Compilations - Where are they now? - The Bear and Badger

adkm1979

When I was young, compilations were king. Â Gaining a place in a compilation meant that your game was one of the best around, and buying a compilation meant you were assured four or five top quality games. Â As time has gone on, though, that seems to have passed. I last saw a proper compilation (four or five unique games rather than two or three from the same franchise) on the PlayStation. Â The exception would be the compilations that Sega, Namco and Midway churn out on every possible platform. Â Even by the days of PlayStation, the 'compilations' were usually just two budget titles garnering a few sales at the end of a console's life. Â I'm not sure why things have changed.

My two favourites were Live Ammo (The Great Escape, Top Gun, Green Beret, Rambo: First Blood Part II, and Army Moves) and Wheels of Fire (Chase HQ, Hard Drivin', Power Drift and Turbo Out Run) both on the ZX Spectrum. Â What were yours?

mk64

i thought steam have loads..

Tempy

They're bundles and only there for sale purposes, not really the same thing.

regmcfly

HD packs?

mk64

Tempy wrote:

They're bundles and only there for sale purposes, not really the same thing.

compilations were bundles of games sold together to make more sales.

Or am I missing something?

[Deleted User]

I've seen a couple of double packs, Halo 3/ Fable 2 was one. They are normally twice the price of just buying the two games on their own.

Paul the sparky

THQ did a Metro and Darksiders double bubble a couple of months back. I think it was Â£12.99 or there about.

I remember one on the megadrive that had World Cup Italia 90 in it. Fucking woeful.

regmcfly

There was that Sonic Tennis / Fuel / Tomb Raider one for charidee

Kow

I remember Soft Aid. Best compilation ever.

Tempy

Probably not, steam bundles just feel different to me, they are just separate games sold together like a 2 for 10 deal that you'd get in a shop, as Steam
Is a shop not a publisher, whereas a compilation is a bunch of titles specifically picked and slung together on a disk or cart.

Webbins

I had the Wheels of Fire bundle of which you speak. Compilations were essential stuff back then, I guess publishers don't feel it's worth their time when they have the latest triple A blockbuster to plug. Ubisoft released double packs of their Tom Clancy back catalogue, probably to piggyback Future Soldier's release. There was also the Metro 2033/Darksiders pack of note recently.

mk64

adkm's example wasn't all on one disk..

If we're going by your criteria then Mario Allstars + SMW on the same cart is the best.

Or the orange box.

Tempy

Fair enough, I never said I agreed with him, just what my opinion of a steam sale bundle was

adkm1979

mk, they weren't one disk/tape, no, but they generally squeezed four or five games onto two or three disks/tapes, because they were specifically bundled and marketed together in one box by the publisher. Â As Tempy says, Steam generally lumps things together as a deal. Â I'm maybe being too specific, but I don't see HD remakes or two games from the same franchise as a true compilation. Â To me, to be in the same spirit as the compilations of old, you need three to five games from different franchises. Â I'm not saying they don't exist at all any more, just that they're not as prevelant as they used to be.

Rev

There was a spectrum one with arkanoid, batman, head over heels, came with the machine when you got it through dixons. Was mazing.

Mod74

There's been at least two possibly three XBLA Arcade discs. PopCap and Sega have done them recently as well.

stormyskiesahead

Yeah, the Xbox Live Hits Collection with Limbo,Trials HD, and Splosion Man has to be one of the best compilations of late. Damn good price on Amazon.

mk64

sega have a collection out for 360. MD collection or something? Not really hand picked though, more just the titles they have rights to and that were any good.

Elmlea

I had one on the Spectrum where the first game was Wizball (which I only played to get to the second game), and the second game was Head Over Heels. Â

I cannot remember what was on the rest of the tape, but there were 6 games. Â I think the first game on the other side was Frankie Goes to Hollywood, which was about as fucking mentally surreal as Spectrum games got.

We also picked up one of those "100 games on 10 tapes!" Â collections when I first got the Spectrum. Â Thing is, as an 8 year old, I couldn't understand how you loaded the second or consecutive games. Â Did you leave the tape running? Â Did you have to know the filename, and say LOAD "GAME3", and let the tape play right until the end of GAME3?

Then one day my dad figured out you could play through the tape to the right point, and I could finally play the other 90 of those games. Â They were all shit.

Kow

Those 50 games on one cassette things were absolute drivel. You just about saved yourself the effort of writing them yourself in basic.

Mod74

Was looking into these and found a fascinating piece by the guy that wrote the Ocean Loader.

http://www.pauliehughes.com/page3/page3.html

mk64

mod, did you see my pm?

Mod74

No, I keep missing when I've got one as I only get the number change up above.

As it wasn't a particularly private conversation then I'll answer here. The OP updating is still all skew wiff. It'll save some changes not others. Hopefully once Petey has his holidays we can get to the bottom of it.

tigersgogrrr

Carmageddon & X-Com (not sure which one) & Ecstatica 2 was a nice deal on the PC. I got plenty of play out of those.

mk64

Mod74 wrote:

No, I keep missing when I've got one as I only get the number change up above.

As it wasn't a particularly private conversation then I'll answer here. The OP updating is still all skew wiff. It'll save some changes not others. Hopefully once Petey has his holidays we can get to the bottom of it.

cheers

WorKid

AMAZING.
Except Short Circuit. That was shit.

WorKid

@elmlea
I still have this, I refuse to let it go. Frankie was all kinds of craziness. Arkanoid and Green Beret, wow, what games they were.

Mod74

Holly Johnson is still alive.

EvilRedEye

Pixel Nation had a feature about those olden days 50 Games on 1 Cassette things, I thought it was pretty interesting.

afgavinstan

I remember a "101 Games" one for Windows 95 we got in a bargain bin in Dixons. Had one on it called "Another Pool" that I spent hours and hours on. Really wish I could play it again, in fact.

WorKid

There's one with Renegade on too.

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