What would the PS1/PC-CD FMV X-files game look like on CD32?

[ImmortalA1000]

I say CD32 because I doubt some talented CDTV coder could have come up with a bespoke CDTV XL back then.

So I was finally going to check out one of the least offensive/obnoxious games based on a TV series and it's actually not that bad as a game BUT the video decoding is average for both PS1 and CDROM.

Looking at games ported to both the Amiga CD based platforms vs PC-CD the Amiga was always better. Also would this PS1 FMV game be possible to port to the Amiga?

The PS1 only had 2mb RAM IIRC. (and extra for video) so I guess a 1mb CDTV conversion would never be possible anyway. Think it's a 4mb or 8mb game on PC but it's the same game on both technically.

[Bruce Abbott]

The X-files Game: Playstation version

Jeff Lundrigan reviewed the PlayStation version of the game for Next Generation, rating it two stars out of five, and stated that "Although well produced and faithful to its source, X-Files just demonstrates that even the best FMV adventure games still aren't great games."

[ Show youtube player ]

If this is 'the best' I hate to think what worse FMV adventure games were like!

CDTV would be challenging, but not impossible. Compromises would have to made of course, but the game could still be better than the original. The CD32 - with its AGA graphics, extra memory, faster CPU and 2x speed CDROM - would be much easier.

The biggest problem with porting this game is the source material. The FMV sequences aren't too bad (apart from bad lip-sync), but the static images are terrible - it looks like they were digitized with a very poor quality video capture device. The CD32 can do photo quality images in HAM-8 hires, but even hand-drawn 32 color images would look better than what I saw in the playthrough above.

But the biggest problem will probably be the legal one. Fox might not like someone modifying their material, and having to use the original game disc would be a bummer. It might be better to make a parody of the X-Files and create your own video sequences for it (I bet plenty of amateur 'actors' would be willing to contribute stuff for free). Mind you the original game is almost a parody itself. I could swear that disembodied hand gave me the finger as it was rifling though an empty drawer!

In short, apart from the video sequences I think it would technically be a piece of cake to make a better port on the CD32 than the original PS1 version.

[ImmortalA1000]

I checked out some 1080p sources for X-Files series 1 and 2 and the video quality is not even up to a properly adjusted and aimed aerial and something like BBC transmission lol.

This would explain why the PS1 footage is so bad, if Amiga taught me anything it was the horrors of using digitizers in an analogue world.

Would be interesting to see what some CDXL v1 X-Files clips would play like on your average 14 inch CRT TV/monitor that most bedroom gamers had to settle for anyway.

I can only go by the Sherlock Holmes video quality on PC vs CDTV, looks better on CDTV. 150kb/s is a real bottleneck though of CDTV and you can't upgrade the drive.