Index ⇒ Site Suggestions ⇒ "Fake" CD versions

[mxjgr]

At the time when CD drives got more popular, many floppy games where rereleased on CD, for example Kixx released many old Sierra and LucasArts adventures and other floppy games on CD. The reason was obvious: You didn't have to handle so many floppies and installation was a lot faster and easier.
Only the installer and the packed files on the CD were different, but basically - once installed - the game was exactly the same as the floppy version.
The rest of the CD was often filled up with demos and samplers of other games.

Even if it could be interesting preserving these CDs for an archive, for the most users downloading a whole CD of several hundred MBs only to notice later, that the game itself has only the size of a few MB is kind of useless. So I propose marking the corresponding ISO-Floppy games on this page.


I found the following CD-Floppy games:
- The Lost Files Of Sherlock Holmes: Case Of The Serrated Scalpel
The last line of the explanation on this site ("The CD-ROM version features digitized voices, sound tracks, and animations not found in the original version.") is unfortunately wrong - the game is exactly the same as the floppy version. The reason why the "CD version" is bigger is because the game was basically put twice (in two different states on the CD). The mentioned line on this page with the misleading information should be deleted.

- Curse of Enchantia:
The game itself is just the normal floppy game in one packed file (+Installer) and takes only 5 MB. The rest of 100 MB is just the demo of "Curly's adventure", a game which was never released.

- Ringworld: Revenge of the Patriarch:
The game itself seemed to be bigger than the floppy version, but this is only because the game data resides in only one file and is uncompressed (since the CD has enough space). Packed, it has the same size as the floppy version (about 8 MB ) and the gameplay and contens are exactly the same (possibly the patch included). The rest of the CD (about 230 MB packed data) is just filled with demos of other games.

- Blue Force:
Same thing as with Ringworld (since it was published by the same company ). The game data consists of only one uncompressed file, but the game is basically the same as the floppy version - compressed about 8MB. The rest of the 200 MB (compressed) are just demos.

[Virgil]

The reason was obvious: You didn't have to handle so many floppies and installation was a lot faster and easier.

Not exactly, at that time cost of CD was already about a cost of floppy disk, so selling game on six diskettes was economically unprofitable.

[Scaryfun]

I found the following CD-Floppy games:
- The Lost Files Of Sherlock Holmes: Case Of The Serrated Scalpel
The last line of the explanation on this site ("The CD-ROM version features digitized voices, sound tracks, and animations not found in the original version.") is unfortunately wrong - the game is exactly the same as the floppy version. The reason why the "CD version" is bigger is because the game was basically put twice (in two different states on the CD). The mentioned line on this page with the misleading information should be deleted.

You 100% sure that this enhanced version doesn't exist? Is one of the two different states the enhanced one?

Btw, collectors will often crave cd versions also even if there's no extra content for game.

[hfric]

well the PC CD version had speech , just turn it on in the menu + then you need like 612k of mem just to run this game

anyway i better love the 3do version with music , movies with digital actors and with speech that has more quality then 11k that the PC CD has

Code: Select all

http://www.mobygames.com/game/3do/lost-files-of-sherlock-holmes-the-case-of-the-serrated-scalpel/cover-art/gameCoverId,30863/

[Narfous]

CD versions rock, like the nice use of 600kb CD space for just one exe on the Lamborghini American Challenge CD version!! No tracks either!!!

[mxjgr]

You 100% sure that this enhanced version doesn't exist? Is one of the two different states the enhanced one?

I am at least pretty sure, that the version linked on this site isn't an enhanced one.
And I never saw a PC enhanced version anywhere else.

Btw, collectors will often crave cd versions also even if there's no extra content for game.

Not necessarily, since these CD redistributions often were only budget releases in which collectors weren't that much interested in.
But even so, as I already mentioned, it is OK to host the CD repackages, but it would be nice to mark them as equal to floppy versions.
So the collectors can download them and the rest just skip them.

well the PC CD version had speech , just turn it on in the menu

Same with the floppy version.

The floppy version has speech during the Intro and one scene in the middle of the game, but the rest is silent (even with "Voices On"). I only played the beginning of the "CD" one, but since - once installed - it is even identical in size with the floppy distribution ("Save Play Time Mode") it is safe to say, that they are the same.

Anyway i better love the 3do version with music , movies with digital actors and with speech that has more quality then 11k that the PC CD has

Interesting, I didn't know about that one. I just looked it up on E-Mule and the size is over 500 MB (packed), so it seemed more like a real CD version.
I think that there was a misunderstanding: it seems that the author of this site mistook the description of the 3do "real" CD version with the PC redistribution, since the line "The CD-ROM version features digitized voices, sound tracks, and animations not found in the original version." obviously refers to the 3do CD, but not the one featured on this site.

[hfric]

now he only needs to edit it and say some thing about 3do *hint hint*