What Makes The Amiga CD32 The Best Amiga?

[Gilbert]

There are many reasons but for me it was the multi-button controller (for bespoke games meant no more pressing up on joystick to jump) combined with no disk-swapping


Just a much better experience all round


How about for everyone else?

[jotd]

a lot of CD32 titles still require UP for jump. Examples: Premiere, Chuck Rock I & II, probably a lot of others

Why? because they were quick cash-in conversions that's why. The (updated) software was not the strong point of the console.

However, the CD32 helped us to get versions of games that we could never get with AGA.

There aren't a lot of them, but the best is probably Fire & Ice (and yes, there's an option to jump with the button).

Venture to the world of whdload installs with a CD32 joypad on a A1200 or even A500/A600 with RAM/hard drive and you'll see that
- a lot of games have now been adapted for full use of the joypad controls.
- there's no disk swapping either

Now to answer your question:

- it's better than other unexpanded vanilla Amiga models because there's no keyboard so games have simpler & standardized controls (who looked for F1 for pause for hours ?) and yes, no disk swapping.
- a pretty proper choice of riser boards (for VGA output) and accelerators/ram expansion/IDE (Terrible Fire) boards now exist to expand your console and it's quite cheap to do so.

[Predseda]

I think the best CD32 upgraded game is Simon the Sorcerer. Talkie version brought it to a different level.

I agree with the multi-button reason, but the original supplied controller is just a pure shit.

[jotd]

Ktrl-cd32 ftw!

[Amigajay]

No single Amiga was THE best Amiga out of the box, adding a SX1 to my CD32 certainly put it right up there with a A1200 with CD drive, as a jack of all trades device, along with 100% CD32 compatibility something no A1200 CD drive had at the time.

But if you are just talking Amiga gaming, the benefits for CD32 owners:

7 button controller as standard
CD Music and SFX
Video/Animated Intros
Larger game worlds, more textures, extra levels
No Disk Swapping

And game pricing was starting to swing (would have happened more frequently of course had things turned out differently) towards cheaper CD games as disk games came on more and more disks i.e Rise of the Robots OCS £39.99 / AGA £42.99 / CD32 £34.99

Of course it wasn’t perfect, but it was made on the cheap with little budget compared to what they chucked at the CDTV. Save space was the biggest issue, i understand why they didn’t want a disk drive built-in (piracy and didn’t want a repeat of the CDTV where people just bought the games on floppy disk) should have imo at least used the CDTV memory cards to give people an option and make it standard, having a SX1 was best but not being standard meant most game devs didn’t bother having option to save to DF0.

[Predseda]

It is a point of view. In my eyes CD32 is THE WORST Amiga, because from a creative computer it was degraded to a console for consumers of already complete games. No possiblity to code, draw or compose on that (stock) machine.

[jotd]

you're forgetting Amiga communicator module link your CD32 to another amiga serial port and voilà (you also need a A2000 keyboard).

Thanks to the CD32 we have a multi-button controller. If there was something to single out, that would be it (and not the ridiculous size of the NVRam memory!)

It was also under-exploited: see the recent game conversions with CD audio. How many games had CD audio + sfx at the time? very few.

[Turrican_3]

Originally Posted by jotd

you're forgetting Amiga communicator module link your CD32 to another amiga serial port and voilà

Personally, I'll never ever forget that: thanks to the help of Commodore Italiana, kindly enough to give me the pinout of the keyboard/serial port connector of the CD32, I was able to sell tens of units of a selfmade clone and earn some extremely needed money that helped me stay afloat (was young, unemployed... those were hard times!)

Back on topic, I'm not sure the CD32 was the best Amiga (it could be argued it was actually the worst), but I do believe it could have been far more successful had it launched earlier I think. Perhaps that's true for all AGA systems though...

[StevenJGore]

I absolutely loved my CD32, and I bought the FMV module too. I bought both on the days they were released by Commodore (people trying to get hold of PS5s know nothing! ), and in the context of the time the Video CD experience was very impressive. Yes, I know, laserdiscs were better, blah blah blah.

A lot of games had their most superior versions released on the CD32. Some have already been mentioned, like The Chaos Engine, Simon the Sorcerer, Gunship 2000, Fire and Ice, Litil Divil, Beneath a Steel Sky, Super Stardust, and (forgive me) Microcosm.

But I also remember the crushing disappointments of all the lazy A500 ports, some of which had no enhancements whatsoever, or a token audio track or two at best. Then there were the promised "next gen" games, most of which never made it to a CD32 release, like Inferno and CyberRace. Or the ones that did just about make it but were awful, like Rise of the Robots.

Many years later, thanks to eBay and a proper job, I got the SX32 Pro module. That took it to a whole new level.

I therefore agree that the CD32 is the best Amiga!

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by Predseda

It is a point of view. In my eyes CD32 is THE WORST Amiga, because from a creative computer it was degraded to a console for consumers of already complete games. No possiblity to code, draw or compose on that (stock) machine.

Totally agree

It was a poor console; and if it wasn't for the recent hardware upgrades and WHDLoad / CD32Load etc. then you'd be stuck with rubbish games that were mostly disk versions with audio tracks.

Let's not even talk about the poor stock controller.

[jotd]

A lot of games had their most superior versions released on the CD32. Some have already been mentioned, like The Chaos Engine, Simon the Sorcerer, Gunship 2000, Fire and Ice, Litil Divil, Beneath a Steel Sky, Super Stardust, and (forgive me) Microcosm.

A lot of games like The Chaos Engine or Gunship 2000 for instance already had an AGA release too. for others you're right (and the regular amiga owner benefitted from enhancements too, well games had to be hacked most of the time)

Talkie versions were only possible on CD, though (let's not mention intro videos that bring nothing once you saw them twice)

It was a poor console; and if it wasn't for the recent hardware upgrades and WHDLoad / CD32Load etc. then you'd be stuck with rubbish games that were mostly disk versions with audio tracks.

Totally agree, specially on the CD32load part And "disk versions with audio tracks" was when you were lucky. Most of the time it was just "disk versions with (poor) controller changes".

Perfect example of laziness: Core titles: Premiere CD32 is exactly the same version as the floppy, with up for jump and even the infamous MUSIC OR SFX left in! SHAME... (until I redid it with sfx+music+button jump in 2019, like it should have been at its release)

[Gzegzolka]

Amigajay sumarize it well in my humble opinion. For me CD32 was a wasted potential. There were many positive points on having cd console version of floppy games, but often many titles just utilize few possibilities. There were too many cash grabbs titles that only have no disk swapping and not full pad support. Some games got both music and effects, some got additional animations and few got extra levels. For example Oscar on Cd32 got two extra worlds, additional ambient music in stages, in game manual, but still You have to press up for jump and there was no intro animation like i ms dos version.

[jotd]

big thumbs up for Zool & Zool 2: blue for jump, CD music and one extra level (even compared to the AGA version).

=> how ALL CD32 games should have been.

[Psiq]

Originally Posted by DamienD

Totally agree

It was a poor console; and if it wasn't for the recent hardware upgrades and WHDLoad / CD32Load etc. then you'd be stuck with rubbish games that were mostly disk versions with audio tracks.

Let's not even talk about the poor stock controller.

I agree!!

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by jotd

big thumbs up for Zool & Zool 2: blue for jump, CD music and one extra level (even compared to the AGA version).

Extra levels in both Zool [CD32] & Zool 2 [CD32]?

[str0m]

Even if it didn't have the games, at least it looks really good aesthetically

Oh hang on

(CD32+TF330 owner so I'm allowed to take the mick out of it)

[jotd]

yeah one extra world for each zool game Vs floppy

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by jotd

yeah one extra world for each zool game Vs floppy

Cheers for confirmation

Then it's worth adding these two into my collection; along with "Oscar" and "Fire and Ice: The Daring Adventures Of Cool Coyote"

[d4rk3lf]

For me, the best Amiga is A500, because it was way ahead of it's time (especially considering pricing and what you get).
CD32 is nice console, a little bit outdated when it's released, and they should have add something little bit more for 3D stuff, apart from Akiko chip.

However, imho, it was good enough to make good selling, if it had the correct marketing + some really cool 3D games (something like: No Second Prize on A500 (but more detailed and faster), + some Encyclopedias + some high detailed 2D games.

Yeah, another wasted opportunity.

[MickGyver]

I love the CD32, bought it soon after it was released. It could have been much more, that's for sure.

With modern upgrades like the TF328 or TF330 and my KTRL CD32 pad (that supports button remapping when necessary, sorry for bragging) it makes a really good Amiga imo, being able to play CD32 games and WHDLoad games on one machine is great.