Best CDTV/CD32 upgraded games?

[Weasel Fierce]

What games that came out on both floppy and a CD format (CDTV, CD32 or I suppose CD ROM if any did) had the biggest upgrades compared to the floppy version?

[Seiya]

generally CD32 games are AGA floppy games with Audio tracks, sometimes, some FMV intro. Same thing for some CDTV games.

[kremiso]

Fire and Ice CD32 is improved
more gfx

[TCD]

I'm not 100% sure, but check Disposable Hero CD32.

[alexh]

Liberation CD32, Benefactor CD32

[Marce]

most of the cd32/cdtv titles are pure crap converted to cd without any enhancements
however I like

fire + ice cd32 adds AGA gfx and cd music remastered
benefactror cd32 , very good remastered music but no gfx enhancements
bubble and squeak cd32 also very good remastered cd music
zool 2 cd32 posibility to play with music+sound fx and add a few more levels
trolls cd32 add posibility to play with music+sound fx

[Megalomaniac]

I never owned a CD-based Amiga, but - I think Wing Commander had more colours than the floppy version. I think Worms has some extras on CD32 too? Overkill had a bonus game called Lunar-C (lunacy, geddit?) which I don't think was ever released on floppy. Beyond that, I'm struggling.

[jotd]

zool cd32: sfx+cd music (like Zool 2)
zool 2 cd32 has one extra world in the end!!
Oscar cd32: sfx+cd music
Pirates gold!: probably AGA enhanced only for CD32
Microcosm: CD32 only
Defender of the crown II: CD32/CDTV only
Speedball 2: more colors (doesn't please everyone though)

there are also the unofficial and official conversions that I created. https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=94158

Jim Power: cd music from another console (official conversion, commercial product)
Wonderdog: sfx+music instead of sfx OR music
Premiere: sfx+music, improves the floppy to CD original trash release!!
Gods/Silkworm: added music

Lemmings: cd music
Marble Madness: arcade music burned on cd, my favourite since visuals are already close to the arcade.

Very rare CD32 games where an AGA version doesn't exist are enhanced visually. Fire & Ice CD32 is great, but doesn't have more colors "just" one more parallax.

A lot of "enhanced" AGA/CD32 games just added a layer of parallax (Zool, Zool 2, Fire & Ice, Bubble & Squeak). It adds "depth" without having to re-do all graphics, since AGA dual playfield can hold 16 colors per playfield (not just 8).
The list of games that got more colors when switching from ECS => AGA/CD32 is very small. Also I don't know a single game taking advantage of larger hardware sprites. One of the reasons may be because Commodore didn't publish the hardware details about AGA because they wanted devs to use system calls LOL, it had to be reverse-engineered...

[Daedalus]

Possibly an odd answer, but the CD32 version of Frontier has some significant improvements over the floppy version, including bug fixes, dropping the copy protection and the solar system flight computer, which doesn't appear in any other version of Frontier on any platform, only later appearing in Frontier: First Encounters afterwards on the PC. It's let down by the limited save game space on the CD32 on actual hardware, but can be played from the hard drive on Amigas so equipped.

[Havie]

Originally Posted by Megalomaniac

I never owned a CD-based Amiga, but - I think Wing Commander had more colours than the floppy version. I think Worms has some extras on CD32 too? Overkill had a bonus game called Lunar-C (lunacy, geddit?) which I don't think was ever released on floppy. Beyond that, I'm struggling.

Wing Commander had 256 colour graphics - same as PC - as far as I know.

And wasn't the CD32 version of Steel Sky a talkie one?

[sokolovic]

Brian the Lion CD32 have extra stages vs AGA floppy version (plus CD Music and extra button to jump, this one was fixed by whd).
Kid Chaos CD32 is AGA so the front Playfield is a bit more colored (you can barely notice it yet it is) than the floppy version (plus it have CD Music and sfx. On the floppy version you have to choose between them IIRC)

[Marce]

Originally Posted by sokolovic

Kid Chaos CD32 is AGA so the front Playfield is a bit more colored (you can barely notice it yet it is) than the floppy version (plus it have CD Music and sfx. On the floppy version you have to choose between them IIRC)

nope
in kid chaos floppy also you have music+sfx at the same time, you do not have to choose one of them

[sokolovic]

Ok. So it is just the GFX then.

[gimbal]

It has to be Dark Seed for being full talky. Which is... an experience. If you're going to play that game you need the goofy narrator and the deadpan delivery of the rest of the voice cast, the CD32 version is the only version.

Seconded by Cannon Fodder. Seeing the team pretend to be 8 year old army dudes in the intro video, it's the stuff of legends. The game is identical of course, but still.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Havie

And wasn't the CD32 version of Steel Sky a talkie one?

It was. Pretty solid voice acting too.

[stevelord]

Originally Posted by Havie

Wing Commander had 256 colour graphics - same as PC - as far as I know.

I remember reading in a mag that Wing Commander CD32 apparently took advantage of the Akiko chip, same with Gloom CD32. Whether they did or not, don't know.

[stevelord]

I have a CDTV and have slowly been working my way through the software library. There will be more but this is what I'm aware of:

• Sim City is very enhanced with a CD soundtrack, simplified interface and higher colour graphics.
• Trivial Pursuit is like a completely different game. Very entertaining although still not a good game, but a bit more like You Don't Know Jack in it's presentation. Lots of animation, music, speech.
• Falcon has a ton of extras but I haven't got round to it yet.
• Power Pinball has extra tables but it's so bad you'd never want to play them.

[jotd]

akiko has a feature to just convert chunky to bitplanes in hardware. The display is the same as in a standard AGA game. But it means that the game is in 256 colors.

Power Pinball, yes, this is a joke!

[Aardvark]

I went through the TOSEC and tested big CD images. The small ones are mostly unchanged from floppy version.

CDTV:
Battle Chess - Didn't find CD image. Identical to CD32 version?
Battlestorm - CDDA music
Cover Girl Strip Poker - CDDA music, speech. The game box claims there is 15 minutes of video, but i haven't confirmed.
Chaos in Andromeda - Multimedia game intro
E.S.S. Mega - CDDA music. Multimedia encyclopedia
Prehistoric - CDDA music
Xenon 2 - CDDA music with sfx
Snoopy - CDDA music. Some speech


CD32:
Alfred Chicken - CDDA music
Alien Breed 3D - Very unfitting background CDDA music
Alien Breed Tower Assault - Prerended intro video
Arcade Pool - Selectable background pub ambience or music
Banshee - CDDA music during intro and main menu. No in-game music
Base Jumpers - CDDA music, but only on title screen.
Battle Chess - CDDA music
Beneath a Steel Sky - Speech
Benefactor - CDDA music
Black Viper - Added some speech and prerendered video to the intro
Brian the Lion - CDDA music
Brutal Sports Football - CDDA music
Bubba 'n' Stix - CDDA music + sfx. Animated intro
Bubble and Squeak - CDDA music
Bump 'n' Burn - CDDA music & speech
Chaos Engine - Animated intro. CDDA music in menus. CDDA ambience background noise during game (in-game music is still Paula).
Chuck Rock II - Animated intro. CDDA music
Clockwiser - CDDA music
The Clue - CDDA speech. Saving is directed to RAM:, can be changed by burning new CD with edited startup-sequence
Dennis - CDDA music
Diggers - CDDA music
Disposable Hero - CDDA music, improved sfx, tweaked difficulty
Donk! - CDDA music. Some extra animations between levels. At least the starting level is not same as in the floppy version. Different mini-map. Lot of extra graphics.
Dark Seed - Speech. Graphics downscaled from 320x400 to 320x200
Exile - CDDA music, at title screen only
Fightin' Spirit - CDDA music
Fire & Ice - CDDA music. Extra parallax
Fury of the Furries - CDDA music during intro and main menu. No in-game changes
Global Effect - CDDA music. Extra colours
Guardian - CDDA music, also during the game. No in-game music in floppy version
Gunship 2000 - CDDA music. Controls overhauled for CD32 pad
Heimdall 2 - CDDA music. Saving is compromised
HeroQuest II - CDDA music
Humans - CDDA music with sfx
Humans 3 - CDDA music
Impossible Mission 2025 - HoL quote: "IMPOSSIBLE MISSION 2025 (CD32) contains further enhancements over the IMPOSSIBLE MISSION (OCS/ECS) and (AGA) disk versions in the form of game/level intro sequences, CD quality sound, faster gameplay, and an endgame combat sequence involving 3D rendered graphics."
James Pond 2 - CDDA music. Animated intro
Jetstrike - CDDA music
Kid Chaos - CDDA music
Kingpin - CDDA music in menus
Lamborghini American Challenge - The CD contains 7 audio tracks, but the game doesn't use them??
Legends - CDDA music
Lotus 1 and 3 - CDDA music, but inexplicably still can't play it same time with sfx.
Manchester United: Premier League Champions - Contains about 126 megabytes of images of Man Utd team
Marvin's Marvellous Adventure - CDDA music
Nigel Mansell's World Championship - CDDA music
Nick Faldo's Championship Golf - More colours
Oscar - CDDA music with sfx
Pinball Fantasies - CDDA music in the menu. Proper table selection menu which was missing from AGA floppy version is back. No in-game changes
Pinball Illusions - In-game CDDA music
Power Drive - Prerendered video of U.S Gold logo. Wonderful
Seek and Destroy - CDDA music in menus. No in-game changes
Sensible Soccer: International Edition v1.2 - Some CDDA music in menus
Shadow Fighter - CDDA music
Simon the Sorcerer - Speech
Skeleton Krew - CDDA music with sfx. Better controls
Sleepwalker - CDDA music. Selectable difficulty level and number of continues.
Soccer Kid - Animated intro. CDDA music
Speedball 2 - More colours. CDDA music in menus. CDDA background noise in-game. Ice cream is gone.
Star Crusader - Prerendered intro with speech
Super Methane Bros - Animated intro. CDDA music
Super Stardust - Prerendered cutscenes. CDDA music
Super Street Fighter II Turbo - CDDA music
Theme Park - Prerendered intro. In-game CDDA music. Saving is probably compromised.
Tie Break - FMV intro. CDDA music in menus.
Top Gear 2 - CDDA music with sfx
Trolls - CDDA music
UFO: Enemy Unknown - Animated intro, Can't name bases (save size limitation)
Universe - CDDA music
Wild Cup Soccer - CDDA music
Wing Commander - PC VGA graphics
Worms - Prerendered intro. CDDA music
Zool - CDDA music with sfx, extra levels
Zool 2 - CDDA music with sfx, extra levels

[jotd]

superb list, thanks for that

> Lotus 1 and 3 - CDDA music, but inexplicably still can't play it same time with sfx.

that's perfectly explainable: menu uses Amiga OS and cd.device so CDDA audio can be played, game uses Rob Northen CDIO that doesn't support hardware banging CDDA replay, games are NDOS and were just patched like we do with whdload to redirect floppy accesses to CD using hardware banging NDOS Rob Northen routine.

Games which use this CDIO routine are exact ECS copies of their floppies counterparts, actually the disk images are on the CD whdload style in 1993

- Premiere
- Chuck Rock 1 & 2 (maybe there's some intro)
- Myth
- Lotus 1/2/3 (with some effort for the intro)
- Skeleton Krew (IIRC)

To add CDDA music (only accessible with cd.device at the time), most games had to be rewritten to be compatible with the OS. It was probably quite some work! for me the best conversion is Fire & Ice.