First game to appear on PC cd rom?

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RudeBoie

Platinum Member
Feb 28, 2000
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<< I'm still looking into this- Iron Helix was another one early on. 7th Guest did have a "first" though, first game on CD-ROM to sell over 20,000 copies. >>



Yes, Iron Helix could be it. Or the cabbie game I was thinking about, but they might be the same.

Loom and Sherlock Holmes aren't bad guesses, but Sherlock for sure isn't it, and Loom- I doubt it.
 

richleader

Golden Member
Jan 1, 2001
1,201
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Dune is 1993. Or at least that's what my CD says. And I'm talking about the first one.

my mixed up mother goose says 1991.

King's Quest 4 was 1991.

 

mellondust

Senior member
Nov 20, 2001
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I'm pretty sure it was the 7th Guest.

Everyone was amazed at how large the game was, it was the first of its kind.
 

bsr

Senior member
May 28, 2002
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Wonder what the first game that was destributed on floppy disk ?? :D :D .. first cdrom game was probly around the early 90's (1991 or 1992)..
 

Sunner

Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
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Iron Helix showed up before The 7'th guest, at least on the Mac, I think Iron Helix was released in 91 or 92.

Didn't the CD version of Loom show up rather late, quite a bit after the diskette version anyways?
Of course the disk version came really early, so that doesn't say much :)

My first CD game was definately Iron helix anyways, got it after my dad bought a $400 single spin CDROM for our Mac, back in the day :)
 

Athlex

Golden Member
Jun 17, 2000
1,258
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7th Guest and Rebel Assault were definitely early games, but not first. They probably brought CD-ROM to the foreground because they were some of the first games with FMV.

According to Mobygames, Dune, Iron Helix, Mixed Up Mother Goose (CD vers.), Jones in the Fast Lane were from 1992. 7th Guest/Rebel assault were '93. Guess the goal now is to find a CD-ROM game from '91...
 

Mavrick007

Diamond Member
Dec 19, 2001
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Originally posted by: RudeBoie
I'm still looking into this- Iron Helix was another one early on. 7th Guest did have a "first" though, first game on CD-ROM to sell over 20,000 copies.

Yes, Iron Helix could be it. Or the cabbie game I was thinking about, but they might be the same.

Loom and Sherlock Holmes aren't bad guesses, but Sherlock for sure isn't it, and Loom- I doubt it.

That Sherlock Holmes game was one of the first that I saw on cdrom. Are you referring to "Hell Cab" for the cabbie game? I remember Space Ace out around the same time as the Sherlock Holmes game too.

I was the first person around my area to have a cdrom when they came out and everyone kept asking me why I wasted my money on it cause it would "never catch on". It was on my 386 sx 16 and I had a 1x Hitachi external cdrom. I spent way too much but at the time the only ones that I saw were the ones in the Tandy's at Radio Shack. I had Rebel Assault on cd when it came out and I got Megarace later on. I have Dune on 5.25" disk and I got that around 92-93 but I'm not sure when it came out.

The first games that I know of though were the card games like crib and I had the Lord of the Rings Vol 1 which was out on cdrom, and it says it was produced in 1990 by Interplay.
 

AndrewZealand

Junior Member
Jul 15, 2015
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Someone mentioned King's Quest IV, but I'm sure they meant King's Quest V. KQ5 was released on floppy disks first, without speech, in 1990. I assume the CD-ROM version with speech was released in 1991 like the earlier person said, so I guess it was among the first PC CD-ROM game along with Sherlock Holmes, J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, Vol. I. and card games.

Japanese NEC created the PC Engine in the late '80s (also called the Turbografx 16) which had an external CD-ROM reader available. Among the first games for it were version of late '80s arcade games like Street Fighter and Altered Beast. Also a game called No&#12539;Ri&#12539;Ko which had some digitized video in it.

Of course even before that were the laserdisc games at the arcade which first appeared around 1983.
 
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Mushkins

Golden Member
Feb 11, 2013
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This Thread is 13 years old. You bumped a museum piece.

Jesus. At least it was an interesting topic instead of "how do I fix obscure windows 98 config issue." I never understood why people make these one-post accounts to necro random ancient threads. I can only hope plenty of alcohol is involved.
 

sm625

Diamond Member
May 6, 2011
8,172
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I remember buying a CD ROM drive for $200. All I really remember from that era is that games on SNES were light years beyond anything on a PC. It was like some kind of sick joke. I'd play a game like Actraiser on SNES, and then a friend would try to get me to play some sickly looking PC game and I was like... is this some kind of joke?
 

MustISO

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
11,927
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I think 7th guest was the first thing I played when I got my 1x CD-ROM with Sound Blaster card. I think I got it at a computer show because they were much more expensive at retail. My first CDR was I think around $400 or $600, GF got it for me as a Bday gift.
 

Kris Cella

Junior Member
Jun 3, 2017
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Willy Beamish by Dynamix / Published by Sierra i think
was one of the first Adventure games on CD rom
i just found the CD rom a few days ago at a thrift store / i am sooo happy to have Found it again
One of my Holy Grail PC cd rom games =)

Badly wish my parents hadnt thrown away all my Big Box Pc games over the 25 years i had been buying PC games since i was a child, my collection would be Huge if i still had them all