Amiga C32 release date list

[whowasphone]

Hello! I've been trying to compile a list of all Amiga CD32 games in release date order. I like to play through games on a system sequentially to see how they changed and evolved. Is anyone able to correct this draft list I have created?

I have combed through the available magazine scans on Hall of Light. This is a really amazing site and a testament to this community! I have then listed the games by the order of their first review month. This is obviously not an exact science because some magazines will get early review copies, and some games release dates slip even after being reviewed. Amiga CD32 Gamer seemed to review games earlier than Amiga Power and Amiga Format, but they were also more devoted to the console than those magazines. The German magazines Datormagazin and Amiga Joker also seemed to get games earlier as well.

Some games were released multiple times for different compilations. I have tried to include these as many games were released for the first time on the console in compilations. Obviously some dates may be the same as A1200 games, or they may differ between countries they were released in.

I have noticed that there are many games listed on Hall of Light that are actually for the Amiga CD or CD TV. I'll try and keep this list strictly to games released and packaged for the CD32. I based this game list from Wikipedia, but Hall of Light lists even more games. It would be great to include fan made releases as well, but for now I have stuck to officially released games.

Anyway here is the first draft of my list. If you have any corrections please let me know!

1993 - 21 games

September
Diggers
Oscar
Pinball Fantasies

October
Alfred Chicken
James Pond 2: Codename RoboCod

November
D/Generation
Dangerous Streets
Wing Commander
Liberation: Captive 2

December
Morph
Sensible Soccer: European Champions
Sleepwalker
Trolls
Whale's Voyage
Zool : Ninja Of The ''Nth'' Dimension

Unknown month
International Open Golf Championship
Pinocchio

1994 - 104 games

January
Deep Core
John Barnes European Football
Mean Arenas
Microcosm
Nigel Mansell's World Championship Racing
Overkill

February
Arabian Nights
Benefactor
Castles II: Siege and Conquest
Chambers of Shaolin
Pirates! Gold
Prey: An Alien Encounter
Seek & Destroy
Sensible Soccer: International Edition
Sports: Football (Amiga CD Football)
The Labyrinth of Time
The Seven Gates of Jambala

March
Dennis the Menace
Fire Force
Fly Harder
Overkill & Lunar-C

April
Alien Breed Special Edition/Qwak
Bubba 'n' Stix
Chuck Rock
Disposable Hero
Donk!: The Samurai Duck
Global Effect
International Karate +
Nick Faldo's Championship Golf
Project-X/F17 Challenge
Summer Olympix
Super Putty
Trivial Pursuit The CD32 Edition

May
Battle Chess
Frontier: Elite II
Fury of the Furries
Gunship 2000
Premiere
The Chaos Engine
Ultimate Body Blows

June
Beavers
Brutal Sports Football
Cannon Fodder
Chuck Rock II: Son of Chuck
Fire and Ice The Daring Adventures of Cool Coyote
Humans 1 and 2
Lemmings
Naughty Ones
Ryder Cup: Johnnie Walker
Striker
Surf Ninjas
The Lost Vikings
Total Carnage
Zool 2

July
James Pond 3: Operation Starfish
Sabre Team
Simon the Sorcerer
Super Methane Bros
Wembley International Soccer
Will Bridge: Initiation Junior

August
Banshee
Brian the Lion Starring In: Rumble in the Jungle
Heimdall 2 Into the Hall of Worlds
HeroQuest II: Legacy of Sorasil
Impossible Mission 2025: The Special Edition
Last Ninja 3
Myth: History in the Making
Wild Cup Soccer

September
Battletoads
Bump 'N' Burn
Dark Seed
Emerald Mines
Jetstrike
Kid Chaos
Litil Divil
Pierre le Chef is... Out to Lunch
Top Gear 2

October
Guardian
Manchester United Premier League Champions
Quik the Thunder Rabbit
Soccer Kid
Super Stardust
Superfrog
Universe

November
Arcade Pool
Clockwiser: Time is Running Out...
Lamborghini American Challenge
Pinball Illusions
Rise of the Robots
UFO: Enemy Unknown
Vital Light

December
Beneath a Steel Sky
Fields of Glory
The Misadventures Of Flink
Jungle Strike - The Sequel to Desert Strike
Marvin's Marvellous Adventure
Roadkill

Unknown Month
Gulp!
Power-Games
Project-X/Ultimate Body Blows
The Big 6 Dizzy Collection
The Classic Lotus Trilogy
Word Construction Set

1995 - 32 games

January
PGA European Tour
Subwar 2050
Theme Park

February
Alien Breed: Tower Assault
Death Mask
Defender of the Crown II
Skeleton Krew

March
Akira
Dragonstone
Power Drive
Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe
The Clue!

April
Super League Manager

May
ATR: All Terrain Racing
Kingpin: Arcade Sports Bowling
Super Skidmarks

June
Shadow Fighter
Syndicate

July
Strip Pot

August
Base Jumpers
Gloom

September
Fears

October
Exile

November
Alien Breed 3D
Bubble and Squeak
Worms
Star Crusader
Super Street Fighter II Turbo

Unknown Month
Acid Attack Collection 1995
Brutal: Paws of Fury 1995
Grandslam Gamer Gold Collection 1995
Soccer Superstars 1995

1996 - 9 games

January
Pinball Prelude
Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends Pinball

March
The Speris Legacy

April
MAG!!!

July
Black Viper

December
Kang Fu

Unknown Month
Humans 3: Evolution - Lost in Time
Legends
The Final Gate

[whowasphone]

I wondered what were the highest rated games on the CD32. As a huge fan of Future's other publication, N64 Magazine, I can see the same spirit running through Amiga Power. In fact Jonathan Davies worked on both magazines. As far as I can see, Amiga Power reviewed 94 of the games released for the CD32. I complied this list of all of AP's CD32 scores using Hall of Light. I'm a bit surprised to see they reviewed so many games so highly. I suspect they began to only review games that they thought were worth buying.

94 - Cannon Fodder
93 - Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe
92 - Super Skidmarks
92 - Shadow Fighter
92 - Syndicate
91 - Liberation: Captive 2
91 - Gunship 2000
91 - The Chaos Engine
91 - Arcade Pool
90 - Pinball Fantasies
90 - D/Generation
90 - Sensible Soccer: European Champions
90 - Banshee
90 - Guardian
90 - Pinball Illusions
90 - Beneath a Steel Sky
90 - The Big 6 - Dizzy Collection

89 - Sabre Team
89 - Super Stardust
89 - Super League Manager
88 - Arabian Nights
88 - Nick Faldo's Championship Golf
87 - Zool 2
86 - Trolls
86 - International Karate +
86 - Ultimate Body Blows
85 - Wembley International Soccer
84 - Bubba 'n' Stix
84 - Disposable Hero
84 - Roadkill
84 - PGA European Tour
83 - Sleepwalker
83 - Zool : Ninja Of The ''Nth'' Dimension
83 - Alien Breed Special Edition/Qwak
83 - Donk!: The Samurai Duck
82 - Grandslam Gamer Gold Collection 1995
81 - Jetstrike
80 - Diggers
80 - Overkill & Lunar-C
80 - Fury of the Furries
80 - Naughty Ones
80 - Heimdall 2 Into the Hall of Worlds
80 - Soccer Kid
80 - The Classic Lotus Trilogy 1994

79 - Seek & Destroy
79 - Fire and Ice The Daring Adventures of Cool Coyote
79 - The Misadventures Of Flink
78 - Morph
78 - Mean Arenas
77 - Trivial Pursuit The CD32 Edition
77 - Premiere
77 - Bubble and Squeak
75 - Alfred Chicken
75 - Theme Park
74 - Pirates! Gold
73 - Lemmings
72 - Fly Harder
71 - James Pond 3: Operation Starfish
71 - Kid Chaos
70 - Pierre le Chef is... Out to Lunch

69 - Death Mask
68 - Superfrog
65 - Chuck Rock
65 - Alien Breed: Tower Assault
64 - Chuck Rock II: Son of Chuck
63 - Dark Seed
63 - Top Gear 2
61 - Manchester United Premier League Champions
60 - Wing Commander
60 - The Clue!

59 - Project-X/F17 Challenge
57 - Simon the Sorcerer
56 - John Barnes European Football
55 - James Pond 2: Codename RoboCod
55 - Whale's Voyage
55 - Global Effect
53 - Beavers
52 - Brian the Lion Starring In: Rumble in the Jungle
51 - Oscar
50 - Nigel Mansell's World Championship Racing

47 - The Labyrinth of Time
45 - Castles II: Siege and Conquest
44 - Microcosm
44 - HeroQuest II: Legacy of Sorasil

37 - Prey: An Alien Encounter
35 - Skeleton Krew

26 - Marvin's Marvellous Adventure
22 - Strip Pot
20 - The Final Gate - The final CD32 game that AP ever reviewed

19 - Brutal Sports Football
18 - Wild Cup Soccer

6 - Battletoads
5 - Rise of the Robots
3 - Dangerous Streets

At least two games were reviewed by AP but were never released X Fighter and Super Loopz. They were both reviewed poorly, so I wouldn't be surprised if their release was cancelled due to the bad reception.

[dreadnought]

Super Skidmarks / Shadow Fighter - 92
Pirates! Gold - 74

I rest my case

[TCD]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

Super Skidmarks / Shadow Fighter - 92
Pirates! Gold - 74

I rest my case

Shadow Fighter got really high ratings in magazines. I wonder if that's due to the late release date (after C= went bankrupt) or because 'for an Amiga fighting game' it is not bad. Certainly 'a bit' overrated

[dreadnought]

Yep, I'm sure these things played part too, also another one might be them saying "well, this old port didn't get any CD32 improvements" and lowering the score.

Not taking it seriously, as always with mag reviews, it just looked kinda funny, what with me being a Pirates! fanatic...

@OP, it's a nice list (the chronological one), good job - I might use it one day when I finally get around to playing some CD32 games. I'm quite into chrono gaming myself

[whowasphone]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

@OP, it's a nice list (the chronological one), good job - I might use it one day when I finally get around to playing some CD32 games. I'm quite into chrono gaming myself

Low scores for simple ports seems to be the case with lots of CD32 releases.

Thank you! I think there are quite a lot of errors though. I posted it on the Amiga community on Reddit a while back and many people suggested I come here and get an expert opinion.

Can you see any obviously incorrect dates? Did magazines print release date lists?

I heard Special Reserve printed release lists, have they been scanned anywhere?

I love the term "chrono gaming"! Play it by year is a great phrase too! Nice work on those collections! I can tell they have taken a long time to put together.

I'm currently playing through all the games in the Japanese N64 library, as chronologically as I can. I had to give up on some of the harder/broken games and come back to them. The mahjong games are quite hard. After I finish that project, I was planning to tackle the CD32 next.

[Flimbo]

CD32 wasnt the only platform to suffer basic ports. I think every console in this period did this. You just hoped your system got the good port.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by whowasphone

Can you see any obviously incorrect dates? Did magazines print release date lists?

I don't think magazines printed release date lists, but some printed release dates in reviews (which don't have to be 100% accurate). Extracting the month of release from magazines can be a bit tricky due to how magazines released themselves (some would release a month prior to the month on the magazine, so September magazine in August) and how the review process worked (press review version given to magazines months ahead of release so that the game could be tested, the review written, the layout made and then the magazine printed). That's why without a date from the publisher of the game itself it's hard to pinpoint the exact month a game was released.

Originally Posted by whowasphone

I heard Special Reserve printed release lists, have they been scanned anywhere?

If you ever find those lists please share them here.

[whowasphone]

I did some research into which CD32 games used the capabilities of the CD format. Of the approximately 169 games on the system, 107 games seemingly take no advantage of the CD format at all. Here is the entire list, if you notice any mistakes, please tell me!

CD32 Exclusives - 3 games
Amiga CD Football - Has CD audio and FMV. Originally a CDTV game.
The Final Gate - FMV
Lunar-C - Can only be played on the CD32

CD Audio – 41 games
Alien Breed 3D - Also has extra levels
Alfred Chicken
Arcade Pool
Banshee
Beneath a Steel Sky
Benefactor
Brian the Lion Starring In: Rumble in the Jungle- also has extra levels
Brutal Sports Football
Bubble and Squeak
Bump 'N' Burn
Dangerous Streets
Dark Seed
Death Mask
Dennis
Diggers / Oscar
Disposable Hero
Dragonstone
Exile
Fire and Ice The Daring Adventures of Cool Coyote - adds an additional scrolling parallax background
Gloom
Heimdall 2 Into the Hall of Worlds
Jetstrike
Kid Chaos
Liberation: Captive 2
Litil Divil
Pinball Fantasies
Pinball Illusions
Pirates! Gold
Seek & Destroy
Simon the Sorcerer
Skeleton Krew
Super Skidmarks
The Big 6 – Dizzy Collection
The Chaos Engine
The Classic Lotus Trilogy
The Clue!
Trivial Pursuit
Trolls
Ultimate Body Blows
Wembley International Soccer
Worms

CD Audio and FMV – 9 games
Black Viper
Castles II: Siege and Conquest
Chuck Rock II: Son of Chuck
Clockwiser: Time is Running Out... - Also has extra levels
Microcosm
Super Methane Bros
Super Stardust
Zool 2
Zool : Ninja Of The ''Nth'' Dimension

FMV – 8 games
Akira
Alien Breed: Tower Assault – Also has extra levels
Cannon Fodder
James Pond 3: Operation Starfish
Superfrog
Surf Ninjas
Theme Park
Vital Light

Extra levels – 2 games
Emerald Mines
ATR: All Terrain Racing

I compiled this information from the now missing site Project AmigaCD32. If you are reading this Brian and Brad, thank you for all the information!
Here is an archived version of the site

https://web.archive.org/web/20170125...tonName=Submit

[Havie]

CD32 is actually and AGA version of the game that adds an additional parallax background along with the CD music. Very nice!

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by whowasphone

Thank you! I think there are quite a lot of errors though. I posted it on the Amiga community on Reddit a while back and many people suggested I come here and get an expert opinion.

Can you see any obviously incorrect dates? Did magazines print release date lists?

I wouldn't get too hung up on this, for the reasons TCD listed. It'd be near impossible to get exact release dates based on mag reviews, there are just too many uncertain factors at play. So just enjoy the list as it is, as long as you have the correct year the precise date is not that crucial after all


As for low scores for unaltered ports, well, I do understand the point the reviewer might wanted to make, but it can be quite misleading. After all Pirates! (and a few others from that list) is still an absolutely amazing game, evne without some new fancy gfx made specially for CD32. So it's something that should be mentioned in the review but perhaps not reflected in the score, at least not harshly using a double-digit-drop.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by whowasphone

I did some research into which CD32 games used the capabilities of the CD format. Of the approximately 169 games on the system, 107 games seemingly take no advantage of the CD format at all.

62 games minus 39 games that only add CD audio (two of the games that use CD audio also have extra levels) makes 23 games that used either the extra space or special features... That's a very sad number.

[Flimbo]

Originally Posted by TCD

62 games minus 39 games that only add CD audio (two of the games that use CD audio also have extra levels) makes 23 games that used either the extra space or special features... That's a very sad number.

With a six month life span this is probably fairly impressive. The Playstation was released a year later so maybe the writing was on the wall for this console irrespective of bankruptcy.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Flimbo

With a six month life span this is probably fairly impressive.

But Escom... Given they released games for at least two years after CBM went bankrupt I personally wouldn't call it impressive. The ratio of games that didn't use any CD32 feature is 61.5%. I never really checked those stats before, but it's sobering that not even half of the games on CD32 use CD audio.

[Flimbo]

Originally Posted by TCD

But Escom... Given they released games for at least two years after CBM went bankrupt I personally wouldn't call it impressive. The ratio of games that didn't use any CD32 feature is 61.5%. I never really checked those stats before, but it's sobering that not even half of the games on CD32 use CD audio.

Yeah you would think that including CD audio would be the bare minimum for ports.

[whowasphone]

I posted this chart on the Amiga sub reddit, but I'll post it here as well. I accidently counted some games twice, for both extra levels and CD Audio, but you get the idea. It seems that less than half of the games released for the CD32 made any effort to utilize the CD format.

Originally Posted by Havie

CD32 is actually and AGA version of the game that adds an additional parallax background along with the CD music. Very nice!

Sorry, which game are you talking about? All games in general?

Originally Posted by dreadnought

So just enjoy the list as it is, as long as you have the correct year the precise date is not that crucial after all

As for low scores for unaltered ports, well, I do understand the point the reviewer might wanted to make, but it can be quite misleading.

You're very right on both points, it's just surprising coming from the N64 where the release dates for all 3 regions have been recorded down to the exact day. Whereas with the CD32 dates it seems even the month has been forgotten. I'm not trying to throw shade on this very passionate community, it just goes to show how little impact the CD32 made at the time I suppose.

Perhaps the reviewers were trying to reflect the disappointment of someone who owned both systems and were hoping for more content in the port. The CD32 was quite expensive after all. But I agree, a good game is a good game at the end of the day.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by whowasphone

You're very right on both points, it's just surprising coming from the N64 where the release dates for all 3 regions have been recorded down to the exact day. Whereas with the CD32 dates it seems even the month has been forgotten. I'm not trying to throw shade on this very passionate community, it just goes to show how little impact the CD32 made at the time I suppose.

A possible explanation might be that on video game consoles games had to be approved by Nintendo, Sega etc while Commodore had a more 'hands off' approach. I'm sure the individual publishers knew the dates, but I'm not sure they had to report back to Commodore when they would release a game.

Another explanation why magazines didn't publish exact release dates might be that games might not make it to shelves on that date for various reasons.

[Havie]

Sorry - some how managed to delete the name of the game - Fire and Ice! CD32 us a definite improvement on the non-AGA version (and this never got an AGA release so the CD32 version is pretty unique).

[whowasphone]

Originally Posted by Havie

Sorry - some how managed to delete the name of the game - Fire and Ice! CD32 us a definite improvement on the non-AGA version (and this never got an AGA release so the CD32 version is pretty unique).

Great! Thank you! I'll make a note of that!

[dreadnought]

I don't really find it surprising that there weren't many enchanced versions. Making significant changes to game code or adding extrra fx is time consuming and expensive, and the console was practically DOA, what with Commodore going belly up at the same time.

If I was a publisher I would be very reluctant to commit to anything more than some quick port for such a machine.