Great, Famous, and Controversial Multi-Disc Video Games

Are multiple discs such a bad alternative? Sure, switching over can sometimes present a problem when you want to backtrack to a previous, first disc–only area. Physically changing discs can be a hassle, but the act consumes all of one minute of your life. Before you condemn multi-disc games as awful, take care to remember these ten great, famous, and controversial examples.

[DarkBlade4658]

Switching discs isn't THAT big of a deal, but it sure would be nice if I didn't have to.

[DigitalRaptor]

It's not if there's no other choice, I guess.

Now that Final Fantasy VI and MGS are on PSN, I see no need to switch discs anymore. When I game on multi-disc PC titles I'll can install them all before I play. On PS3, obviously this isn't an issue - mandatory installs could be an issue, but they're often before I get involved in the game and the only game that has interrupted me before was MGS4, but it's SOOOO worth it!

Very rarely can I imagine having to switch discs anymore. But the issues run deeper than just the "annoyance" of getting up and switching discs.

[Godmars290]

There was controversy around FF7 and MGS being on multiple discs?

The only reason people are talking about this is because MS had tech available to them, didn't use while saying they didn't need it, and slowly but surely are being proven wrong. That their choice may be holding back development of the industry.

[PirateThom]

No, I remember the release of both games very well and people were actually impressed they needed multiple discs and they started to set the precident for needing more disc based storage hence the PS2's DVD drive, Final Fantasy jumped to PlayStation BECAUSE of the discs and the ability to have multiple discs, something the N64 couldn't deal with.

If there was controversy, it must have been from Sega or Nintendo fanboys.

[CaptainMarvelQ8]

I agree,That's the point with all the discussion towards Microsoft these days.People who tell me that X game in the PAST had two or 3 discs well the reason is that the technology wasn't provided.But now Microsoft doesn't have an excuse,seeing as how it's main competitor;the PS3 plays all the games on a single disc.

[wita]

The list comprises great games, famous games, and controversial games - the games mentioned are not necessarily all three in quality.

[Godmars290]

Except when you look at the non-360 titles, you're looking at prior gen when CD or DVD was the only option.

Heck, we're literally looking at a list of 10 games, and half of them are on the 360. Were given attention because they were multi-disc.

And FFXIII especially is controversial because some fans blame Square's multiplatform choice for the game while in mid PS3-only production for why it turned out the way it did. Of content being removed.

[Snowii]

switching discs is annoying

and you have to take care of 2 discs

[Evildragon23]

I really don't like multi disc games.

I remember the days of FF7 and i lost disc 2 which eventually i had to buy the whole game a second time.

Lucky I'm more careful these days with some of the 360 games that are multi disc but all that said i prefer multi disc's to having to install games every time i want to play one like on the Ps3.

[will_c_75]

I remember when Tie Fighter came on 7 floppies

[SRTold]

Multi Disc games are No big deal at all, as long as the developers let you install all the extra discs to the hard drive, and run off 1 disc.

Example, say you have a new game, Final Fantasy 18. It comes on 5 discs.. hmm, that sounds pretty harsh, but not so.

Insert disc 2, install to hard drive, insert disc 3, install to hard drive.. etc.
Now insert disc 1, play the game. When it comes time to switch discs, it runs a check that disc 1 is in the drive, and disc 2 is installed on the hard drive. It then says "loading" and then proceeds to play the disc 2 off the hard drive (with disc 1 still in the machine).

Like many PC games, one I can think of is Diablo2, or Baldur's gate. They had like 4 or 5 discs each. 1 of the discs was a play disc, and the others were install discs.

This should be a standard on Consoles with the current size of hard drives big enough to handle many games at once like this.

I think the latest Castlevania had this. Very good idea.

[Vortex3D]

Black Dahlia for DOS came on 8 CD-ROMs.

[aquamala]

You have to switch disks when playing a different game anyway, so what's the big deal? I play multiple games every day and switch disks many times

[Oldman100]

What about Lost Odyssey? There were four discs and one came in a cheap ass paper sleeve.

[Vortex3D]

With multi discs game titles, do gamers actually start the game at disc 1 and play non-stop until the last disc that takes like 30 or more hours?

What's so difficult having to switch a disc every 8+ hours or so? As long there's no frequent disc switching back and forth, it doesn't matter.

Even the entire game is on one Blu-ray disc, I still switch the disc out to play other games in between.

Interesting is PS3 gamers brag about having one Blu-ray disc but don't seem say anything to having to mandatory install for many games that can take 15-30 min. And, yes I also have PS3 but I still prefer X360 no mandatory install that I can start playing immediately. I can always install later when I'm not playing. That's how I usually do it.

One thing Microsoft needs to improve for multi discs games is once all the discs are installed, only disc 1 is required to be in the drive. This has nothing to do with technology limitation, just Microsoft being paranoid requiring you to prove you have every disc for the game.