PSX Multi-Game Disks

[JamesR]

Hello people! I was digging my old PSX bootlegs and I came across some... peculiar game disks:


Megaman Collection(includes Megaman 8, X3 and X4);
Army Men Collection;
Shooter collection(Medal of Honor, MOH Underground and Spec Ops);
Dragon Ball Collection(3 DBZ games).

Apparently, they were made by "Players", some famous bootleggers back in the PSX days. But, anyone got any info on HOW they made these collections? Any info would be appreciated :-)

[camdman]

I think they removed some music and fmv to make the games fit on the disk. But thats all I got.

[Avanaboy]

They just wrote a menu with a psx sdk (like psyq) and then put all of the games contents in a disk.
when the disk boot up, the menu will appear and you can choose a game. Then the menu will boot the correct psx executable of the game that you have selected.

This is not difficult at all if you can code with psyq ...


EDIT: obviously you can also make your own game collections ... with a simple or complex menu (that depends on your coding skills) ;)

[MottZilla]

I never understood those "ripped" versions of games. I certainly wouldn't be interested in playing a game with its music ripped out, I may have put up with a lack of FMVs though depending on the game.

[Elijah]

You don't always need to rip something from the game; often there is just "empty" space or a dummy file doing nothing but padding the disc out. I've made my own multi-game discs, with an animated menu, for example Crash Bandicoots 1-3 and Crash Bash, and ripped nothing from them; Crash 1 had a big dummy file, Crash 2 and 3 were all under 200 MB, and Crash Bash was only like 87 MB. Here are some screenshots (as you scroll through the list, the background changes to the selected game, and the text bulges in and out):

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/62/crash1r.png/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/830/crash2.png/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/571/crash3.png/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/819/crashbash.png/

[JamesR]

You don't always need to rip something from the game; often there is just "empty" space or a dummy file doing nothing but padding the disc out. I've made my own multi-game discs, with an animated menu, for example Crash Bandicoots 1-3 and Crash Bash, and ripped nothing from them; Crash 1 had a big dummy file, Crash 2 and 3 were all under 200 MB, and Crash Bash was only like 87 MB. Here are some screenshots (as you scroll through the list, the background changes to the selected game, and the text bulges in and out):

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/62/crash1r.png/http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/62/crash1r.png/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/830/crash2.png/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/830/crash2.png/http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/571/crash3.png/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/819/crashbash.png/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/571/crash3.png/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/819/crashbash.png/
Looks nice! I have an eerily similar disk, it contains Crash 1-2-3 with nothing ripped(AND it have a cool image of crash printed on the disk face :dance:). I lost it, but i remember that it included a text file with something like "Cool, Eh? My team can make some _high_ quality products! Contact me at (i forgot the email)@hotmail.com"PS:Can you please tell me how you did your menu?

[Azathoth]

T obviously you can also make your own game collections ... with a simple or complex menu (that depends on your coding skills) ;)

I forget the name of the program (I still have it on my HDD somewhere) that I used years ago. Simple ASCII menu that referred to a text file you edited and provided the text to display and the corresponding file to boot when selected. After doing that you just licensed the ISO and you were in business.

As long as the directory structure was the same most games would work. If you cut the redbook audio, FMV's, dummy files, etc, lots of games could fit easily on a 650mb disk.

[Avanaboy]

I forget the name of the program (I still have it on my HDD somewhere) that I used years ago. Simple ASCII menu that referred to a text file you edited and provided the text to display and the corresponding file to boot when selected. After doing that you just licensed the ISO and you were in business.

As long as the directory structure was the same most games would work. If you cut the redbook audio, FMV's, dummy files, etc, lots of games could fit easily on a 650mb disk.

You are talking about "loser menu" , a multi game selector written by Loser..
It is cool , but i really prefear to code my menus from scratch with psyq ;)

[XerdoPwerko]

I used to have that Megaman Collection CD - and I recall X4 or 8 not having the movies or being silent in some places where it needed audio - but I'm not that certain of my memory. I recall it sucking and not being complete, that's for sure.

That Dragon Ball 3 in 1 was quite common down here, too - and for what I know, it was complete. The games weren't very large at all. I sort of recall seeing DB Legends and a 2D fighting game (Ultimate Battle 22?) , and many people have it.

I know I have played legends, and another 2D fighter but the local comic store had those on Saturn.

[JamesR]

I used to have that Megaman Collection CD - and I recall X4 or 8 not having the movies or being silent in some places where it needed audio - but I'm not that certain of my memory. I recall it sucking and not being complete, that's for sure.

That Dragon Ball 3 in 1 was quite common down here, too - and for what I know, it was complete. The games weren't very large at all. I sort of recall seeing DB Legends and a 2D fighting game (Ultimate Battle 22?) , and many people have it.

I know I have played legends, and another 2D fighter but the local comic store had those on Saturn.
I think x3 has no music at all, but 8 an x4 seems to be fine :033: I also had one called "Super 5 in 1: Best 3D actions" and it had horribly ripped versions of Apocalipse, Small Soldiers,Akuji, Syphon Filter and Duke Nukem Time to Kill.This kind of stuff was very common here in Brazil, along with beta versions of games. I had some copy of Gex III and Soul Reaver with full debug mode and other strange stuff.

PS: Somebody could give me some directions about using the PSX SDK to code a cool menu?:-)

[mdmx]

I also had one called "Super 5 in 1: Best 3D actions" and it had horribly ripped versions of Apocalipse, Small Soldiers,Akuji, Syphon Filter and Duke Nukem Time to Kill.

I had that one too:
http://www.assemblergames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27861&

[Protoman77]

Hi all,
after years of visiting here i have finally joined today. Quick intro: 34yrs old gamer from uk, first computer: Vic20, second; zxspectrum +1.
I had started to re-build a megadrive collection, but suddenly found myself with lots of PS1 titles, and this multi-disk:

C-12: Final resistance / Medievil

Now i have just got to find an avatar :)