CDTV - Was there any good software?

[durniplot]

Some years ago I bought a CDTV, but I don't have any proper software for it. I'd like to get something, and display the CDTV in my computer room, but I've realized that I have no idea what software to run. I have plenty of regular Amiga software, but I don't see the point in "showcasing" the CDTV running F/A 18 Interceptor or IK+.

So, I'm hoping you guys could give me some pointers.

Were there any games that were enhanced in any meaningful way compared to the regular Amiga floppy versions?

Any games made exclusively for the CDTV?

Any "multimedia" titles worth their salt, such as encyclopedias, interactive books, and so on?

[emufan]

there are alot of cdtv titles on the ftp.

[Mrz]

Originally Posted by emufan

there are alot of cdtv titles on the ftp.

and all of them very buggy
the CDTV was a scam

[Mrz]

I think the best title for the CDTV is turrican 2
but is only 1mb long in a 600+mb cd, a total waste of unused data, they don't even added an intro to differentiate from the floppy version,
shameless

[Amigajay]

Most of the CDTV only stuff was the non game discs, at the time was very useful as no internet around at the time.

I did start a list some years ago, excuse the notes but you can get the idea of total software. Quite a bit of software not on floppy Amigas, it was quite unfairly dropped by Commodore and a lot of games were moved to the CD32 so it never had a chance to blossom as it were, but still a unique piece of hardware to own.


CDTV Titles - 130 odd

9 german only releases

titles with cdtv logo on cover or disc

Entertainment/Games: 60 odd, 16 exclusive,
Battle Chess - 1992 - Enhancements: ?
Battlestorm - 1992 - Enhancements: CD Music
Case Of The Cautious Condor, The - 1991 - Interactive Mystery Game - Enhancements: Amiga Exclusive
Casino Games - 1992 - Enhancements: Amiga Exclusive
Chaos In Andromeda: Eyes Of The Eagle - 1992 - Enhancements: Manual on CD, 8 CD Tracks
Classic Board Games - 1991 - Enhancements: language moves?
Cover Girl Strip Poker - 1992 - Enhancements: video?
Curse of RA,The - 1992 - Enhancements: ?
Defender Of The Crown - 1991 - Enhancements: Manual on CD, audio?
Defender Of The Crown II - 1994 - Enhancements: Amiga CD Exclusive
10
E.S.S. Mega - 1992 - Enhancements: Amiga Exclusive
Falcon - 1991 - Enhancements: CD Music, CDXL Video
Fantastic Voyage - 1992 - Enhancements: ?
Gamers' Delight - 1994 - compilation of pd games
Global Chaos - 1992
Guy Spy And The Crystals Of Armageddon - 1992 - Enhancements: ?
Holiday Maker - 1991 - German release - Enhancements: ?
Hound Of The Baskervilles, The - 1991 - Enhancements: Amiga Exclusive
Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure - 1992 - German release - Enhancements: ?
Lemmings - 1991 - Enhancements: ?
20
Logical - 1991 - Enhancements: ?
Loom - 1992 - German release - Enhancements: ?
Mind Run - 1992 - Enhancements: Amiga Exclusive
Murder Makes Strange Deadfellows - 1991 - Interactive Mystery Game - Enhancements: Amiga Exclusive
North Polar Expedition - 1992 - - Enhancements: Amiga Exclusive (listed as education)
Pinocchio - 1993 - Enhancements: Amiga CD Exclusive
Power Games - 1994 - compilation of pd games
Power Pinball - 1991 - Enhancements: 13 extra tables over floppy version
Prehistorik - 1991 - Enhancements: ?
Prey: An Alien Encounter - 1993 - Enhancements: Amiga CD Exclusive
30
Psycho Killer - 1992 - Enhancements: Amiga CD Exclusive
Raffles - 1991 - Enhancements: ?
Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective - 1991 - Enhancements: Amiga Exclusive
Sim City - 1991 - Enhancements: Improvements, CD Music
Snoopy In ''The Case Of The Missing Blanket'' - 1991 - Enhancements: Amiga Exclusive
Space War - 1992 - Enhancements: Amiga Exclusive
Spirit of Excalibur - 1992 -
Stadt Der Löwen, Die - 1991 - german release
Strip Poker Live - 1992 - Enhancements: Amiga Exclusive
Super Games Pak - 1992 - Enhancements: Amiga Exclusive
40
Team Yankee - 1992 -
Tie-Break - 1992 - german release?
Town With No Name, The - 1992 - Enhancements: Amiga Exclusive
Trivial Pursuit: The CDTV Edition - 1992, Speech, Photos
Turrican
Turrican II: The Final Fight
Ultimate Basketball
Winzer - 1992 - german release
Wrath Of The Demon
Air Warrior - very rare!
50
cubulus/magic serpent - german release
Shiftrix/lettrix - german release
Now thats what i call games
Now thats what i call games 2
Now thats what i call games 3
Assassins 1-3 boot?
The Labyrinth Of Time (cdtv compatible, mentioned on back cover, manual)
59

unofficial:
camel racer
gangster pursuit
it came from the desert


Education: 22 odd
All Dogs Go To Heaven - 1991 - Electronic colouring book, music, words. Years 3+ (marked as entertainment on cover!)
Barney Bear Goes Camping - 1991 - Childrens Learn & Play Years 2-6
Barney Bear Goes To School - 1991 - Childrens Learn & Play Years 2-6
Bun for Barney, A - 1991? - Interactive Story Years 3-6
Cinderella: The Original Fairy Tale - 1992 - Interactive Story Years 9+
Fremdsprachenrätsel Spanisch 1 - no proof check... german disc
Fun School 3 (For The Under 5s) - 1991
Fun School 4 (For 5 to 7 Year Olds) no proof, canned??
Learn French With Asterix Disc 1 - 1991
Learn French With Asterix Disc 2 - 1991
10
Long Hard Day On The Ranch, A - 1991 - Interactive Story Years 5+
Moving Gives Me A Stomach Ache - 1992 - Interactive Story Years 6+
Mud Puddle - 1992 - Interactive Story Years 4+
My Paint - 1991 - Years 3-13
Paper Bag Princess, The - 1992 - Interactive Story Years 6+
Read With Asterix: Asterix And Son
Read With Asterix: The Secret Weapon ? no proof,canned?
Scary Poems For Rotten Kids - 1991 - Interactive Story Years 8+
Tale Of Peter Rabbit, The - 1991 - Interactive Story Years 8+
Thomas' Snowsuit - 1991 - Interactive Story Years 8+
20
Dinosaurs For Hire - spoken Comic books
Alistair In Outer Space. - 1993 - interactive story book


Music: 7
Music Maker (CDTV Publishing)
CD-Remix II (Microdeal)
Voice Master (Microdeal)
Rhapsody In Blue (Warner New Media)
Voice FX (Microdeal)

Musicolor (Virgin)

MIDI Music Machine. (Music Machine Ltd)



Reference: 14 odd
Dr. Wellman Family Health Adviser (Not A570)(In English)CDTV Publishing.

The New Grolier Electronic Encyclopedia (In American & Spanish)

The American Heritage Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary (Not A570 Xiphias
Complete Works Of Shakespeare (In English)Animated Pixels.

The Illustrated Holy Bible (In English)Animated Pixels.
World Vista Atlas (Not A570) (In American)Applied Optical.

The New Basics Electronic Cookbook. (Not A570) (In American)Xiphias

The Hutchinson Encyclopedia (In English). Attica
Connoisseur Fine Art Collection. (In English)Lascelles

Timetable Of Science And Innovation (Not A570) (In American). Xiphias

10
Timetable Of Business, Politics and Media (Not A570) (In American)Xiphias

Sherlock Holmes On A Disc (In English)Animated Pixels.
American Vista Atlas. (In American)Applied Optical.
Ordicode cdtv german release




Arts & Leisure: 26 odd
CDPD Almathera
CDPD II
CDPD III
CDPD IV
Demo CD Almathera
Demo CD II
Insight : Dinosaurs - 1994
Insight : Technology - 1994
GardenFax: Indoor plants (CDTV Publishing)
GardenFax: Garden Plants (CDTV Publishing)
10
GardenFax: Trees, Shrubs, Roses & Confiers (Not A570)

GardenFax: Fruits, Vegetables & Herbs (Not A570) GardenFax: Fruits, Vegetables &
Advanced Military Systems (Troika)

Women In Motion (On line)

Guinness CDTV Disk Of Records (CDTV Publishing.)

Animals In Motion (on line)

Fractal Universe. Almathera
FidoFax. (Intersearch)

Independent European Soccer Disk. (New Media)

The Bridge Practice Series (In English and French) Will-Bridge 5 dif discs

20
17 bit collection
17 bit continuation
17 bit
17 bit phase 5
17 bit
Pandoras cd


Canned: 64
Air Traffic Controller (Logic Plus)
Angel of the City (Tiger Media)
Aquaventura (Psygnosis)
B.A.T. (UBI Soft)
Battletoads (Mindscape)
Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (Capstone)
Blockbusters (Domark)
The Cardinal of the Kremlin (Capstone)
CDTV Football - Went on to be released as 'Amiga CD32 Sports Football'
Challenge Golf (On-Line)
10
The Classics Collection (School Software)
Composer Quest (Dr. T's Music Software)
Dominion (Dominion Software & Design, Inc)
Drakkhen (Infogrames)
Dungeon Master (FTL)
Epic (Ocean)
Espana: The Games (Ocean)
Future Wars
Garfield: Winter's Tail (The Edge Interactive)
Grand Prix (MicroProse)
20
Herewith the Clues (Domark)
Horse Racing (Context Systems)
Indoor Sports (Context Systems)
International Karate Plus (System 3)
Jack Nicklaus Golf (Accolade)
James Pond 2: Codename Robocod (Millenium)
Jekyll and Hyde -
Lunar Rescue: The Colossus Incident (Odyssey)
KIM (Lascelles Productions)
The Legend of Kyrandia (Virgin)
30
Mad TV (Softgold)
Many Roads to Murder (CDTV Publishing)
Microcosm (Psygnosis)
MiG-29 Fulcrum (Domark)
Mind Run II (Crealude)
Murder, Anyone? (CDTV Publishing)
Murder Off Miami (Domark)
'Nam: 1965-1975 (Domark)
Pacmania (Domark)
Pinball Dreams (21st Century)
40
Plan 9 from Outer Space (Gremlin)
Planetside (Psygnosis)
Pool (Virgin)
Private and Confidential: KGB (Virgin)
Pro Tennis Tour II (Ubisoft)
Psycho Killer II (On-Line)
Putty (System 3)
Rainbow Collection Platform Arcade (Ocean) o
Reach for the Skies (Virgin)
Secret of Monkey Island (CDTV Publishing)
50
Sensible Soccer (Renegade)
Sign of Four (On-Line)
Sim Earth Planet Simulator (Ocean)
Space Quest III (Sierra)
Spy vs. Spy (CDTV Publishing)
The Lawnmower Man (The Sales Curve)
The Terminator (Bethesda Softworks)
Thexder (Sierra)
Treasure Quest (Almathera)
Trump Castle (Capstone)
60
Universal Monsters (Ocean)
Unreal (UBI Soft)
Wayne Gretzky Hockey 2 (Bethesda Softworks)
Wing Commander (Mindscape)

[s2325]

On my YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/user/s2325 you can find these CDTV titles:

17-bit collection
advanced military systems
all dogs go to heaven - electric crayon deluxe
american heritage illustrated encyclopedic dictionary
american vista - the multimedia US atlas
amiga - the ultimate home computers demo disc
barney bear goes camping, school
battlestorm
benvenuti CDTV multimedia
caplex CDTV multimedia leksikon
case of the cautious condor
CDTV genlock demo
CDTV interactive point of sale CD
chaos in andromeda - eyes of the eagle
classic board games
comix - dinosaurs for hire
commodore amiga CDTV amiga 600 amiga 600HD info disc
complete works of william shakespeare
cubulus & magic serpent
curse of ra
defender of the crown 1 - 2
demo collection
demo2 - public domain collection
dr wellman - a guide to good health for you and your family
emerald mines
enciclopedia italiana - grolier - edizione 1992
falcon
fantastic voyage
fun school 3
gamers' delight
gardenfax - indoor plants, fruits, vegetables
global chaos
guinness CDTV disc of records 1991 edition
heroic age of spaceflight - NASA the 25th year
hound of the baskervilles
hutchinson encyclopedia
indiana jones and the last crusade - the graphic adventure
illustrated king james bible
lemmings
logical
loom
mind run
new basics - electronic cookbook
north polar expedition
pandora's CD
power pinball
psycho killer
psygnosis demo CD
raffles
sim city
snoopy in the case of the missing blanket
super games pak
time table of history - business, politics & media
time table of history - science and innovation
trivial pursuit
turrican 1 - 2
ultimate basketball
weird science - multimedia toolkit
winzer
world vista

[utri007]

Some CD32 games work with CDTV. List would be very nice, as many of them are not adverticed anywhere.

[Amigajay]

Originally Posted by utri007

Some CD32 games work with CDTV. List would be very nice, as many of them are not adverticed anywhere.

Maybe a couple, DOTC 2 and Labyrinth Of Time both do, but bar some compilations cds as far as I know no other CD32 games are compatible, they are the other way around to some degree however.

[grelbfarlk]

I had the Grolier Encyclopedia for CDTV, it was really cool for the time. Considering my parents bought a 30 volume set of Encyclopedias for hundreds of dollars in the early 80s and when I showed them this on the CDTV they were pretty blown away. Of course now we have Wikipedia and all of that. Some of the articles as I recall had sound, like birds had their calls-or maybe I'm not remembering that correctly.

[idrougge]

I think Labyrinth of Time is one of few titles that don't feel like shovelware.

[Mick_AKA]

I rather fancied owning one a few years back but the prices have gone crazy for them now and theres not enough games/software to attract me to it.

[Amigajay]

Originally Posted by Mick_AKA

I rather fancied owning one a few years back but the prices have gone crazy for them now and theres not enough games/software to attract me to it.

Yeah the prices are mad now, they were £60-£80 a few years ago and £200 for the full set inc, drive etc now lucky to get standalone for £200!

The machine itself was like the cdi, a multimedia machine that was ahead of its time along with the too high price tag meant it was never going to last long, the only reason the cdi lasted longer is Philips subsidised it, they lost $1 billion on it by 1997!

But yeah the multimedia software was great at the time, full speech, video, high red photos all one 1 disc, the trouble is all these discs are now obsolete unlike games which can be replayed, so 2/3 of the software is no longer wanted, and a lot of others are ports, there is some decent games, Sim City is the best Amiga version with cd music, Falcon is much better too with radio chatter and video, but they are few and far between.

One thing is certain, the CDTV will always be the best looking Amiga!

[grelbfarlk]

Originally Posted by Amigajay

Yeah the prices are mad now, they were £60-£80 a few years ago and £200 for the full set inc, drive etc now lucky to get standalone for £200!

The machine itself was like the cdi, a multimedia machine that was ahead of its time along with the too high price tag meant it was never going to last long, the only reason the cdi lasted longer is Philips subsidised it, they lost $1 billion on it by 1997!

But yeah the multimedia software was great at the time, full speech, video, high red photos all one 1 disc, the trouble is all these discs are now obsolete unlike games which can be replayed, so 2/3 of the software is no longer wanted, and a lot of others are ports, there is some decent games, Sim City is the best Amiga version with cd music, Falcon is much better too with radio chatter and video, but they are few and far between.

One thing is certain, the CDTV will always be the best looking Amiga!

Amen to that, the CDTV is certainly nice looking.

The CDTV was an interesting foray for Commodore, I wonder if a lot of the problem was that they were competing with themselves (again). Back then people couldn't pirate CD games and we all know piracy on the Amiga was rampant. Assuming they had an install base of 1 million Amigas in the world, only 1/50 of those had a CD drive. And users would actually have to buy their games/applications.

Not to mention that even if the Amiga had a CD drive it wasn't necessarily assumed that you could even play a CDTV title on an Amiga with a CD drive since they didn't autoboot, aside from the A570 which had all of the special CDTV bits included. And if you could just copy the CD to your HDD then they could be pirated easily.

Not to mention the nice IR controller wasn't very good at fast paced action games since it was a little laggy and not suitable for mouse use and you had to point it at the CDTV to even work.

All that being said I bought a CDTV a couple years ago to install a Vampire in but it's more like an A500 without a floppy drive since the CDTV ROM has to be disabled. Still looks nice though.

[ImmortalA1000]

I think if more games got the Cinemaware Defender of the Crown II CDTV treatment at the very least, rather than this being the exception to the norm which was utter A500+CDDA rubbish or just plain rubbish done with Rombo VIDI Amiga mono digitizer etc we got.

The truth is, just like with the Jaguar CD, there is only 1 game worth getting the system for because it is the ultimate version of that game when played on that very rare and expensive machine.

It puts me off getting one, as well as the joystick port omission putting me off using it as a posh Amiga 1000 with CD-ROM access capability replacement. Just like I found out with the Amiga 4000/040.....there really isn't much you need these really expensive and rare Commodore machines specifically for.

Had other Cinemaware games got the Defender of the Crown II treatment I would have bought one, Cinemaware and EA (DotC and Marble Madness) were the reason I got an Amiga 1000 before the A500 rumours even came out. Neither of these dedicated Amiga 1000 supporters were inclined to support another format that would never sell as many units as Mac/Wintel based CD-ROM platforms and they couldn't share code or pixel art with.

[ImmortalA1000]

Originally Posted by grelbfarlk

Amen to that, the CDTV is certainly nice looking.

The CDTV was an interesting foray for Commodore, I wonder if a lot of the problem was that they were competing with themselves (again). Back then people couldn't pirate CD games and we all know piracy on the Amiga was rampant. Assuming they had an install base of 1 million Amigas in the world, only 1/50 of those had a CD drive. And users would actually have to buy their games/applications.

Not to mention that even if the Amiga had a CD drive it wasn't necessarily assumed that you could even play a CDTV title on an Amiga with a CD drive since they didn't autoboot, aside from the A570 which had all of the special CDTV bits included. And if you could just copy the CD to your HDD then they could be pirated easily.

Not to mention the nice IR controller wasn't very good at fast paced action games since it was a little laggy and not suitable for mouse use and you had to point it at the CDTV to even work.

All that being said I bought a CDTV a couple years ago to install a Vampire in but it's more like an A500 without a floppy drive since the CDTV ROM has to be disabled. Still looks nice though.

There were two huge problems for CDTV that Commodore could not help with.

1. By 1990 no American company would put together a team of 30 coders/designers/ECS specific pixel artists/musicians to do a proper CD based game conversion as Defender of the Crown II shows can be amazing for that hardware when done right. Basically it is an Amiga 1000 with 1mb chip ram and a CD drive, which is why it is called the CD1000 by the way. Nobody would buy a CDTV for rubbish like Xenon II sorry, crap OCS disk based shmup with 16 colours and a free CD-single effectively playing in the background. FAIL

2. Commodore had stopped doing any software once they had gone Kamikaze on their profits after Jack Tramiel was forced to leave by the childish Irving Gould. So they could not bring out a single title to sell the machine.

Defender of the Crown CES demo and release of pixel perfect Marble Madness would have sold quite a few more Amiga 1000 machines if they had been in proper retail outlets, even if they were just selling Sony Trinitron TVs or Bang and Olufsen Hi-fi's. It was easier to complete a PS1 RPG than find a shop selling the Amiga 1000 back then. If you thought the Amiga A1000 was just unlucky, the CD1000 was like experiencing a car crash in slow motion....with the controls of the car not being responsive in any way.

[ransom1122]

Is it true CDTV version of xenon 2 has pure uninterupted combined music & sfx compared to other version. Other versions music stops or lowers volume when firing.. Can anyone else confirm this?

[Amigajay]

Originally Posted by ImmortalA1000

There were two huge problems for CDTV that Commodore could not help with.

1. By 1990 no American company would put together a team of 30 coders/designers/ECS specific pixel artists/musicians to do a proper CD based game conversion as Defender of the Crown II shows can be amazing for that hardware when done right. Basically it is an Amiga 1000 with 1mb chip ram and a CD drive, which is why it is called the CD1000 by the way. Nobody would buy a CDTV for rubbish like Xenon II sorry, crap OCS disk based shmup with 16 colours and a free CD-single effectively playing in the background. FAIL

2. Commodore had stopped doing any software once they had gone Kamikaze on their profits after Jack Tramiel was forced to leave by the childish Irving Gould. So they could not bring out a single title to sell the machine.

Defender of the Crown CES demo and release of pixel perfect Marble Madness would have sold quite a few more Amiga 1000 machines if they had been in proper retail outlets, even if they were just selling Sony Trinitron TVs or Bang and Olufsen Hi-fi's. It was easier to complete a PS1 RPG than find a shop selling the Amiga 1000 back then. If you thought the Amiga A1000 was just unlucky, the CD1000 was like experiencing a car crash in slow motion....with the controls of the car not being responsive in any way.

Unlike Sega or Nintendo, Commodore didn’t make much software to sell their machines they left it to 3rd parties, bar a couple of later titles they nabbed off Cinemaware and just updated.

Personally Xenon II like it or hate it was one of the better examples of enhancing an Amiga game for CDTV, with the full cd soundtrack, updated front end, speech and profiles and pictures, certainly a very nice update if you loved the game. Much better than straight ports than most of the CDTV games were i.e Turricans, Monkey Island, Lemmings etc were a piss take for consumers, only a handful of games bothered to include extras, so a little unfair to pick out Xenon II at least they took a risk and and supported the machine, Falcon was another great update along with Sim City, other than those its really picking at straws.

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by ransom1122

Is it true CDTV version of xenon 2 has pure uninterupted combined music & sfx compared to other version. Other versions music stops or lowers volume when firing.. Can anyone else confirm this?

The music seems to come from CD so yes, sfx don't interrupt any of it.

[ransom1122]

Originally Posted by Akira

The music seems to come from CD so yes, sfx don't interrupt any of it.

I wonder if other games can be made like this where music & sfx can be combined in games where they're not.

[ImmortalA1000]

Originally Posted by Amigajay

Unlike Sega or Nintendo, Commodore didn’t make much software to sell their machines they left it to 3rd parties, bar a couple of later titles they nabbed off Cinemaware and just updated.

Personally Xenon II like it or hate it was one of the better examples of enhancing an Amiga game for CDTV, with the full cd soundtrack, updated front end, speech and profiles and pictures, certainly a very nice update if you loved the game. Much better than straight ports than most of the CDTV games were i.e Turricans, Monkey Island, Lemmings etc were a piss take for consumers, only a handful of games bothered to include extras, so a little unfair to pick out Xenon II at least they took a risk and and supported the machine, Falcon was another great update along with Sim City, other than those its really picking at straws.

Xenon II is a terrible game (slowdown, slow at full speed, 16 colour graphics, dodgy MOD of Megablast most demo coders would delete and not release....). There is a couple of Remixes of Megablast and some other tunes from Rhythm King on the CDTVand they just play while the game that is loaded in memory runs with just SFX same as the floppy disk release. The problem is not the CDTV the problem as usual is with a crappy 16 colour technically very underwhelming Amiga game being the source.

The idea of using the CD audio with Amiga 4 channels is cool, gets around the lack of channels on Portia/Paula. The fact it is on CD is not the problem lol.

Like I said if you want to see a glimpse of what a CDTV is capable of even when the games are written in a high level language/construction kit like Defender of the Crown II.....well look at that game. It's a class act.

Commodore made some amazing VIC-20 and C64 games. Not saying you would buy a VIC-20 to play Star Battle (Galaxian copy by mr Nintendo working for C= Japan operation btw). I'm not sure if Mindwalker was a C= released Amiga game but yeah they did produce games in the early 8bit era, some of it pretty awesome.