sequences [well dr knowles are we ready] [the injection] [ah yes into the cephalic vein] [not having any second thoughts about this] [not getting a little nervous] [of course not] and that continued into the game as well as it's a video based tunnel shooter as You have to fly around this person's body destroying viruses and baddies now i don't think it was the first or even the last game to use this style of fmv but this was heavily advertised and for a while this was meant to be the future of gaming [Music and pew pew pew] [Music and even more pew pew pew] where in the end this game is interesting as you can pick your roots around the body it animates quite quickly and it can even look quite nice in places but the gameplay really didn't push any boundaries [Music] Guardian when it was first unveiled was considered one of the killer apps for the machine a game that on paper or at least on magazine paper this was the answer to Star Fox (Star Wing) but what we get wasn't quite that [Music] as while it didn't quite live up to those lofty goals it is a very interesting game in its own right because it's more of a 3d arcade shooter than anything else as you have to fly around these environments shooting down enemy aircraft that happen to show up while also trying to avoid the various trees and buildings that get in your way [Music] and this makes really good use of the CD32 controller with the shoulder buttons being move and break with fire being on the red button there's even a button to reverse your direction [Music] but i will admit the movement doesn't always feel great with you over steering quite often and yes this is partially down to the frame rate that isn't always consistent but overall it is smoother than some of the other 3d console games Impossible Mission 2025 is a typical example of what a large range of the CD32 library is like as it's effectively an Amiga 1200 version of the game with some added video sequences and some cd music this isn't necessarily a bad thing as if the game was good before then it'll still be good now but it did feel like not all the developers really put the effort in so how does the third sequel stack up in the franchise in this special edition you can actually directly find out as for the first time ever impossible mission 1 is playable on the amiga as it's included on the cd the original was effectively a randomized open world in which you had to travel around searching and trying to find all the puzzle pieces to try and get to that really chatty madman when 2025 it's all a little bit more predefined as you have to solve a number of levels each one has a set layout and i think all the items might even be in the same place each time as well but it is possible they are actually randomized either way though on your first game you will have to search everything to try and find all the parts and then solve the puzzle though thankfully there are abilities that you can pick up in the levels like puzzle solvers jet packs or the needle gun so there is lots of things to find is also worth taking the time to check out the terminals as they'll set the restart point if you die as there's nothing more annoying than getting sent all the way back to the beginning of the level [Music] but you might also find the odd minigame as well though one of the other things they carried over from the original was having a limited amount of time to finish the level with each of your deaths speeding you along [Music] the Big Six is one of the better examples of something that also happened a lot on the CD32 and that was older games getting packaged together as a collection and in this instance is very obviously the amiga Dizzy games or at least the adventure ones anyway and it actually included a few classics like Prince Of Yoke Folk which despite what a "Rose Tinted Youtuber" might say i think this is a good game [Music] we have Treasure Island Dizzy which was my very first introduction to Dizzy [Music] and we also have Fantastic Dizzy now this last one is quite interesting as it's the only one to get any real update for the collection as it was remastered with AGA graphics and cd audio just for this collection [Music] the rest of them are pretty much straight ports of the older amiga titles which highlights an issue we have with some of the ports for this machine they left up to jump, now when you only have one button and you've got a joystick as standard that i do get up to jump it makes sense but on a controller that should have been moved to a button [Music] Simon The Sorcerer teleports in next and it's one that really helped show off what the hardware could do quite nicely as not only did it add full voice overs for the game with the amazing Chris Barry doing the voice of our hero [dear Simon i am pleased to announce that] [you have been chosen from literally] [hundreds of hopeful candidates to perform] [a death defying but extremely worthwhile] [quest for which you will be rewarded] it used the 256 color Graphics mode so it ends up looking and sounding really quite lovely and being on the CD also means that we don't have to deal with swapping discs like the original, which had 9 of them which wasn't the worst for the amiga but it can be quite bad particularly as this is a point-and-click adventure so disk swapping was something you would do often [If i said you had a beautiful body would] [you hold it against me] [Music] this type of game wasn't all that common on the consoles there are a few examples here and there but there's not many so it's quite cool we got this as well as a few other adventure games on the CD32 And in this one we want to become a mighty pirate oh wait no sorry we want to become a mighty wizard [when i move my mouse pointer over you it] [says wizards] [oh fair enough] and to complete this mission you'll have to explore and interact with this lovely storybook world with lots of locations and people for you to meet up with and you can play the whole thing via the controller or the mouse and thankfully there aren't any real deaths and you shouldn't have any dead ends either and that's pretty good as due to the save ram limitations you could only have a single save game so you may want to try and finish this one off first before you go playing anything else the Misadventures Of Flink is an odd one as there was no regular amiga release but it did show up on the mega drive and mega cd and one of the things that it shows off is what the cd format could have done for the amiga as load times are fast very fast the raw read speed is something like 10 times faster than the standard amiga floppy drive but read times aren't the be-all and end-all of load times as quite often the data would be compressed to fit on as few disks as possible so the cpu really became the bottleneck well with the massive storage of the cd that wasn't an issue anymore so games could be designed with it in mind so you could have all that data already de-crunched on the cd for speedy Load times the game itself is fun enough though the acceleration of the main character is a little bit slow but then increases when you jump so it can take a little bit to get used to And in many ways this feels like a standard mario esque platformer as you have to jump on people's heads but it does have a few unique touches like baddies that take more than one hit well you can actually pick them up and then throw them so it's more like a cross between Mario 1 and Mario 2. Really it is a very nice looking game possibly one of the best looking platformers on the machine and it's relatively creative as well with sections where you have to jump across these falling leaves or avoiding monsters that are jumping at you from the background there's even a whole spell system which i've not really got into grips with yet but it does look quite interesting this is a game i've been meaning to do a proper deep diving to at some point and when i do that you just know i'll have to do a review on it UFO Enemy Unknown also known as X-Com is another game you wouldn't really expect on a console but here it is and you can play with either the mouse or the controller though i would say you're probably better off using a mouse and with it being on the CD32 it has resulted in a few limitations as you can't set the name for your bases or as far as i'm aware rename anything in the game which always used to be my trick for reminding me which of those soldiers i had to get rid of with this being a pc game that was first ported to the amiga and then again to the CD32 i tend to find it's a little bit slower than the original version as everything feels like it's lagging a little behind your actions although graphically this is closer to the 256 color pc version than the A500 but all the game is here we have the intro sequence the strategy side where you have to build up your base do research or while looking at the earth that's spinning around to having to take on missions and fight the aliens on foot it is an amazing game it's just not the platform i'd pick to play it on but if this was all i had you damn well know i would have played it on here Liberation which sometimes also has the subtitle Captive 2 was touted as the CD32's killer game as the developers mentioned a number of times that this wasn't possible on a regular amiga there was just too much data and it had to be on a cd well that later proved to be partially false when they released an aga version of the game, it's just they had to cut out a chunk of stuff and where did all that data go well for its very high level of presentation as it has this wonderfully animated and voiced intro speaking from the center a spokesman from the free javda now campaign told our reporter that a gross miscarriage of justice had been perpetrated against an innocent man and when you get past that into the game we find ourselves in this free roaming dungeon crawler style game with this fully 3d textured mapped world now it's at this point whenever i play the game that i realize i have absolutely no idea what i'm doing and end up just randomly walking around as i've never quite learned what it is i need to do in this game i'm usually just stunned at how big the world is and how nice it looks but i think the goal is that you have to go around and try and find someone and in the process you're probably gonna have to shoot at some droids using your full robot party like any good dungeon crawler you can move items between your party members pick up stuff from the floor and interact with the environments it's a really deep game and as such you really have to put some time into it to learn it it's also a very smooth one and smooth enough that you don't really notice that you are moving around in large steps But if you want to go see more of the city well then jump in one of the taxis and go for a ride [Music] and with the games out of the way i want to talk about something we spotted earlier the expansion port as this got used for a few things and the main one that was advertised was the FMV Module which added mpeg support so you could play back vcds the module itself these days tends to be quite rare so i don't have one but vcds were quite popular at the time the other big upgrade was the SX-1 expansion this effectively turned your cd32 back into an amiga 1200 as it added in most of the missing ports as well as allowing you to add more ram and even a hard drive this is something i'd love to get my hands on but similar to the fmv module these days it can be quite expensive but i do have 2 other upgrades that i can show you the first is this floppy drive add-on from Analogic which on top of adding a floppy disk drive it also has rgb video output as well as a real-time clock this allows you to boot regular amiga floppy disk games or even just use the cd32 with rgb video out but it does something to the machine that means the cd32 controllers won't work right and it also uses some of the system ram so quite a few of those games will end up crashing due to not having enough memory it seems that this wasn't really aimed at the gamers but i did Pick up one a while back because i thought it looked quite cool the other upgrade i have is similar to the sx1 as it's the Terrible Fire 328. Is basically a memory and hard drive upgrade board it provides eight megabytes of fast ram and a 44 pin ide connector for a HDD or in this instance a compact flash cart and it's paired with the Kipper 2k riser board this expansion adapter as it's also known as provides a few nice things on its own including an amiga standard rgb video port as well as having a ps2 port for a pc keyboard and while it might not be as extensive as the sx1 the extra ram and ide port is more than enough for most users but if you do want more then there are other terrible fire cards with faster cpus that can access way more memory than the stock cpu makes possible but for me it was mostly about expanding the cd32 just enough to be able to enjoy some games off the compact flashcart as well as getting rgb video out i also happen to have one other upgrade or a replacement as it's a new Power supply as the original one is quite literally a brick where this new one is pretty small and light and it looks like it was made out of a laptop power supply they've just added a custom connector that fits the CD32 now historically taking a home computer and turning into a console never really went well and the CD32 didn't really buck that trend but for a while it was selling in pretty decent numbers in the uk and it managed to get quite the sizeable catalogue of games even if a lot of them were quick and dirty ports so it really did put on a good showing but it really wasn't to be as commodore really didn't have the cash to keep it going and that next generation of consoles well they were just around the corner so despite its flaws and its troubled history i am a big fan of this machine it took the amiga full circle to back to where they wanted to be initially creating a console and so until next time i was the Gouldfish that was 32 bits of raw power and this was Gouldfish On Games [Music] thank you for watching me talk all about the cd32 i do hope you enjoyed it and if you did then there's a few buttons just below the video that you can use to show your appreciation or if you're not sure yet then there should be a few videos on the screen right now and i'm sure one of them will be on a cd 32 game that i've reviewed in the past

Channel: GouldFish On Games

Views: 23,461

Keywords: amiga, cd32, commodore

Id: oQ5nQ7ACykc

Length: 26min 33sec (1593 seconds)

Published: Tue May 31 2022