Review: Gamers' Delight 2 CD-ROM

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                     REVIEW: Gamers' Delight 2 CD-ROM
                            By:  Jason Compton 
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Let's see, 1070 games for $40 works out to be...something really small per
game.

That's the reasoning that Schatztruhe is hoping will pervade the thinking
of Amiga CD-ROM owners, at least.  And it's not such a bad idea, putting
tons and tons of games and game demos on a CD-ROM for a reasonable price.

The problem is that the bulk (1000) of the games are just the Aminet "game"
directory.  They don't hide it, which is actually a good thing, all things
considered.  There's even the familiar Aminet search icon to let you look
for what you want.

The other 70 are, allegedly, full versions of commercial titles.  Maybe I
don't get out enough, but I can say without reservation that I have never
seen a single one of these games sold as a commercial title.  Some are old
enough that they would be before my time, others (even 1994 and 1995
titles) I have heard nothing about.

Be that as it may, some of them are worth playing, to be sure.  A
reasonably nice front-end in English or German leads you through the
selection of the 70 highlighted games with a short description and
instructions, and I actually got the occasional surprise of being able to
quit one game to play another through the menu.  It's a shame that the menu
is in PAL and makes no effort to let you switch out of NTSC, though.

For the Aminet games, the AmigaGuide interface familiar to Aminet CD-ROM
owners is used.  Functional and quick, as ever.

All things considered, the Aminet collection is going to be the way to go.
The problem there is that if you're an Aminet user with a decent enough
connection or a regular subscriber to Aminet CD-ROMs, having the collection
of Aminet games on this CD-ROM is totally superfluous, so you're actually
only buying 70 new games, at best, for the cost of the CD.  Which now works
out to be...well, something still really small but this time it's
measurable, and I'm not sure the Space Taxi clone or Galaga 94 are dying to
be played that much.

There is something to be said for having information at your fingertips and
not having to store hundreds of megs of Aminet games on your hard drive, or
being able to load them off your CD-ROM at 600k/second instead of a modem
connection of, at best, 3k/second.  If that's 200 times more convenient for
you, splurging on Gamers Delight 2 will be worthwhile, and will certainly
keep you occupied.

On the other hand...Aminet 9's focus is on the games archive, which means
it contains just about everything this CD does, minus those 70 special
titles.  Something to think about...

Published by Stefan Ossowski's Schatztruhe
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